Talking about TDP (Thermal Design Power) of the GPUs

[Mira Yurizaki]

43 minutes ago, sicily428 said:

I think there is a seriuos problem with marketing gimmicks. OEMs need to sell more laptops and to save more moneys. so they use soldered components (cpu, gpu, now also rams) and they don't care enough about the cooling design, reliability or construction quality. People ask thin and light and OEMs offer those

I'm trying to say: if a customer needs a gtx1070, he should buy a thick laptop with a good cooling system but OEMs offer thin and with overheat issues laptops

Clevo is pretty much the only one that doesn't care.

 

But on the flipside, who buys laptops? Mostly layman who don't care about upgrading anything. By the time their computer is not meeting their already low requirements, it's 4+ years old and they feel justified it's time to buy a new machine. And they want to use their laptops as laptops. So portability at any cost is where OEMs go.

 

High performance laptops for gaming are still pretty thick beasts. The thin and light gaming laptops are still the exception. Besides, in business, you usually can't just sit around on your butt all day with the same thing over and over. It'll eventually get stale and then you'll be blindsided when someone comes out with something disruptive. And this is something we're already kind of seeing in the hardware market.

 

If anything though, it's these sorts of things that drive future innovation or continued improvements. If we really didn't care about efficiency, we'd be stuck in a position where a midrange desktop can easily compete with space heaters and laptops are at least two generations behind the curve.

[Stagea]

33 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

But on the flipside, who buys laptops? Mostly layman who don't care about upgrading anything. By the time their computer is not meeting their already low requirements, it's 4+ years old and they feel justified it's time to buy a new machine. And they want to use their laptops as laptops. So portability at any cost is where OEMs go.

 

High performance laptops for gaming are still pretty thick beasts. The thin and light gaming laptops are still the exception. Besides, in business, you usually can't just sit around on your butt all day with the same thing over and over. It'll eventually get stale and then you'll be blindsided when someone comes out with something disruptive. And this is something we're already kind of seeing in the hardware market.

Components are more efficient than ever so bulk & mass to performance ratio of portables had improved tremendously over the past years. Marginal thermal designs to maximize mobility had been in the market for a long time, but the thin and light multimedia and "gaming" machines are taking it to the extreme however.  

 

Some throttle so badly that GPU clocks are halved. Here's an example:

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

10 minutes ago, Stagea said:

Components are more efficient than ever so bulk & mass to performance ratio of portables had improved tremendously over the past years. Marginal thermal designs to maximize mobility had been in the market for a long time, but the thin and light multimedia and "gaming" machines are taking it to the extreme however.  

 

Some throttle so badly that GPU clocks are halved. Here's an example:

What I don't get is why the fan was at 36% (unless that sensor is broken since the fan speed is 0 RPM).

[D13H4RD]

The result of an hour of Forza.

 

 

[Imglidinhere]

9 hours ago, sicily428 said:

forum like this are really useful for customers. OEMs are not so accurate to inform about performances of their systems.

I think it needs to also be stated that TDP does NOT equal the total amount of power required for the card. It's so commonly confused with power draw it's not even funny.

 

TDP means Thermal Design Power. It's a measurement of the amount of HEAT that the total card outputs. Also, 75w TDP doesn't mean it draws 75w of power. It might require less than that in all fairness, often times it does, but since Pascal has a thermal density issue, a 180w GPU generates as much heat as a previous gen Maxwell 250w GPU.

 

Truth be told, higher transistor density is NOT always a good thing.  Intel learned the hard way with Ivy Bridge...

[Pendragon]

2 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

So you want to blow up your GTX 1080?

 

2 hours ago, Pendragon said:

lemme decide how to cool the thing

lm, fj pads, polished hs, custom voltage curves etc. i also said it needs to have binned 1080 chips with a vapor chamber cooling system. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

12 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

 

lm, fj pads, polished hs, custom voltage curves etc. i also said it needs to have binned 1080 chips with a vapor chamber cooling system. 

You said unlimited voltage and wattage.

 

Going over 20% voltage will likely kill the part and too much amperage will melt it.

[Pendragon]

Just now, M.Yurizaki said:

Going over 20% voltage will likely kill the part and too much amperage will melt it.

unlimited voltage as in i can toggle however much i desire, i control i much voltage my machine needs. unlimited wattage because i don't need to be limited by some artificial 230w bs on max q gpus. 

[ErrystioT]

Nvidia and laptop manufacturers should be clear on what consumers would truly get if one goes for Max-Q versions of their high-end GPUs. Believe it or not, a couple of friends asked me for laptop recommendations with GTX 1070 and when I told them something that's of heavy-weight, they weren't convinced of it and that it should be at a form factor of Asus' Zephyrus. Gg.

[Stagea]

2 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

What I don't get is why the fan was at 36% (unless that sensor is broken since the fan speed is 0 RPM).

Notebook cooling in this case is not managed by the GPU so GPU-Z is getting a false reading. Since the cooling system is shared, most notebooks have the blower/s showing as the "CPU fan."

[sicily428]

8 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Clevo is pretty much the only one that doesn't care.

 

But on the flipside, who buys laptops? Mostly layman who don't care about upgrading anything. By the time their computer is not meeting their already low requirements, it's 4+ years old and they feel justified it's time to buy a new machine. And they want to use their laptops as laptops. So portability at any cost is where OEMs go.

 

High performance laptops for gaming are still pretty thick beasts. The thin and light gaming laptops are still the exception. Besides, in business, you usually can't just sit around on your butt all day with the same thing over and over. It'll eventually get stale and then you'll be blindsided when someone comes out with something disruptive. And this is something we're already kind of seeing in the hardware market.

 

If anything though, it's these sorts of things that drive future innovation or continued improvements. If we really didn't care about efficiency, we'd be stuck in a position where a midrange desktop can easily compete with space heaters and laptops are at least two generations behind the curve.

 

 

We could focus on  "High performance laptops for gaming are still pretty thick beasts"

why making a totally soldered (soldered cpu+soldered gpu) 4kgs gaming laptop?

Desktop cpus have better performances than mobile cpus. when a soldered Gpu fails, that need a reflow/reball or may be a new motherboard for your laptop when a mxm is easily replaceable

MXM gpu upgrades can easily extend the life of a good laptop  

 

we could analize some numbers

some bga cpu/bga gpu gaming laptops are not so thin and light but they are totally soldered

15" BGA cpu/gpu

Alienware 15 R3 -------->height x width x depth (in mm): 25 x 389 x 305 ( = 0.98 x 15.31 x 12.01 in), 3.548 kg ( = 125.15 oz / 7.82 pounds)

Acer Predator 15 ------->height x width x depth (in mm): 39 x 391 x 300 ( = 1.54 x 15.39 x 11.81 in), 3.72 kg ( = 131.22 oz / 8.2 pounds)

15" LGA cpu/gpu MXM

Msi 16L13------->
height x width x depth (in mm): 39.8 x 390 x 266 ( = 1.57 x 15.35 x 10.47 in), 3.105 kg ( = 109.53 oz / 6.85 pounds)

Clevo p750dm2-g------>
height x width x depth (in mm): 38 x 386 x 262 ( = 1.5 x 15.2 x 10.31 in), 3.626 kg ( = 127.9 oz / 7.99 pounds)



17" BGA cpu/gpu

Alienware 17 R4-----------> height x width x depth (in mm): 29.9 x 424 x 332 ( = 1.18 x 16.69 x 13.07 in), 4.42 kg ( = 155.91 oz / 9.74 pounds)

Acer predator 17---------> height x width x depth (in mm): 40 x 423 x 322 ( = 1.57 x 16.65 x 12.68 in), 4.23 kg ( = 149.21 oz / 9.33 pounds)

Acer Predator 17 X----->
height x width x depth (in mm): 45 x 423 x 322 ( = 1.77 x 16.65 x 12.68 in), 4.346 kg ( = 153.3 oz / 9.58 pounds)


Asus G752VS------------>
height x width x depth (in mm): 53 x 428 x 334 ( = 2.09 x 16.85 x 13.15 in), 4.48 kg ( = 158.03 oz / 9.88 pounds)

Asus G701VIK------------->
height x width x depth (in mm): 38 x 429 x 309 ( = 1.5 x 16.89 x 12.17 in), 3.99 kg ( = 140.74 oz / 8.8 pounds)

17" LGA cpu/gpu MXM

Clevo P775dm3-g------>
height x width x depth (in mm): 39.9 x 418 x 295 ( = 1.57 x 16.46 x 11.61 in), 4.167 kg ( = 146.99 oz / 9.19 pounds)


Clevo P870km1-------->
height x width x depth (in mm): 47 x 428 x 308 ( = 1.85 x 16.85 x 12.13 in), 5.5 kg ( = 194.01 oz / 12.13 pounds)

[sicily428]

7 hours ago, Stagea said:

Components are more efficient than ever so bulk & mass to performance ratio of portables had improved tremendously over the past years. Marginal thermal designs to maximize mobility had been in the market for a long time, but the thin and light multimedia and "gaming" machines are taking it to the extreme however.  

 

Some throttle so badly that GPU clocks are halved. Here's an example:

 

Sometimes OEMs forget that Laws of thermodynamics are still valid

so a thin and light gaming laptop with a standard gtx1070/1080 is not possible without thermal issues IMO

and that undercocked max-qs are only a marketing gimmick

[D13H4RD]

3 hours ago, sicily428 said:

Sometimes OEMs forget that Laws of thermodynamics are still valid

so a thin and light gaming laptop with a standard gtx1070/1080 is not possible without thermal issues IMO

and that undercocked max-qs are only a marketing gimmick

I don’t think it’s a gimmick but it should be clearer that with Max-Q laptops, you’re not getting the same amount of performance as a laptop with the standard variant.

 

When you’re going for a thin-and-light, you’re going to have to make compromises in performance simply due to thermodynamics. Higher TDP components generally create more heat. Not a problem in a full ATX tower since there is plenty of space to dissipate heat and other options ranging from liquid cooling to even crazy phase-change cooling. 

 

On a laptop, however, it’s much more complicated. Laptop cooling systems have to work extra hard due to the tight confined space as there is much less space to passively dissipate heat compared to a desktop tower. With less space to passively cool, the processors would get warmer, and adding to those woes is that the heatpipes would either have to be thinner or reduced in number. Number of heatpipes may not mean much, but in anything designed for gaming, cooling is critical.

 

The Max-Q laptops are sort of designed for a very specific group of customer. Those who want a laptop that’s portable and can be carried here and there while also being beefy enough for some gaming. Typically, those tend to already have a tower at home. I know someone by the name of @NepsyNeptune who is considering the GTX 1070 Max-Q version of the ASUS GX501 as a portable companion to his 1080 Ti rig.

 

However, if you’re buying one as your main PC gaming rig, you’d probably just want to settle for either a GTX 1060-powered standard sized gaming laptop or one of the beefier GTX 1070/GTX 1080 laptops instead. They are a step into the future, but as of right now, you can’t change the game of physics. They run very warm, and they will thermal throttle when pushed extremely hard.

 

Yes, even with Max-Q, some of those laptops tend to throttle.

[sicily428]

55 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

I don’t think it’s a gimmick but it should be clearer that with Max-Q laptops, you’re not getting the same amount of performance as a laptop with the standard variant.

 

When you’re going for a thin-and-light, you’re going to have to make compromises in performance simply due to thermodynamics. Higher TDP components generally create more heat. Not a problem in a full ATX tower since there is plenty of space to dissipate heat and other options ranging from liquid cooling to even crazy phase-change cooling. 

 

On a laptop, however, it’s much more complicated. Laptop cooling systems have to work extra hard due to the tight confined space as there is much less space to passively dissipate heat compared to a desktop tower. With less space to passively cool, the processors would get warmer, and adding to those woes is that the heatpipes would either have to be thinner or reduced in number. Number of heatpipes may not mean much, but in anything designed for gaming, cooling is critical.

 

The Max-Q laptops are sort of designed for a very specific group of customer. Those who want a laptop that’s portable and can be carried here and there while also being beefy enough for some gaming. Typically, those tend to already have a tower at home. I know someone by the name of @NepsyNeptune who is considering the GTX 1070 Max-Q version of the ASUS GX501 as a portable companion to his 1080 Ti rig.

 

However, if you’re buying one as your main PC gaming rig, you’d probably just want to settle for either a GTX 1060-powered standard sized gaming laptop or one of the beefier GTX 1070/GTX 1080 laptops instead. They are a step into the future, but as of right now, you can’t change the game of physics. They run very warm, and they will thermal throttle when pushed extremely hard.

 

Yes, even with Max-Q, some of those laptops tend to throttle.

I mean that Nvidia is using youtubers and also IT journalists to push that "new" cards MQ. Many of them wrote that max-qs have the same performances and are better solutions because they are colder and bla bla bla than standard cards

they are like this guy because Max-q are only pricey underclocked cards and a thin laptop can't manage heat in the right way

[D13H4RD]

23 minutes ago, sicily428 said:

because they are colder and bla bla bla than standard cards

I kinda get where they’re coming from due to the lower clocks, but in a thin-and-light, not much of a difference, if at all.

[sicily428]

do you know this amazing poll made by @Mr. Fox   ?

 

How do you want your next laptop to be built?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/how-do-you-want-your-next-laptop-to-be-built.808062/

 

[Stagea]

3 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

I kinda get where they’re coming from due to the lower clocks, but in a thin-and-light, not much of a difference, if at all.

They have lower clocks and lower voltage. The 1080 Max Q can approach the regular 1060 in dissipation (making it suitable for thin laptops), while delivering 1070 levels of performance. It is an improvement for sure, but not as much as many people think.

 

The 1080 Max Q has a base clock of ~1101 MHz before throttling, while the desktop 1080 has a base clock of ~1607 Mhz. That's a 31% reduction in clock rate in exchange for a 50% lower TDP (180W --> 90W). 

[sicily428]

gtx960m------------->75W TDP

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2635/geforce-gtx-960m

 

gtx965m------------->??W TDP

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2796/geforce-gtx-965m

 

gtx970m------------->??W TDP

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2623/geforce-gtx-970m

 

gtx980m------------->??W TDP

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2622/geforce-gtx-980m

[Pendragon]

1 hour ago, sicily428 said:

snip 

Use Notebookcheck. 

[sicily428]

5 hours ago, Pendragon said:

Use Notebookcheck. 

Thanks

[Arika]

Could one not theoretically just downclock and undervolt an existing 1070/1080 to max-q levels. and then go the other way? reinstate the intended performance of the max-q designs to their original counterparts? Or is there something different with the chips themselves.

[Berfs1]

While you are correct thin laptops have higher heat outputs, it is usually not enough to cause throttling (at least gaming laptops, and if the laptop is used properly). For example, the Asus ROG Zephyrus. A prime example of a thin laptop, but has a GTX 1080 in it. It is able to sustain the heat because of the design, it has a custom cooler in the back, while they push up the keyboard to the front for extra cooling potential, and it also includes a wrist rest which is pretty cool if you ask me. All in all, I have a database, with multiple sources, if you ever need any info, just hit me up and I'll add you to the google sheet!

[Pendragon]

7 hours ago, Sierra Fox said:

Could one not theoretically just downclock and undervolt an existing 1070/1080 to max-q levels. and then go the other way? reinstate the intended performance of the max-q designs to their original counterparts? Or is there something different with the chips themselves.

If you have a decent chip and aggressively undervolt the 1070 you can achieve higher than 1080 max q performance WITH low sound and lower heat output at a fraction of the cost.

 

max q chips are different because in order to hit that GURANTEED acoustic level of 40db set by our lord and savior nvidia, they put some bullshit tdp limits on it. for example, on the aorus x5 md, the tdp limit is 200w for the WHOLE laptop. wtf? hello? can't change this. My 1070 AW15R3 can pull near 230w undervolted. take the same laptop like the aorus x5v7 and undervolt it tune it and it's literally better because higher performance, same acoustic levels etc. 

[sicily428]

Opinion: It's time we talked about throttling in reviews

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Opinion-It-s-time-we-talked-about-throttling-in-reviews.234232.0.html

[sicily428]

Opinion: Nvidia's Max-Q — Maximum efficiency, minimum performance?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Opinion-Nvidia-s-Max-Q-Maximum-efficiency-minimum-performance.232038.0.html