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NVIDIA’s RTX 50-Series Laptop GPUs Bring Blackwell To Mobile
The company promises improved performance and efficiency, with up to 24GB of GDDR7 RAM for the flagship model.
NVIDIA has unveiled its RTX 50-series (Blackwell) GPUs for laptops alongside the desktop lineup, promising impressive performance gains without compromising efficiency. The next-gen hardware features powerful upgrades, including up to 24GB of GDDR7 memory for flagship model. With retail availability set for March and April, CES 2025 attendees are already getting an advanced look at several laptops featuring the GPUs.
The flagship RTX 5090 laptop GPU boasts a staggering 10,496 CUDA cores across 84 Streaming Multiprocessors — nearly matching the desktop RTX 5080 in raw specs. Equipped with 24GB of VRAM using 3GB GDDR7 modules, it operates on a 256-bit memory interface.
The RTX 5080 laptop GPU steps down to 7,680 CUDA cores (60 SMs) and 16GB of memory, matching its predecessor in capacity. It still delivers solid AI performance at 1,334 TOPS, with a flexible TGP range of 80W to 150W.
Meanwhile, the RTX 5070 series is split into two models: the RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU with 5,888 CUDA cores and 12GB of memory, and the base RTX 5070 laptop GPU, which drops to 4,608 cores and 8GB of VRAM.
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Efficiency is a focal point for these GPUs. NVIDIA claims that the RTX 5070 laptop GPU, running at 50-100W, can match the performance of the desktop RTX 4090 while using half the power. Blackwell GPUs also bring updates to NVIDIA’s Max-Q technology, designed to optimize power efficiency for laptops. Key advancements include Advanced Power Gating, which shuts down inactive GPU sections, and Low Latency Sleep, allowing the GPU to quickly enter and exit sleep states to save power during light use.
During its CES presentation, NVIDIA revealed the pricing structure for mobile Blackwell GPUs: Partner costs for the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 are $2,899, $2,199, $1,599, and $1,299, respectively. This pricing reflects what manufacturers pay, so the final cost for laptops featuring these GPUs will be higher.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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