NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q vs Qualcomm Adreno 642L vs Qualcomm Adreno 619L

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 with the Max-Q design is a mobile high-end GPU from the Pascal series. It is designed for thin and light laptops and about 10-15% slower than a regular GTX 1060 for laptops based on the cooling capabilities. The base frequency (1063-1265 MHz) is also much lower than on the regular GTX 1060 (1506 MHz, at least -16%) and the Boost (1341-1480 MHz) is also much lower compared to 1708 MHz (at least -13%) for the regular GTX 1060. The memory clock, however, is identical.

The clock is not the only difference compared to the regular GTX 1060 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 GP106 chip is produced in 16nm FinFET at TSMC and offers a range of new features, like DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) and improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). A list of improvements and features can be found in our article on the Pascal architecture.

The power consumption of the Max-Q design is notably lower than the normal GTX 1060 for laptops and ranges between 60 and 70 Watt (TGP) according to Nvidia.

Qualcomm Adreno 642L

The Qualcomm Adreno 642L is a smartphone and tablet GPU that is integrated within the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G SoC. The chip will be available from mid 2021 and will be used mainly in upper mid-range Android devices.

According to Qualcomm, the Adreno 642L GPU offers a 40% improved performance over the Adreno 620 (compared to the specified +50% of the 642 in the SD 780G), its predecessor, which is integrated in the Snapdragon 768G SoC. This is also thanks to the fast LPDDR4X-4200 memory support of the SoC.

The Adreno 642L supports OpenCL 2.0 FP, OpenGL ES 3.2 and Vulkan 1.1.

The Snapdragon 778G and therefore also the 642L is manufactured in the modern 6nm UEV process at TSMC that should provide a good power efficiency.

Qualcomm Adreno 619L

The Qualcomm Adreno 619L is a mobile graphics card for mid-range smartphones and tablets (mostly Android based). It is included in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 SoCs and based on the Adreno 600 architecture (like the Adreno 630, which should be fully compatible in software).

The performance is 60% better compared to the Adreno 612 graphics card and in our benchmarks on par with the 700 series cards.

The GPU supports modern standards like Vulkan 1.0 (according to Wikipedia), OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0 and DirectX 11 (FL 11_1).