Should you get an NVIDIA Max-Q notebook?

So what’s the catch?

Thin, light, and powerful. That’s what gamers have always wanted from gaming laptops, but it wasn’t until recently that it became something more than a pipe dream.

This past year, we’ve been treated to a growing number of slim and light notebooks that feature a lot power in a compact package. There was the Acer Triton 700, Aftershock PRIME-15, and the MSI GS63VR 6RF Stealth Pro, and more recently, the excellent Gigabyte Aero 15.

Back in June, NVIDIA introduced something called Max-Q, a fancy term – culled from the field of aerospace engineering – that refers to the tweaks and optimizations for maximum operation efficiency that it would make with hardware manufacturers to create even slimmer and more powerful laptops.

One of the prime examples was the ASUS ROG Zephyrus GX501, a beast of a notebook with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 and a chassis that measured just 17.9mm thick. Mind you, that's the most powerful GPU you can cram in a notebook and yet the notebook is so thin, that it boggles the mind. How is that even possible?

For a recap on how Max-Q works, you can refer to our article here. But to be clear, Max-Q GPUs aren’t new products at all, but are rather existing GPUs with adjustments at the software and hardware level to better balance power and performance, for maximum efficiency.

Of course, there were bound to be certain trade-offs in terms of performance. NVIDIA was open about how Max-Q designs were about peak efficiency and not peak performance, so an NVIDIA GPU with Max-Q isn’t quite as fast as the non-Max-Q implementation of the same class.

Nevertheless, Max-Q designs have enabled manufacturers to put a GeForce GTX 1070 into slim chassis that would previously only accommodate a GeForce GTX 1060. And likewise, a GeForce GTX 1080 where a design wouldn't cater to more than a GeForce GTX 1070.

But is it really worth going for the pricier Max-Q model?

To try and answer that question, we’ve benchmarked two PRIME-15 laptops from Aftershock - one with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, and the other with a GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q.

Where numbers are available, we’ve also brought in scores from an Alienware 15 equipped with a GeForce GTX 1070 without Max-Q in order to give you an idea of the performance penalty that comes with Max-Q designs.

Test Setup and Results

We put both laptops through a mix of synthetic benchmarks and actual games to get an idea of their performance.

Here’s a list of the benchmarks used:

• PCMark 8
• PCMark 10
• 3DMark (2013)
• VRMark
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Tom Clancy’s The Division

Next, here’s a rundown of the specifications of the Aftershock notebooks used. The main difference between both notebooks is the GPU, so the performance differences can be generalized to apply to other notebooks with similar configurations.

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PCMark 10 Extended

PCMark 10 Extended assesses the performance of systems in a variety of workloads, including basic computing tasks, productivity applications, digital content creation, and gaming. Compared to PCMark 8, it also adds in new test metrics, such as app startup times, which quantifies how long it takes to launch a variety of real-world apps, and a rendering and visualization workload to simulate professional graphics and engineering applications. In addition, existing workloads have been updated to reflect modern usage.

The Max-Q version of the PRIME-15, which comes equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, was overall nearly 8 per cent quicker than the non-Max-Q model. The two traded blows in various workloads, but the bulk of the Max-Q laptop’s lead was unsurprisingly due to it’s stronger gaming performance, where it was over 21 per cent faster.

That said, we should point out that the Max-Q laptop comes equipped with a faster Samsung 960 EVO 250GB PCIe SSD, compared to the Samsung 850 EVO SATA drive on the GeForce GTX 1060 model. The faster drive does help with performance in PCMark 10, so that contributed to driving the scores up slightly.

3DMark (2013)

3DMark is a more relevant assessment of gaming performance, and it puts the system through a range of graphics and computational performance tests at different resolutions, starting at 1080p and going all the way up to 4K.

Overall, the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q was 23 to 25 per cent quicker than the GeForce GTX 1060, a fairly decent lead. In comparison, the Alienware 15, a GeForce GTX 1070 notebook equipped with a sixth-generation Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor posted a score of 7238 and 3930 in Fire Strike Extreme and Ultra respectively, which translates into a 13 and 19 per cent advantage (the Fire Strike score was far closer).

In this case at least, the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q sits neatly between a GeForce GTX 1060 and a regular GeForce GTX 1070, and the performance trade-off is one you’ll have to accept for a slimmer design.

VRMark

Futuremark’s VRMark benchmark is designed to assess a PC’s ability to handle high-performance headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. If a PC passes the Orange Room test, it is ready for the latter two systems.

The Max-Q laptop was just 9 per cent quicker, which is just a difference of around 10FPS. For further context, the GeForce GTX 1070-equipped Alienware 15 managed a score of 7284, 22 per cent better than the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q.

The performance penalty is unmistakeable here, but it’s also important to remember that the Alienware 15 is 25.4mm thick, while the PRIME-15 measures just 18.6mm thin and weighs 1.9kg as opposed to the Alienware’s 3.49kg. So while there is a big difference in performance, there's also an equally large difference in form and weight and it really depends which aspect you prioritize more.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

In Shadow of Mordor, the PRIME-15 Max-Q was between 16 and 18 per cent faster than its GeForce GTX 1060 counterpart. The GeForce GTX 1070 on the Alienware 15 was in turn around 10 per cent quicker than the Max-Q version, so the Max-Q model still lags perceptibly behind the non-Max-Q GPU with none of the efficiency optimizations.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Mankind Divided is one of the most demanding titles to run today, and opting for the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q model over the GeForce GTX 1060 nets you a 26 per cent performance gain at 1080p and Ultra settings (DirectX 11).

Performance dipped perceptibly when switching to DirectX 12, so you’ll probably not want to run either notebook in that mode either way.  

Tom Clancy’s The Division

In The Division, the PRIME-15 Max-Q was 22 per cent faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 model at 1080p and Ultra settings (DirectX 11). In turn, the GeForce GTX 1070 on the Alienware machine without Max-Q turned out 74.67FPS at the same settings, which is around 16 per cent quicker than its Max-Q sibling that managed 63.5FPS.

The performance gap is there alright, but it’s also important to note that the Max-Q model puts out a very playable frame rate in its own right.

Temperature

We measured the external temperatures of the four quadrants of the notebook after looping the 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme stress test for 15 minutes. This amount of time is more than enough to get an idea of your average maximum running temperature for this workload.

Ultimately, there were few perceptible differences in temperature between the two notebooks, although the CPU on the Max-Q model did run slightly hotter.

Battery life and power consumption

We used the battery life benchmark in PCMark 8 Home to test the battery, and it’s here that the GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card in the Max-Q notebook really reared its head. It may feature a lower TDP – 80W versus 115W – and efficiency tweaks, but it still consumes a lot more power than the GeForce GTX 1060 and seriously taxes the relatively small 55Wh battery unit.

The GeForce GTX 1060 laptop lasted over four hours, while the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q unit came in at under half that.

Portability index

Our portability index is an objective measure of how portable a notebook is, taking into account factors like size, weight, and battery life.

The shorter battery life of the Max-Q notebook means that it is a lot less portable than the GeForce GTX 1060 model, despite its light weight and svelte dimensions. This is less of a problem if you’re just taking the notebook out as a portable work and gaming machine and know that you’ll seldom be away from a power outlet, but it poses serious challenges if you’re going to be working for prolonged periods without access to charging.

A question of trade-offs

At the end of the day, it all comes down to where your priorities lie. If you’re looking for something more akin to a desktop replacement, a non-Max-Q notebook with a GeForce GTX 1070 may be more attractive.

After all, it’s quite a bit faster, and if you don’t intend to take it on the road with you, the lack of mobility won’t be much of an issue.

However, if your gaming laptop is something you put in your backpack on a daily basis, it’s almost a no-brainer to go with a Max-Q design. Like the Aftershock PRIME-15, these notebooks are slim, light, and powerful, offering a decent edge over a regular GeForce GTX 1060.

Is the performance advantage worth the price premium? Maybe, depending on how much you expect from your laptop. The PRIME-15 with a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB costs S$2,490, while the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q version is over S$400 more at S$2,920.

This will net you a 20 per cent or so increase in certain titles, which isn’t too shabby. This is our main takeaway with regards to a Max-Q GPU and laptop:-

If you’ve got an eye out for as much power as you can get in a slim package, a Max-Q laptop will be quite appealing - especially if you intend to mainly use it while connected to a power outlet.

The main drawback you’ll have to be aware of is battery life. Since Max-Q involves putting GPUs like the GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080 in laptop chassis that more commonly hold a GeForce GTX 1060, there often isn’t space for a sufficiently large battery.

The PRIME-15 Max-Q’s GeForce GTX 1070 has a TDP of 80W, and even though that’s only a smidge higher than the 78W of the GeForce GTX 1060, the former features markedly worse battery life.

Even the ASUS ROG Zephyrus falls prey to this, and its battery life is quite abysmal as it only features a 50Wh battery for a GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q.

That said, there are some Max-Q notebooks that come with a large battery, such as the Alienware 15 with a GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q, a relatively new addition that boasts a 99Wh power pack.

Max-Q notebooks are a nice advancement to fill a growing niche. They're not new products or even a particularly novel technology – they’re really just a bunch of tweaks and optimizations – but they allow you to cram a more powerful GPU into a slim chassis, thus making available more powerful and portable machines than before.

To be sure, they’re slower than their non-Max-Q equivalents, but what you gain is a step up in terms of mobile performance. For someone looking for a machine for both work and LAN parties, this is difficult to pass up, although it comes at the expense of battery life.

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