NVIDIA GeForce MX150 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile

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 GTX 1050 Ti (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (N17P-G1) for desktops is an entry level gaming graphics card that was announced late 2016. It is based on the GP107 chip using the Pascal architecture and manufactured in 14nm FinFET at Samsung (the bigger Pascal chips are manufactured in 16nm at TSMC). Usually it is equipped with 4 GB GDDR5 memory with a 7 Gbps data rate. The mobile GTX 1050 Ti version should be announced later (beginning of 2017) and feature similar specs.

The performance of the GTX 1050 lies between the Radeon RX 460 and the RX 470 on a similar level of the old GeForce GTX 960 (or 970M). Therefore, the card is most suited for 1080p gaming at high detail settings (but not maximum settings).

See our extensive review of the MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti for more information on power consumption, benchmarks and noise level.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile

The mobile Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is a graphics card for high end laptops. It is based on the Pascal architecture and manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC. The GPU is using the smaller GP106 chip. Compared to the desktop version of the GTX 1060, the laptop version offers the same amount of shaders but slightly lower clock rates. The TDP is slightly less than the old GTX 970M (predecessor).

For thin and light laptops Nvidia offer a Max-Q called version of the GTX 1060 with lower TDP and also significantly lower performance. Sadly this variant im sold with the same GTX 1060 name, making it hard to judge the performance.

The performance of the mobile GTX 1060 is a few percent below a reference GTX 1060 desktop card. In our benchmark so far (no max-Q version) the mobile GTX 1060 was somewhere between -1 and -16% slower than a desktop variant. A comprehensive review of the dekstop GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition with 6 GB GDDR5 can be found here. Therefore, the card is most suited for Full HD or WQHD gaming in high to maximum details (see benchmarks below).

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 is specified with a TGP of 80 Watt and therefore slightly below the old GTX 970M. Since summer 2017 a low power variant (Max-Q) is available for thin and light laptops with reduced performance and a lower TGP of 60 - 70 Watt.