AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q

AMD Radeon RX Vega 11

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 is an integrated GPU in the Ryzen desktop APUs (e.g. Ryzen 5 2400G) that were launched early 2018. The graphics card is based on the Vega architecture (5th generation GCN) and has all 11 CUs (=704 shaders) clocked at up to 1240 MHz (Ryzen 5 2400G). The GPU benefits from fast dual-channel DDR4-2400 RAM (contrary to DDR4-2133 single-channel, which is also possible).

The Vega architecture offers some improvements over the Polaris generation and now supports DirectX 12 Feature Level 12_1. More information is available in our dedicated article about the Raven Ridge architecture.

According to a first 3DMark Fire Strike that was published by AMD, the Vega 11 offers a similiar theoretical performance as the older dedicated Radeon R9 M280X. In games the missing dedicated graphics memory may however prove to be a bottleneck. Therefore, modern and demanding games will only be playable in lowest settings and the APU is mostly intended for lower demanding games like Overwatch, Dota 2, ...

Thanks to the 14nm process and clever power-saving features, the power consumption is comparatively low. The high TDP of 65 Watt of the APU however should lead to a much higher power consumption compared to the mobile APUs with 15 Watt TDP.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 is the second fastest Pascal based graphics card in mid May 2016. It comes in two variants, the desktop version (see here for the detail page) with 1920 shaders and the mobile variant with 2048 shaders and lower clock rates. Both cards are based on a cut down GP104 chip (like the GTX 1080) and are manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC.

Compared to the GTX1080, the GTX1070 features less CUDA cores (2048 versus 2560) that are clocked a bit lower (maximum Boost 1645 versus 1733). Instead of the new GDDR5X, the GTX 1070 uses slower GDDR5 graphics memory - but still 8 GB. The TDP is also reduced and rumored to be 10 Watts higher than the predecessor, the GTX 980M.

For thin and light laptops Nvidia offer a Max-Q called version of the GTX 1070 with lower TDP and also significantly lower performance. Sadly this variant im sold with the same GTX 1070 name, making it hard to judge the performance.

The performance depends on the cooling solution of the laptop. With a good fan system, the performance of the laptop version is on par with the desktop GTX 1070 (Founders Edition). Nvidia claims that partner solutions can be up to 10 percent slower however. In our benchmarks with various laptops the performance ranged from -5 to -14% slower performance compared to partner models of the GTX 1080 desktop models with slightly higher clocks.

On average the GTX 1070 is around 20 percent faster than the old mobile GeForce GTX 980 and therefore the second fastest mobile graphics card (non SLI). Therefore it is capable of WQHD and 4K gaming in high settings (see game benchmarks below).

The GP104 chip is manufactured in 16nm FinFET process at TSMC and offers a range of new features. DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP), improved H.265 video en- and decoders (for PlayReady 3.0) are only some of the improvements. See our detailed Pascal architecture article for more details.

The power consumption of the GTX 1070 is specified with 115 Watt TGP according to Nvidia and therefore slightly above the old GeForce GTX 980M. This leads to rather big and clunky gaming laptops that use the GTX 1070. The later released Max-Q version of the GTX 1070 uses only 80 - 90 Watt TGP and is therefore better suited for thin and light laptops.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 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 1070 for laptops based on the cooling capabilities. The base frequency (1101-1215 MHz) is also much lower than on the regular GTX 1070 (1433 MHz, at least -10%) and the Boost (1265-1379 MHz) is also much lower compared to 1645 MHz (at least -6%) for the regular GTX 1070. The memory clock, however, is identical.

The clock is not the only difference compared to the regular GTX 1070 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 GP104 chip is manufactured in 16nm FinFET process at TSMC and offers a range of new features. DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP), improved H.265 video en- and decoders (for PlayReady 3.0) are only some of the improvements. See our detailed Pascal architecture article for more details.

The power consumption of the Max-Q design is notably lower than the normal GTX 1070 for laptops and ranges between 80 and 90 Watt (TGP) according to Nvidia.