Nvidia makes buying a laptop more confusing

Gaming laptops with Nvidia’s powerful RTX 30 series graphics chips are now shipped. I first look at MSI’s 2021 GS66 Stealth with the RTX 3080, and my colleague Monica Chin published two reviews for launch day: the Asus ROG Flow X13 (with its removable RTX 3080 eGPU) and the MSI GP66 Leopard with the RTX 3070.

We discovered something strange: an RTX 3070 can now in some cases be faster than an RTX 3080. We saw it first hand in a few benchmarks, where the RTX 3070 in the GP77 Leopard slightly surpasses the RTX 3080 in GS66 Stealth has. It was not an outburst, just a few weird frames per second more in the criteria built into games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. But that should not happen, right?

It sounds like a big controversy, but the explanation is nothing new. It just became something shadier than it ever should have been. Nvidia is no longer adding “Max-Q” labels to the weaker, more efficient variants of its laptops, so you can no longer easily see if you’re getting a full-fat GPU.

The RTX 3080 in the GS66 Stealth is actually a Max-Q variant with a boost clock of 1 245 MHz and a maximum wattage of 95 watts, which according to Nvidia’s specifications is about as weak as an RTX 3080 can get . But customers probably would not know it by looking at the box of this laptop, MSI’s website or the numerous retailer websites that sell this model. The GP66 Leopard, on the other hand, uses an RTX 3070 with a higher clock speed and more watts than the norm, which explains why it was able to continue a few times during our testing.

Image: Nvidia

As NotebookCheck explains, there is a wide range of watts on which each RTX laptop chip in the 30 Series can be set – but it depends on what type of laptop the manufacturer wants to sell.

Thinner, lighter laptops tend to switch back to Max-Q versions of Nvidia’s graphics chips for better efficiency (for example in the past referred to as GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q), while others use one that does not have the Max. -Q brands and can therefore be trusted to deliver better performance that is more in line with the desktop versions of the GPU. Now Nvidia lets manufacturers hide which one they use on a laptop. This allows companies to treat Nvidia’s mobile graphics cards on a specification sheet as if they work consistently on all devices, but this is far from true.

This lack of transparency is the main difference between how these RTX 30 series graphics chips are marketed compared to previous generations using Max-Q chips, and this can lead to a lot of confused people. Nvidia also does not require manufacturers using Max-Q graphics chips to have Max-Q stickers on the laptop, which they have done before.

Of course, MSI is not the only company that already benefits from this. Asus TUF Dash 15 and Gigabyte Aorus 15G with which I own the RTX 3070, but each omits the important information that you get the Max-Q variant of the chip. Just like the MSI laptop, you will not find a detailed breakdown of the GPU’s increased clock speed or wattage requirements in the box or in the retail list.

This is important information to communicate with people, because everyone just confirms whether you get a slower Max-Q variant or a faster standard component.

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 spokesman said The edge that it “strongly encourages[s] OEMs to list watches and other technologies that support a laptop, including Advanced Optimus, Dynamic Boost 2, and more. Judging by manufacturers’ websites so far, ‘encouragement’ does not seem to be working.

Nvidia also says the Nvidia Control Panel app, which is accessible only after you paid for and set up one of these laptops now offers more specifications than before. Not very helpful.

When I asked Nvidia if it would work to make these details more transparent for customers if they investigated which laptop to buy, a spokesman said the company was “exploring additional ways to give consumers more insight before purchasing.” It seems like a simple way to do this is to keep a running list of each model with detailed specifications, as Nvidia does with G-Sync compatible monitors.

There is always some uncertainty about how each laptop will perform in the real world. The Max-Q brand has at least helped customers instantly see that they are getting a machine with a graphics chip that has a lower clock speed, resulting in a slightly callback performance than you get from the full fat chip. You should now read comparison ratings, or hope that Nvidia reverses its policy that producers can keep people in the dark.

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