New Clevos with Max-Q?

The GT73VR with the 4k screen and 64gb Ram, configured like the GT75 is about $600 less. Yes seems excessive the price jump, but I doubt it has anything to do with Max-Q, but simply because of the chassis, keyboard, cooling, etc. I mean, one can still buy the GT73 if wanted.

 

The price points are determined by what fills them. When the Max-Q 1080's sell for the same price as the full boat 1080's, then those need to move up in cost to fit, why leave money on the table?

Let's see how it plays out, but I doubt any companies are going to keep selling their new 1080's at the same price as Max-Q 1080's...they are all gonna bump up their prices.

 

Perhaps, but excluding the GT75VR, which is a new design, other manufactures haven´t yet...the new Aorus X7 V7 is priced in line, and actually priced similar to the 15" Max Q version.

 

That's good news, they are likely considered similar in performance enough to occupy the same price space.

The full frame 17" 1080's should command more money than either of those. I'd say the Aorus is actually worth more than the Zephyrus and should be priced higher, but that's good to hear they aren't going to raise the price.

Asus was just starting to drop prices of their 1080 laptop, it came out higher than MSI last round and held there most of the time.

I wonder how the post-Zephyrus full 1080 Asus model will be priced?

Every maker will refresh for H370(?)/Z370(?) and Coffeelake, I wonder if the Max-Q category will survive that long?

 

I agree that the 1080 Max Q is a hard sell, but if I was in the market for a thin and light multimedia laptop that can game pretty well, which usually comes with a GTX1060, but also offering the 1070 Max-Q for $200 more, I would go for it, as long as the upgrade didn´t affect the cooling, since these kind of laptops are stretched cooling wise, but the performance increase is a lot better than the whole discussion of the GTX1080 MQ over the standard 1070, mostly the focus here.

 

The 1060 Max Q also offers a signficantly better perfomance increase over the gtx1050Ti at more or less the same TGP, for around $100 more.
So at the high end, the proposition is a hard sell, but at the standard GTX1060, 1050Ti level, the Max-Q upgrade can be interesting for some willing to pay more but with some real performance gain in the same chassis and more or less the same TDP range.

 

The same as the 1075 being a bad idea, splitting a very small difference between the 1070 and 1080, the same goes for the other half-step GPU's

There might be a larger gap that can't be completely reached by OC'ing the full step GPU below, it's still such a small difference it would likely not even be noticeable in games.

A 1055 and 1065 are just as much a waste of resources for too much extra $.

Just do a good job implementing full performance full step GPU's, there's still plenty of opportunity to do that with what is already out there.

Max-Q is just a cash grab

 

That is not correct. The 1060MQ is way better than the 1050Ti (notebook) overclocked...same goes for the 1070MQ over the gtx1060(notebook). At least in the benchmarks I've seen, obviously we need more benchmarks and different machines to come to a consensus that this is true all around.

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Yes, clocking will only take you so far.

 

The 1060 is a Max-Q 1060, with different tunings, of course it's going to be way faster than the 1050ti.

These are the silly discussions that stem from trying to stretch the 1060, 1070, and 1080 from 3 to 6 product sku's

 

Except Vistar is correct and makes sense.

A cooling system designed for 65W and 90W are quite different, as is the power circuitry. If you just take a 90W system and run it at 65W you are wasting power/weight.

 

Indeed, same products tuned to different TDP´s....the point is the 1060MQ can now potentially fit in a chassis that could only handle the GTX1050 Ti, for $100 more. The 1070MQ can now potentially fit in a chassis that before could handle only up to a GTX1060, for $200. But excluding the 1080MQ option, these two options actually do offer better performance even over the overclocked one below, of course for more money.
My question is if upgrading the above in the same chassis will make thermals worse or the same, with the increased performance. More reviews needed to compare.

 

The 1060 with different BIOS/vbios profiles can be both a full 1060, a Max-Q 1060, and even a 1060+ - whatever that might mean for performance, it's the other direction to go to squeeze all the performance from the GPU without leaving any OC on the table for the end user. Out of the box total performance, 1060+

Limiting performance like with limited cooling and power could be done with a less restrictive implementation. Make the form factor work for you instead of making it limit you.

The forced skinny Max-Q frames aren't necessary, and miss an opportunity to have full 1080, 1070, 1060 performance in the carry form you want.

The takeaway is that the huge cost increase for less performance is the only magic being implemented, at our expense.

 

True that, if I had a gtx1050Ti or a1060 laptop, I wouldn´t go out and buy a new one with the Max Q upgrade, but If I was in the market for a new laptop, I would consider the MaxQ variant for the same laptop ($100-$200) if, with more reviews and posts, it indeed shows better performance without affecting the thermals adversely.

 

Fully <normal> 1080 is Nvidia's hidden Ti Wait and see with Volta!!

 

They are not necessary for your needs.

Others do need the lighter machines and want the most potential out of them.

Notebooks are not one size fits all, that has always been the case.

 

Price increases will only benefits all outside the buyers of tech!!

 

The price has not increased, the 1050ti and 1060 are still available at the same points, this is a higher end product for the smaller form factors.

 

You didn't read carefully:

"The forced skinny Max-Q frames aren't necessary, and miss an opportunity to have full 1080, 1070, 1060 performance in the carry form you want ."

A little more engineering and the full performance GPU's, not half step Max-Q's, can be used.

The Zephyrus can "almost" make it to full 1080 performance, an inch in 2 dimensions, and 20% in height, and a bit more mass in the heat exchanger, and Asus might make a real 1080 laptop out of it.

Without losing the form factor, or inventing magical detuning powers

 

Thanks for making my point, a 1080 put into service as a Max-Q detune at substantially less power you are wasting the GPU.

You again didn't read carefully, I said BIOS / vbios profiles - which can all be used in various form factors - to expand on the text for clarity - to put the laptop in the mode you want to run in.

A well tuned slim chassis and cooling system that can run in the range of super quiet low power mode, to full power, and another with a larger chassis that can span a wider range of performance - but still switch to the quiet mode when desired.

It's not a waste if it's there to use it when you need it, it's a simple matter of changing the profile.

Or don't you want to promote user choice of operational modes in the same chassis?

 

You have to see the whole range of laptops. And Volta is coming. Skip M, then reintroduce M in new Max-Qrippled. I can smell it long way, Sir.

 

At this point you are confusing yourself.

You do have various vbios for the form factor.

You have:

1050ti/1060 Max-q level TDP
1060/1070 Max-q level TDP
1070/1080 Max-q level TDP

960M 148mm^2 -> 1050ti 132mm^2
970M 398mm^2 -> 1060 200mm^2
980M 398mm^2 -> 1070 314mm^2

There has been some shrinkage in area for the chips but the prices are a bit lower at each segment than they were.

 

Like I said before these are the silly conversations you get when spreading 6 sku's over 3 parts - 1060, 1070, 1080, and Max-Q models are a waste of SKU. They are the same 3 parts, not 6 parts, 6 profiles.

Max-Q is this waste of time discussing the differences with parts that don't exist except as software profiles in firmware.

 

So they should just get rid of the Max-q branding and sell the 1060 Max-q as a 1060?

 

I don't understand why it is an issue, except for the 1080MQ which I agree is a hard sell due to price and performance. Let's consider a laptop that can handle a 70w card, before the best option was a 1050Ti, now they crippled the 80watt or so 1060 to 70watt, now it can be used in that laptop with the same 70W TDP and still get up to 30% more performance for a $100 difference...not to shabby in my opinion as long as thermals are not affected and performance holds up when more data is available. Now, saying why do that when one can get a full performance 1060 in a slightly thicker and heavier laptop that can handle the 80w tdp is a mute point, since it is just one more option to choose from.

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Just call it M as before. Sell it for a lower price vs the real deal aka the more powerful N models. How difficult must this be?

 

I agree. Simple as that.

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You should have had +1000 rep if it was possible bruh

 

There are no actual different GPU parts, there are no N, M, MQ parts, just 3 parts: 1060, 1070, 1080, that's it, it's that simple.

Then tuning the firmware brings along the different SKU's, different BIOS / vBIOS limits put on those 3 GPU's.

That's the difference, software, not hardware.

So yes, just provide 1060, 1070, 1080 laptops, provide tuned profiles for the form factor they are installed, and provide value from the range of power in one laptop.

You can have a thin light carry laptop with a 1060, 1070, or 1080, with tuned profiles for the range of performance the thermal capabilities can handle.

Software tuning can be done without all this fanfare or extra high prices for "Max-Q".

 

Don't give Ngreedia and OEM/OEMs vild ideas It will only be a Big mess!! Cheaper M and normal priced N models. And in the end price everything lower than now. Or just only use highest performing chips numbers for models who can handle it. 1080 for P8xxDm3 osv.

 

@hmscott, you consistently and almost willingly seem like you want to miss the point in your unending attempt to criticise Max-Q, using the same points. You have literally built your entire point on one word: tuning. What do you mean by 'tuning'? It appears to me that modern personal computers are hardly any similar to musical instruments, where a couple of twirls of knobs can achieve the correct frequency. There is a lot of R&D involved. Multiple different fields to optimise just one product: from electronic engineering to circuitry design, thermal dissipation and thermal engineering, fluid dynamics, and even ergonomics.

It is easy to say 'oh, manufacturers need to "tune" their products'. Those who merely assemble computers from various parts consider themselves wizards. Even those here who 'sand down, lap, etc' their heatsinks consider themselves wizards. We miss out on the true geniuses behind closed doors who actually pump out the products that we use, and we freely criticise them based on the marketers' questionable decisions. I bet you it wasn't the engineers' idea to call it 'Max-Q', it wasn't the engineers' idea to ask for a $100-$150 premium for G-Sync, notebook or otherwise.

@Vistar Shook and @Stooj have mentioned the exact same point that I have been making, forever, since I saw the P950HR benchmarks. Let us break it down.

Specs and Price	Clevo P950HP	Clevo P950HR
GPU	nVidia GeForce GTX 1060	nVidia GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q
Number of cores	1280	2048 (+768, +60%)
Core clock in MHz (base, boost)	1405, 1671	1100, 1531
Memory capacity and type	6 GB GDDR5	8 GB GDDR5 (+2, +33.3%)
Memory bandwidth (GB/s)	192	256 (+64, +33.3%)
Price—Xotic PC (USD)	1337	1449 (+119, +8.9%)
Price—Metabox (AUD)	2128	2548 (+420, +19.7%)
Price—Aftershock PC (SGD)	2145	2544 (+399, +18.6%)
Fire Strike Graphics	11533	14948 (+3415, +29.6%)
Average price percentage	100%	115.7% (+ 15.7%)
Fire Strike Graphics increase ÷ average price percentage increase	-NIL-	1.885

A few notes: The Fire Strike Graphics score for the P950HP was taken from here. The Fire Strike Graphics score for the P950HR was taken from here. The dimensions of both machines are equal: 38 x 25.2 x 1.86 cm, weighing 1900 grams.

The specs of the notebooks at each of the vendors was configured to match as much as possible: 8 GB DDR4 2.4 GHz RAM, Intel 8265 WiFi + BT, no extra storage, completely barebones, no OS, no non-freebie extras. Some resellers have got a fairly generous promotion going on, such as XoticPC, which explains the incredibly low price of the P950HR there.

The final three rows is all we need to know.

TL;DR: For every unit increase in price from the P950HP to the P950HR, we get a 1.88x performance increase. This is extraordinary value, however you want to put it.

 

Notebookcheck says HP uses MAX Q.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Omen-15-7700HQ-GTX-1060-Max-Q-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.236264.0.html

On HP's website I don't see any mention of MAX Q. Am I missing something?

 

MSI is doing the same thing as HP, not mentioning Max-Q even though the model is shipping with a Max-Q 1070.

The GS63 and GS73 1070 model product pages didn't have anything about Max-Q until recently, then MSI added 1 foot note to each page, and now there are 2 foot notes on the GS63 Overview page, but still only one on the GS73 Overview page.

Still nothing about Max-Q in the Graphics Card info in the Specifications page, it still says:

Graphics
GeForce® GTX 1070 with 8GB GDDR5

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GS73VR-7RG-Stealth-Pro.html#hero-specification

GPU
NVIDIA GeForce® GTX1070

https://us.msi.com/Laptop/GS63VR-Stealth-Pro-7th-Gen-GEFORCE-GTX-1070.html#hero-specification

Today a new owner of a GS63 posted a photo of the inventory label, and it just said it was a 1070, not Max-Q mentioned:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/new-gs63-gs73vr-with-gtx1070.800102/page-52#post-10578298

 

Ahhh, HP is calling it a 1060M in one place at the top level pick a model for the 17t:

http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/omen-best-value-laptop---17t-z8w54av-1

When you go into the configurator the options don't say "M" or "Max-Q", just 1060 or 1070...

I don't see any Omen 15t's with a 1060, only 1050... do you have a link?

In a chat with HP, asking if they have a 1060 or 1060 Max-Q in the 15T:

"It has a regular 1060 only the laptop we have that it has a max-Q is the Z-book and workstation laptop."

 

We have added it into the front page specs to make it as clear as possible.

 

Most of the marketing material was created prior to the Max-Q official release so it was either under NDA, certification or both. MSI had the same issue originally with Thunderbolt3 across the GS range where they couldn't actually mention it in the marketing materials until after it was certified. The pages were then adjusted afterwards. Wouldn't surprise me if the same thing happened here since everyone was so tight-lipped about Max-Q prior to the launch date.

 

They had enough time to build it, box it, label it and ship it

They can easily add text to the specifications page and box label, and come up with new graphics for the Overview page.

There's no excuse for not labeling your products correctly.

 

The HP Omen 15 with the 1060MQ is not available in the US yet, but it is for sale in Germany...and indeed there is no mention of Max-Q on the German HP site or the sites selling this specific model.

 

I think you may underestimate just how long it takes. Most of the GS machines were probably boxed up and ready to ship to resellers a month or more before release. Much too soon for changes like that and more to the point, labelling as simply "GTX 1070" is still technically correct so they were probably in no rush.

 

Then they should buy a roll of new stickers and apply them to the boxes

I know what it takes to fix these kind of issues first hand, for many many years, and these companies have no excuse for not having correct website product descriptions, and they have no excuse for not having correct labeling on their product boxes.

And, MSI found the ability to add footnotes about Max-Q to the web site overview, but missed a lot of places to update the text - very easy today, any hour of the day, any day of the week.

There is no excuse for mis-labeling their products, and the same goes for HP.

The HP Chat couldn't find any mention of Max-Q anywhere on their product pages and only could find the same 1060M listing in the overview - the configurator pages had nothing, no "M" and no "Max-Q", that's not cool.

It's a really easy problem for these companies to resolve, don't excuse them for these mis-representations as they should be called out for incorrect labeling on their products and websites.

 

The benchmark results do in fact indicate it is a MQ chip (it sits between 5% and 15% worse in games / benches depending on the game, with an average of closer to 10% worse).

It is truly disappointing that there is no mention of MQ anywhere. This was what worried me the most.

If brands can get away with selling a 1060MQ as a straight "1060" and dupe customers, then this means they can simply slide the 1060MQ into the 1060 price point without consumer resistance because the average consumer has been duped, and does not know better.

This means that, potentially, they can slide the entire product stack up by one cost tier.

This is a worst-case scenario of MQ for consumers, and what many who are against it have been talking about.

Just to be clear, I do not dispute that MQ has its audience. I, myself, would love an Aero 15 with a 1070MQ instead of a 1060 for the extra 10% performance, and I'd be happy to pay an extra 10% in price. I am not inherently against Max-Q, I am against what businesses will try to do in the name of maximizing profit, because the kind of schtick HP and likely many others is pulling or will pull is anti-consumer.

 

As we have feared, Max-Q laptops are being labelled as regular GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080 laptops. It's a mess for the customer, no matter if they mislabel them this way on purpose or because they just don't know better. I wonder how many people will be tricked into buying an inferior product (performance-wise) without even knowing it and be in for a rude awakening when their laptop doesn't perform as expected.

 

I am not surprised HP is doing this, but MSI? very disappointed.

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So wait, once you buy it, how can you know if it is MQ or regular 1070? Does the nvidia control panel explicitly mentions MQ?


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I believe it should say so in the CP if you go to "System Information" -- there is a screenshot of it in the HP Omen 15 review on NBC linked earlier.

However, what they *should* be doing is making it clear it's an MQ on the product label, the product box, and in the product's marketing.

 

Indeed the max q variant will show an M under info, i.e GP106M.

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In hwinfo my full fat MSI 1070s (with SLI obviously) show as GP104M ... yet GPUz shows GP104.

See my screenshots here http://forum.notebookreview.com/index.php?posts/10548115

 

Where did you see that?

I see the Max-Q listed in the Nvidia information, like in GPU-Z, here's an example of the 1080 Max-Q, it says GP104, no "M":

From this article:

Aorus X5 MD review – portable 15-inch laptop with GTX 1080 Max-Q graphics
http://www.ultrabookreview.com/17254-aorus-x5-md-review/

From this section:
"But don’t get too excited just yet – this is where my interest in the Aorus x5 MD starts to fade away. Yes, you can overclock the CPU and GPU, but as far as I can tell, it hardly does a thing (especially for the GPU). The fact is, because of the Max-Q design, there is very little overhead to overclock anything without violating the 200W power limit Aorus set.

It would be nice if they allowed 230W, like on the Asus Zephyrus I just reviewed, but they didn’t. I don’t know if it was because of noise levels or what, but the performance on this laptop was not as good as I hoped. I’ll touch on this more in a bit."

It's a real problem now for not only people looking for Max-Q laptops, but a problem for those trying to make sure they aren't getting a Max-Q GPU, for those looking for full performance.

If makers and sellers don't list Max-Q customers are now not sure what they are really getting.

Max-Q is messing up the whole market.

 

I see...my bad. sorry. I saw the "M" in HWinfo but I didn´t realize all notebook variants show this.

 

It looks like the full 1070 shows an M after the number as well, per @bennyg , so that's not a good indicator for Max-Q.

Do you have a Max-Q laptop? Maybe dig around and post a few screen shots to help people identify where to look.