Intel Arc A770M vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 SLI (Laptop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q

Intel Arc A770M

The Intel Arc A770M (Device ID 5690) is a dedicated mid-range graphics card from Intel for notebooks. It is based on the ACM-G10 chip and offers all 32 Xe cores (512 ALUs), 32 ray tracing units, 6 MB L1 cache and 16 MB L2 cache. The clock rates can range from 300 MHz to 1650 MHz (gaming) to 2050 MHz (turbo). The memory interface is 256 bits wide and supports 16 GB GDDR6 graphics memory with 16 Gbps. The TGP is between 120 and 150 watts depending on the model.

The performance of the A770M is on average of all games we tested approx. 4% ahead of a mobile RTX 3060 laptop GPU. However, there are significant deviations depending on the game. In Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, for example, the A770M can reach the level of an RTX 3070 laptop GPU and demonstrate its theoretical performance.

The ACM-G10 chip is manufactured at TSMC in 6 nm (N6 process), uses a BGA2660 interface (resolved), offers 21.7 billion transistors and is 406 mm² in size. It integrates two media engines for VP9, AVC, HEVC, AV1 8k60 12-bit HDR decoding and 8k 10-bit HDR encoding. The integrated 4 display pipes support 4x 4k120 HDR, HDMI 2.0B, DP 2.0 10G and Adaptive Sync.

Dynamic Power Share can be used with a 12th generation CPU (Alder Lake) via Deep Link.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 SLI (Laptop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 SLI for laptops is a combination of two GTX 1070 graphics cards in SLI mode. Each card renders one frame at a time (AFR mode) but depends for most games on a good profile in the driver. Therefore, the performance can range from no gains over a single GTX 1070 to up to 90% faster performance. In most games with SLI support, the GTX 1070 SLI is therefore faster than a single GTX 1080. However, sometimes the combination also suffers from micro-stuttering.

The technical details of the card are identical to a single GTX 1070 (see for more information) and the power consumption is doubled. Therefore, the 1070 SLI combination is only found in huge clunky laptops.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 with Max-Q design is a mainstream GPU based on the Pascal architecture and was announced in January 2018. Contrary to the faster models, the GTX 1050 uses the GP107 chip, which is manufactured in a 14 nm process at Samsung.

The clock is not the only difference compared to the regular GTX 1050 though. The drivers for the Max-Q version were optimized for efficiency (and not performance; only for Max-Q models), there are optimized voltage converters for 1V operation, high-end cooling methods, and a 40 dB limit for the fan noise (with clock adjustments to ensure this at all times).

Features

The GP107 chip is manufactured in a 14 nm FinFET process at Samsung and offers a number of new features, including support for DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) as well as improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). A full list of improvements and the new Pascal desktop GPUs is available in our dedicated Pascal architecture article.

Performance

The performance of the GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q should be around 10-15 % below a regular GTX 1050 for laptops. This means the GPU is most suited for full HD gaming at high settings (not maximum).

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q is rated at 34 to 40 Watt and therefore significantly lower than the normal laptop GTX 1050 (53 Watt). Therefore, the Max-Q variant is also suited for thin and light laptops.