Friendly reminder that Max-Q is still alive and very real despite Nvidia dropping the brand

Introduced during the GeForce GTX 1000 days, the Nvidia Max-Q suffix was dropped three years later with the launch of the GeForce RTX 3000 series. The naming was intended to help identify lower-power versions of certain GPUs when compared to their higher-performance non-Max-Q (or Max-P) counterparts. However, just because the name no longer exists on product pages or specifications doesn't mean that the underlying technology is gone.

We recently tested the HP ZBook Studio 15 G8 equipped with the GeForce RTX 3070 and discovered that its GPU would be about 12 to 15 percent slower than the average RTX 3070 laptop in our database. In fact, performance would be almost 30 percent slower than certain models equipped with the same GPU like the Alienware m15 R4 or MSI GP76. HP doesn't advertise "Max-Q" on its specifications, but the RTX 3070 in the ZBook Studio 15 G8 is very much a traditional Max-Q part. Nvidia's own graphics properties explicitly states "Max-Q Technology" on the HP system even if the name isn't present anywhere else.

The 85 W TGP GPU in the HP is by no means slow, but it's well behind the 140 W GPU in the aforementioned Alienware to the point where some older RTX 2070 laptops can actually outperform our HP ZBook. If you're in the market for a new GeForce-powered laptop, then it will be worth researching their respective TGP levels prior to purchasing.