The 130 W GeForce RTX 3070 MSI GP66 can be 15 to 30 percent faster than the 95 W version

Nvidia made the controversial decision earlier this year to drop the "Max-Q" name from all of its mobile GPUs moving forward. The onus would instead be on laptop makers to advertise the TGP levels of their gaming laptops on their respective specification sheets. The MSI GS66 Stealth and GP66 Leopard, for example, each come with GeForce RTX 3070 GPUs at 95 W for the former and 130 W for the latter. The question then becomes how much of a performance boost users can expect from the 130 W version over the 95 W one.

To answer this question, we compare the GS66 10UG to the GP66 10UG each with nearly the same specifications save for their TGP levels. According to 3DMark, the 130 W RTX 3070 in the GP66 is roughly 15 to 19 percent faster than the 95 W RTX 3070 in the GS66. This doesn't take into account the differences in cooling or thickness between the two models, of course, but the data is useful nonetheless as higher TGP targets will almost always be associated with thicker laptops anyway.

The GPU performance differences extend to real-world gaming scenarios where the GS66 would run consistently slower than the GP66. Average frame rates can be up to 30 percent higher in some titles like Final Fantasy XV or Strange Brigade while other titles like GTA V may see smaller differences of just 5 to 15 percent.

When running Witcher 3 on each system, the RTX 3070 in the GP66 would run at both faster clock rates (1680 MHz vs. 1455 MHz) and memory clock rates (1750 MHz vs. 1500 MHz) than the GS66 as shown by the screenshots below. Perhaps not coincidentally, the GP66 would also consume about 15 percent more power than the GS66 when gaming (191 W vs. 165 W).

See our full reviews on the MSI GS66 10UG and GP66 10UG for more details on each model.