NVIDIA GeForce MX150 vs NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q

NVIDIA GeForce MX150

The Nvidia GeForce MX150 is a dedicated entry-level mobile graphics card for laptops based on the GP108 chip with the Pascal architecture. It was announced mid 2017 and is the mobile version of the desktop GeForce GT 1030. It offers the same 384 shader cores and 64 Bit memory bus manufactured in 14 nm. The clock rates and performance however are a bit higher than the desktop GT 1030. Officially it is the successor to the older Maxwell based GeForce 940MX.

Currently there are two variants of the MX150, a "normal" N17S-G1-A1 with 1468 - 1531 MHz and 25 Watt TDP and a power efficient variant named N17S-LG-A1 with 936 - 1037 MHz (-32%) and 10 Watt TDP (-60%) for thin and light laptops.

The GP108 chip is manufactured in a 14 nm FinFET process at Samsung (LPP) and offers a number of new features, including support for DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR and improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). 4K HDR with Netflix however wont run due to the minimum 3 GB graphics memory that is required. Compared to the bigger Pascal chips, the small GP108 does not support Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) for VR and G-Sync. A full list of improvements and the new Pascal desktop GPUs is available in our dedicated Pascal architecture article.

The performance however is higher than the old GeForce GTX 950M with GDDR5 memory. Still modern and demanding games only run in low settings and resolutions fluently. E.g. Assassin's Creed Origins was only playable in lowest settings and 1280x720 pixels. Less demanding games like Call of Duty WW2 also ran in medium settings and Full HD fluently. See below for more and detailed gaming benchmarks.

The power efficient N17S-LG-A1 ULV variant is clearly slower than the normal one (due to the 32% lower boost clock).

The power consumption (25 Watt TDP of the chip alone) however lies on a level of the old 940MX (23 Watt). The older 950M and the new GTX 1050 are rated much higher with 40 Watt TDP. The GeForce MX150 also uses a small 23 x 23 mm package due to the small chip size.

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.