Nvidia makes buying a gaming laptop more confusing

Gaming laptops that incorporate Nvidia’s powerful RTX 30 graphics chips are now available. I got a first look at the GS66 Stealth 2021 from MSI with the RTX 3080, and my colleague Monica Chin posted two reviews for launch day: the Asus ROG Flow X13 (with its detachable RTX 3080 eGPU) and the MSI GP66 Leopard with the RTX 3070.

We discovered something strange: an RTX 3070 can now be faster than an RTX 3080 in some cases. We saw this firsthand in a few benchmark tests, where the RTX 3070 in the Leopard GP77 slightly outperformed the RTX 3080 in the GS66 Stealth. It wasn’t a blast, just a few more odd fps in benchmarks built into games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. But that shouldn’t happen, right?

It sounds like a huge controversy, but the explanation is not new. It just became something darker than ever. Nvidia no longer adds “Max-Q” labels to the weaker, more fuel-efficient variants of its laptop-grade GPUs, so you can’t easily tell if you’re getting a full GPU any longer.

The RTX 3080 in the GS66 Stealth is actually a Max-Q variant with a 1245 MHz boost clock and a maximum output of 95 watts, which is about as low as an RTX 3080 can get, depending on the market. Nvidia technical sheets. But customers probably wouldn’t know by looking at this laptop’s box, MSI’s site, or the many retailer sites selling this model. The Leopard GP66, on the other hand, uses an RTX 3070 which has a higher clock speed and higher power than the standard, which is why it was able to advance several times in our tests.

Image: Nvidia

As NotebookCheck explains, there is a wide range of wattages that each RTX 30 series laptop chip can be tuned to – but that depends on what kind of laptop the manufacturer wants to sell.

Thinner and lighter gaming laptops tend to use numbered Max-Q versions of Nvidia’s graphics chips for better efficiency (referred to in the past as the GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q, for example), while others use the ones that don’t have the Max. -Q and therefore can be trusted to deliver better performance that is more akin to the desktop versions of the GPU. Now, Nvidia allows manufacturers to hide the one they use in a laptop. It allows companies to treat Nvidia’s mobile graphics cards on a spec sheet as if they all had consistent performance across all devices, but that’s far from true.

This lack of transparency is the main difference between the way these RTX 30 series graphics chips are marketed compared to previous generations that used Max-Q chips, and it can lead to many people confused. Nvidia also doesn’t require manufacturers that use Max-Q graphics chips to have Max-Q stickers on the laptop, which it already has.

Of course, MSI isn’t the only company already taking advantage. The Asus TUF Dash 15 and Gigabyte Aorus 15G that I’m testing each claim to have the RTX 3070, but each omits the crucial information you get from the Max-Q variant of the chip. Like MSI’s laptop, you won’t find a detailed breakdown of clock speed or GPU power requirements on cases or retail listings.

This is crucial information to communicate to people, as it all confirms whether you are getting a slower Max-Q variant or a faster standard part.

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Why would Nvidia make this change, knowing that most average consumers will fall for it? When I asked, a spokesperson said The edge that he “strongly encourages[s] OEMs should list clocks and other technologies supported by laptop including Advanced Optimus, Dynamic Boost 2, etc. Judging from the manufacturers’ websites so far, this “incentive” doesn’t seem to be working.

Nvidia also says the Nvidia Control Panel application, which is accessible only after you have paid for and configured one of these laptops, now provides more specification information than before. Not very useful.

When I asked Nvidia if it would work to make these details more transparent to customers when they research which laptop to buy, a spokesperson said the company is “looking at additional ways to give consumers more information. before buying”. It seems that an easy way to do this would be to keep a running list of each model with detailed specifications, as Nvidia does with G-Sync compatible monitors.

There is always a degree of uncertainty as to how each laptop will perform in the real world. The Max-Q brand, at the very least, helped customers see right away that they were getting a machine with a graphics chip that had a lower clock speed, which resulted in slightly slower performance compared to to the ones you would get full. big chip. Now you will either have to read the comparative reviews or hope that Nvidia reverses its policy that allows manufacturers to keep people in the dark.

We will update this article if and when Nvidia shares its plans to improve transparency for customers.