NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q vs NVIDIA Quadro P4200

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 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 1070 for laptops based on the cooling capabilities. The base frequency (1101-1215 MHz) is also much lower than on the regular GTX 1070 (1433 MHz, at least -10%) and the Boost (1265-1379 MHz) is also much lower compared to 1645 MHz (at least -6%) for the regular GTX 1070. The memory clock, however, is identical.

The clock is not the only difference compared to the regular GTX 1070 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 GP104 chip is manufactured in 16nm FinFET process at TSMC and offers a range of new features. DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP), improved H.265 video en- and decoders (for PlayReady 3.0) are only some of the improvements. See our detailed Pascal architecture article for more details.

The power consumption of the Max-Q design is notably lower than the normal GTX 1070 for laptops and ranges between 80 and 90 Watt (TGP) according to Nvidia.

NVIDIA Quadro P4200

The Nvidia Quadro P4200 is a mobile high-end workstation graphics card for notebooks. It is based on the GP104 chip (like the consumer GeForce GTX 1070 or 1080 for laptops) and features 2304 shader cores. The clock rate is not disclosed but the theoretical SP performance is rated at 8.9 TFLOPs (for the fast Max-P version) and therefore faster than the old Quadro P5000 but below the Quadro P5200 (see table below). The P4200 is equipped with 8 GB GDDR5 which leads to 224 GB7s peak bandwidth due to the 256 Bit memory bus. There are two variants available, a Max-P performance version and a Max-Q version tuned for efficiency (with lower clock speeds).

The Quadro GPUs offer certified drivers, which are optimized for stability and performance in professional applications (CAD, DCC, medical, prospection, and visualizing applications). The performance in these areas is therefore much better compared to corresponding consumer GPUs.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the Quadro P4200 is rated at 115 Watt TGP (max power consumption incl. memory) and therefore 15 Watt more than the Quadro P5000. The card is therefore best suited for large 17-inch notebooks.