NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q vs AMD Radeon RX 560X (Laptop) vs AMD Radeon RX 570 (Desktop)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 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 1080 for laptops based on the cooling capabilities. The base frequency (1101-1290 MHz) is also much lower than on the regular GTX 1080 (1566 MHz, at least -18%) and the Boost (1278-1458 MHz) is also much lower compared to 1733 MHz (at least -16%) for the regular GTX 1080. The memory clock, however, is identical.

The clock is not the only difference compared to the regular GTX 1080 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).

The performance is nearer to the normal (Max-P) GeForce GTX 1070 than to then GTX 1080 (at least in the Asus Zephyrus). Therefore, most demanding games should be playable in full HD and maximum detail settings (see game benchmarks below).

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 1080 for laptops and ranges between 90 and 110 Watt (TGP) according to Nvidia.

AMD Radeon RX 560X (Laptop)

The AMD Radeon RX 560X for laptops (RX 560X Mobile) is a mid-range Polaris 11 / 21 gaming graphics card for laptops. Compared to the slightly older Radeon RX 560 for laptops (see for benchmarks), the RX 560X features only slightly altered clock speeds but should perform quite similar. Offers 1024 shader cores and a usual clock speed of 1175 - 1275 MHz. More information on the Polaris architecture and its features can be found here.

Currently AMD sells the mobile Radeon RX 560X with 4 GB GDDR5 (128 Bit) and a TDP of 60 - 80 Watt for around 50 - 60 Dollars to laptop manufacturers.

AMD Radeon RX 570 (Desktop)

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is a mainstream graphics card for desktop PCs. It was announced in April 2017 and is based on the Polaris 20 chip. It is a refresh of the RX 470 and uses the same chip as the RX 580 (and 580X) with less shaders. The clock speeds are specified as 1,168 - 1,244 (Boost). The VRAM is connected by a 256 Bit bus and clocks at 1,750 MHz (effective 7,000 MHz) which leads to a 224 GB/s memory bandwidth.

At launch, the performance of the Radeon RX 570 was slightly below a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060. Therefore, the GPU is best used for 1920x1080 and high detail settings for demanding games of 2019.

The TDP of the Radeon RX 570 is specified with 120 Watts by AMD, so a single 6-pin power connector is sufficient.