Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 gaming laptops will finally have enough VRAM to make the most of their GPU. The company has just announced a new 12GB version of the mobile RTX 5070, although the original 8GB version will also continue to be available.
Memory is the only difference between the two configurations, with Nvidia confirming to us that the other core specs are identical. That means you still get a GB206 chip based on the Blackwell architecture, with 4,608 CUDA cores, 36 ray tracing cores, and 144 Tensor cores. The two GPUs also have the same 128-bit memory interface. Nvidia has simply used 3GB GDDR7 RAM chips, rather than 2GB models, to bump up the RAM capacity by 50%.
Nvidia are expanding options across GeForce RTX laptops with a new GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU configuration, including a 12GB option. With strong demand for GeForce RTX Laptop GPUs and constrained memory supply, this addition helps maximise memory availability and allows partners to bring a broader range of laptops to consumers.
It won’t be cheap for Nvidia to increase VRAM capacity in the current climate, but the mobile RTX 5070’s 8GB of VRAM has stuck out like a sore thumb in the lineup. That’s the same amount of memory found on the RTX 5050 and 5060, and I’ve found it really starts to restrict the settings you can enable.
I’ve recently been benching an 8GB RTX 5070 laptop, and games regularly push past their VRAM budget in several of our game tests, including Forza Motorsport, Rainbow Six Siege, and Assassin’s Creed Shadows, causing performance to drop hard. It’s frustrating, because the RTX 5070 is much more powerful than the 5060 and 5050, but it’s held back by having so little memory available.
Given that the RTX 5060 Ti is based on the same chip as the mobile 5070, with an identical number of CUDA cores enabled, and comes with up to 16GB of VRAM, it’s only fair that the mobile RTX 5070 has at least 12GB. In short, this move makes a lot of sense for Nvidia, and if you’re looking to buy an RTX 5070 laptop, I recommend going for the 12GB version if you can afford it.
