NVIDIA GeForce MX130 vs NVIDIA GeForce 940M vs NVIDIA GeForce 920MX

NVIDIA GeForce MX130

The Nvidia GeForce MX130 is a mid-range laptop graphics card with DirectX 12 support (FL 11_0) based on the older Maxwell architecture. It is a renamed GeForce 940MX and was announced in late 2017. It can be equipped with fast GDDR5 or slower DDR3 graphics memory.

The performance should be identical to the corresponding 940MX version (see our extensive benchmarks) and therefore positioned below the GeForce MX150. Demanding games like Ark Survival Evolved or PUBG may not run fluently even in the lowest detail settings. Less demanding games like Fifa 18 (with a powerful CPU) or Overwatch are also playable in medium settings.

The TDP of the card should be rated at about 15 to 30 Watt (depending on the version, clock speeds and memory). Therefore, the GPU is best suited for laptops from 13-inch and up.

NVIDIA GeForce 940M

The NVIDIA GeForce 940M is a mid-range DirectX 11-compatible graphics card for laptops unveiled in March 2015. It is based on Nvidia's Maxwell architecture (GM108 chip) and manufactured in 28 nm. The 940M offers 384 shader units as well as 2 GB of DDR3 memory (64 bit, 2000 MHz effective).

Compared to the previous and technically very similar GeForce 840M, the GeForce 940M is clocked just slightly higher.

Architecture

Compared to Kepler, Maxwell has been optimized in several details to increase power efficiency. Smaller Streaming Multiprocessors (SMM) with only 128 ALUs (Kepler: 192) and an optimized scheduler should lead to better utilization of the shaders. Nvidia promises that a Maxwell SMM with 128 ALUs can offer 90 percent of the performance of a Kepler SMX with 192 ALUs. GM108 features 3 SMMs and thus 384 shader cores, 24 TMUs and 8 ROPs (64-bit interface).

Another optimization is the massively enlarged L2 cache. The larger size can process some of the memory traffic to allow for a relatively narrow memory interface without significantly reducing performance.

Similar to Fermi and Kepler, the GM107/GM108 support DirectX 12 with feature level 11_0 only.

Performance

Due to its just 5 percent higher core clock, the GeForce 940M is only marginally faster than the previous GeForce 840M and similar to the older GeForce GT 750M (DDR3 version). Many games of 2014/2015 can be played fluently in WXGA resolution (1366 x 768) and medium detail settings. However, very demanding games such as Assassin's Creed Unity will require lower resolutions and/or details.

Features

GM108 integrates the sixth generation of the PureVideo HD video engine (VP6), offering a better decoding performance for H.264 and MPEG-2 videos. Of course, VP6 supports all features of previous generations (4K support, PIP, video encoding via NVENC API). Unfortunately, HDMI 2.0 is still not supported.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce 940M should be about 30 Watts or lower. Therefore, the GPU is best suited for laptops 13 - 14 inches in size and above. The 900M series also supports Optimus to automatically switch between an integrated graphics card and the Nvidia GPU.

NVIDIA GeForce 920MX

The Nvidia GeForce 920MX is an entry-level graphics card for laptops that was launched in the first quarter of 2016. In comparison to the older 920M, the 920MX is now be based on the modern Maxwell chip of the 930MX but with a reduced shader count of 265 (GM108). According to our sources the TDP of 5-12 Watt and the support for DDR3 and GDDR5 is also specified.

The performance depends on the used graphics memory. The DDR3 version was slightly slower than an average GeForce 930M in our tests (and definitely faster than the GeForce 920M). The GDDR5 version could therefore best the 930M slightly. However, both versions are not suited for demanding games of 2017. Less demanding games, like The Sims 4, should be playable in medium to high settings (see below for benchmarks).

Thanks to the low power consumption, the GeForce 920MX is also suited for thin and light laptops.