NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 with Max-Q design is the power saving variant of the mobile RTX 2070 graphics card with reduced clock speeds and power consumption. Therefore, it is suitable for thin gaming laptops. It is based on the same TU106 chip with 2,304 shaders and 8 GB GDDR6 memory connected by a 256 bit interface (12 GHz).

Currently it looks like there will be two variants, a low power 80 Watt variant with 885 - 1185 MHz core clock and a faster 90 Watt variant with 1080 - 1305 MHz core clock). Both clock the memory at 6 GHz versus 7 GHz of the normal RTX 2070 (115 Watt TDP).

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).

Features

NVIDIA manufacturers the TU106 chip on a 12 nm FinFET process and includes features like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and Real-Time Ray Tracing (RTRT), which should combine to create more realistic lighting effects than older GPUs based on the company's Pascal architecture (if the games supports it). The RTX 20870 is also DisplayPort 1.4 ready, while there is also support for HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) and H.265 video en/decoding (PlayReady 3.0).

Performance

The Max-Q version of the RTX 2070 should perform a bit slower than the mobile RTX 2070. Therefore, it should be able to run all demanding games in 2560x1440 with maximum details. Raytracing features however may reduce framerates a lot.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 for laptops is a fast mid-range gaming graphics card for laptops. It is based on the desktop RTX 2060 chip but at reduced GPU clock rates (-30%) and reduces power consumption (80 - 90 Watt TGP versus 160 Watt for the desktop version).

In 2020 Nvidia also released a refreshed version with the same name. It is based on the TU106B chip and offers new voltage regulators and controllers. Furthermore, the maximum TGP was increased to 115 Watt and therefore the GPU can clock higher (1005 - 1560 MHz). The memory speed however was decreased to 11 Gbps leading to a slightly better overall performance compared to the old version.

NVIDIA manufacturers the Turing TU106 chip on a 12 nm FinFET process and includes features like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and Real-Time Ray Tracing (RTRT), which should combine to create more realistic lighting effects than older GPUs based on the company's Pascal architecture (if the games supports it). The RTX 2060 is also DisplayPort 1.4 ready, while there is also support for HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) and H.265 video en/decoding (PlayReady 3.0).

The gaming performance of the mobile RTX 2060 is similar to an old Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (Desktop) and clearly behind the desktop RTX 2060. The mobile GTX 1660 Ti is only a few percent behind in our gaming benhcmarks, but offers no raytracing features built in the GPU. For demanding games of 2019, the RTX 2060 is most suited for full HD (1080p) and high / ultra settings. However, there is not much headroom to activate the taxing raytracing features in most games.

The power consumption is rated at 80 - 90 Watt TGP by Nvidia and therefore similar to the Max-Q variants of the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080. In our real world laptop-tests the power draw of the whole systems running The Witcher 3 shows that the RTX 2060 slots in slightly below the Max-Q Variants and slightly above the GTX 1660 Ti mobile (as expected).