The graphics card is the powerhouse of your gaming setup. Sure, you can sweat over the details of solid-state hard drives, the speeds of CPUs, and an advanced cooling setup. But today, the performance of mobile graphic cards rivals what you could only find on a desktop—even if you’re never heard of Moore’s Law, you can appreciate the concept of how computing power grows every year while shrinking in size.
Think about all that a graphic card has to do: translating millions of lines of code, thousands by thousands of pixels, a dizzying array of player interactions to calculate, into dazzling visuals. Now, companies like MSI are able to pack all that computing strength into a mobile gaming experience that can fit into your backpack — here’s how.
The next big thing in graphics cards
Before gaming truly took off, early computers simply ran off the CPU, converting information to onscreen images. When images (and the advent of video) became more complex, graphics accelerators were added to handle the work. Then our games took on a third dimension, and dedicated graphics cards became as vital as a keyboard and mouse. Fast-forward into the future. Today, on max settings, we expect the most powerful graphics cards to deliver fully immersive 4K resolution, across widescreen gaming monitors, all rendered at an ultra-fast 70 to 80 frames per second — the average frame rates for the most demanding Triple-A titles.
Real-time ray tracing, as found in the most advanced cards like NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX series of graphic cards, is said to be the next big thing: the holy grail of graphics. A rendering technique that uses algorithms to simulate the behavior of light, it brings out crisp realism and cinematic lighting effects worthy of the big screen. As light shines in a video game scene, the algorithm follows a ray of light to calculate the colors of all the pixels it touches, while keeping in mind the effects of shadows, reflections, and transparency.
And now artificial intelligence has made its way into our hardware. Used to accelerate frame rates, it smoothes out the constant stream of visuals, eliminating the unnerving stuttering that might take you out of your immersive experience. The result? Graphics that now mimic the way light interacts with virtual worlds, with a result that’s more real than real.
NVIDIA and MSI are the ultimate gaming combo
Home gaming enthusiasts who spend hours tinkering with and upgrading their desktop PCs have found out the hard way: NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX series has proven to be so popular that it’s become a game in itself to get your hands on one.
There’s a much easier way to snag NVIDIA’s GeForce latest graphics, in a beautifully portable form. MSI’s newest laptop lineup features the NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX™ 30 Series — one of the first series to do so. You could say that the flagship GE76 Raider is built around the graphics. Everything, including its Intel Core i7 processor, its screen with ultra-fast 360Hz refresh rates, and its newly designed cooling system, works toward one goal: to blow your mind with visuals.
Case in point: due to thermal constraints, most gaming laptops with high-end graphics might struggle with reaching their full potential. But not MSI: the GE76 Raider’s Cooler Boost 5 technology and advanced thermal design maximize laptop performance with two large fans and multiple heat pipes that evacuate hot air through three sides of the laptop’s refined chassis — right behind its dazzling light bar that dominates the Raider’s front end.
And to give gamers the flexibility they demand, MSI’s exclusive Dragon Center gives you the control to tweak your MSI laptop to your heart’s content. Modify fan and clock speeds, manage battery health, view your CPU and GPU performance in real time, and even adjust settings while you’re in the middle of the game; there are also preset gaming modes if all of that makes your head spin. Previously, this sort of thing required lots of individual software, usually dodgy — but all of this customizability is straight from the manufacturer to your fingertips.
In the long history of computers, gaming has never been more accessible, more immersive, and more breathtaking than it is now. NVIDIA and MSI are making gaming dreams happen: by combining a powerful GPU around equally powerful hardware, it’s sci-fi stuff from even 10 years ago.