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日本NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti vs GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q – what’s the difference?
NVIDIA’s GTX 1660 Ti, as we saw, is a pretty efficient graphics card, that compares very well with the RTX 2060 for example. However, what should you do if you need that much of graphics power in a machine that is barely the size of an ultrabook? Yup, you guessed it right – just get the Max-Q version, and you are set and done. Let’s see if that is really the way to go in such situations.
You can check out our Top Laptop Graphics Ranking to see these two graphics cards and many more.
Specs overview
Both of these graphics cards are built on the N18E-G0 chip, which has 1536 CUDA cores and a 12nm manufacturing process. Expectedly, the Max-Q version uses less power – 80W vs 60W and works at a significantly lower clock speed – 1140-1335 MHz for the Max-Q version and 1455-1590 MHz for the full-blown laptop GPU.
Aside from that, their memory modules have the same 192-bit bus and 6GB capacity of GDDR6 type. As far as bandwidth is concerned, though, the GTX 1660 Ti pulls clear from its Max-Q counterpart with 288 GB/s vs 192 GB/s.
Benchmarks
There is a 15% decrease in performance going to the Max-Q version in synthetic benchmarks.
Results are from the 3DMark: Time Spy (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
Around the same performance gap is found in gaming, as we saw in the benchmarks.
| Far Cry 5 | Full HD, Normal (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | 101 fps | 94 fps | 88 fps |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q | 88 fps | 81 fps | 76 fps |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) | Full HD, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | 125 fps | 66 fps | 44 fps |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q | 109 fps | 55 fps | 36 fps |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Highest (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | 84 fps | 79 fps | 50 fps |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q | 73 fps | 67 fps | 42 fps |
| Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | 81 fps | 72 fps | 74 fps |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q | 70 fps | 61 fps | 40 fps |
Conclusion
From what we saw in our test, the GTX 1660 Ti was consistently better than its Max-Q counterpart with around 15-20%. However, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q was never intended to beat its more-powerful brother. Quite the opposite – it was built in order to provide similar performance at a lower power and heat output, which it does perfectly.
All laptops equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (6GB GDDR6)
All laptops equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q (6GB GDDR6)
