NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M vs NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M

NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 (sometime GTX 1030 called) is an entry level dedicated graphics card for desktops. It is based on the GP108 chip using the Pascal architecture in 14nm FinFET. It features three streaming multiprocessors (SMs) and therefore 384 shader cores, 24 texture units and 16 ROPs. The 2 GB GDDR5 memory are connected with two 32 Bit memory controller (48 GBit/s). The shaders are identical to other Pascal cards like the GTX 1050 and therefore also the support for DirectX 12 FL 12_1.

The performance is slightly below the Radeon RX 550 from AMD and therefore only suited for low to medium detail settings of modern games like Battlefield 1.

The TDP of the GT1030 is specified as 30 Watt.

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.