The Intel designed laptop sold as the Aftershock Vapor 15 here in Australia, Eluktronics MAG-15
in the US, or XMG Fusion 15 in Europe is available with either Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti or RTX 2070
Max-Q graphics, but what are the differences between them? In this comparison we’ll compare
games at all setting levels, video editing, thermals and battery life to help you decide
if it’s worth paying more for the 2070 Max-Q upgrade.
Both of my laptops are essentially the same, apart from the GPU difference. Both have an
Intel i7-9750H CPU and 16gb of memory in dual channel.
Let’s start out by looking at the difference in gaming performance, we’ll cover thermals,
battery life and more afterwards. Both laptops were tested with the same version of Windows,
Nvidia drivers, and BIOS, so should be as apples to apples as possible. Both were also
tested in performance mode for best results, and by default both had the same small undervolt
to the CPU.
Control was tested walking through the start of the game. In all upcoming graphs I’ve
got the GTX 1660 Ti results shown by the red bars, and the RTX 2070 Max-Q results shown
by the purple bars, and I’ve also tested all games with all setting presets. In this
game there wasn’t much difference in terms of average FPS, at high settings the 2070
Max-Q was just 7.8% faster, however there was a much larger 23% improvement to 1% low.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the game’s built in benchmark tool. At the
lower setting presets there was less of a difference between the two, presumably as
we’re more CPU bound. At higher settings though the 2070 Max-Q is further ahead, with
a 16% lead at max settings.
Battlefield V was tested in campaign mode, and there was a lower 8.8% improvement to
average frame rate at ultra settings in this game. The 1% low performance in this title
is usually a bit all over the place, and at lower settings the difference closes.
Borderlands 3 was tested with the built in benchmark, and this game saw one of the biggest
differences between the two laptops. At max settings the 2070 max-q scored 21% higher
average frame rate than the 1660 Ti. Just for comparison at very low settings the difference
drops to less than 5%.
Apex Legends was tested with all settings at minimum or maximum, as it doesn’t have
built in setting presets. At minimum settings the results were much the same, as the 144
FPS frame cap was hit. At max settings the 2070 Max-Q was 11% ahead in average FPS, however
despite this the 1660 Ti was still perfectly playable at this level.
Metro Exodus was tested with the game’s built in benchmark. With the extreme setting
preset the 2070 Max-Q was 18% ahead of the GTX 1660 Ti, however with the RTX settings
there’s a much larger 111% improvement as expected, GTX graphics just don’t do as
well when it comes to ray tracing.
Fortnite was tested using the replay feature with the exact same replay used on each machine
on the same day. The results here were interesting and not what I expected, there was basically
zero difference at max settings in terms of average FPS, with more of a difference to
1% low noted.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint was tested using the game’s built in benchmark tool. This time
there was a larger 14% improvement to average FPS at max settings with the RTX 2070 Max-Q
in use, with similar changes noted at the lower setting presets.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane. This game is typically a CPU dependent game
with not much change regardless of the GPU you use, which is why I was interested in
testing it out. Sure enough at lower settings there’s almost no difference, and even at
ultra the 2070 max-q was only 3.8% faster than the 1660 Ti.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the game’s built in benchmark, and this game saw one
of the larger differences out of all 16 games tested. At ultra settings the 2070 Max-Q was
17.6% ahead in average FPS
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and is an example of another title that tends
to perform better based on the CPU power. Interestingly the 1% low was better on the
2070 Max-Q at lower settings, then there was no difference at max settings. At max the
2070 max-q was just 9% ahead in average FPS.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested using the game’s benchmark tool. At max settings
there was a below average 7% increase to average FPS. Interestingly the difference was higher
at low settings with a 10% increase from the 2070 Max-Q.
PUBG was tested with the replay feature using the same replay on each machine. At ultra
settings there was a massive difference, with the 2070 Max-Q 27% ahead of the 1660 Ti. This
was the largest difference seen out of all 16 games tested here, however the change was
lower at the other setting presets, with just a 2% change at very low.
F1 2019 was tested with the built in benchmark, and this title saw an above average improvement
with the 2070 Max-Q with a 15.7% increase. At high settings and below though there was
a much larger difference, then at ultra low the 2070 max-q was a massive 49% ahead.
The Witcher 3 tends to be a GPU bound game, so it makes sense that there was an above
average 20% higher average frame rate with the ultra setting preset on the 2070 max-q.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested using the game’s benchmark tool, and there was only a small
5.6% improvement to average frame rate at ultra settings, with a slightly bigger 8.7%
gap at low settings.
On average over all 16 of these games tested there’s only a 12.7% higher average frame
rate with the RTX 2070 Max-Q. This was lower than I was expecting. In the past I’ve shown
that the RTX 2060 is around 14% ahead of the 1660 Ti, and I’ve also shown that the RTX
2070 Max-Q is around 6% ahead of the RTX 2060. The lower results do make sense though when
we consider that this laptop limits the GPU temperature to 75 degrees Celsius. This prevents
it from running at higher power limits, thereby restricting performance.
With that in mind let’s check out the thermals next. Both laptops have the same cooling solution
inside, they’re essentially the same just with different GPU. Testing was completed
with an ambient room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, so results should be comparable.
With the version of the BIOS I’m using, 0048, both have the same limit of 90 degrees
Celsius for the CPU and 75 degrees for the GPU. Again both CPUs are undervolted by default,
but I’ve also pushed this further to see how it can help.
Stress tests were done with the Aida64 CPU stress test and Heaven GPU benchmark at the
same time to fully load the system, while game tests were done with Watch Dogs 2, as
it uses a good combination of CPU and GPU. In all stress tests, regardless of whether
or not additional undervolting was done with a cooling pad in use, thermal limits were
still being hit. In gaming the extra undervolt and cooling pad were able to remove thermal
throttling on the CPU, more so on the 1660 Ti model, presumably as the 2070 Max-Q runs
a bit hotter, however the GPU was still thermal throttling regardless of test.
These are the clock speeds for the same tests just shown. With the stress tests running
with stock performance settings the CPU speeds are about the same. Differences in GPU speed
are expected, they’re different GPUs after all, I was more interested to see if the CPU
would throttle more as a result, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. This was seen
again even with the cooling pad and additional undervolt, both CPUs were around the 3.9GHz
mark. While gaming the clock speeds of the CPU are similar between 1660 Ti and 2070 Max-Q,
so it seems like the GPU difference isn’t negatively affecting CPU performance.
These are the average TDP values for each test. We can see the 2070 Max-Q is using more
power to achieve its higher speeds, despite both being capped to 75 degrees Celsius. In
these combined workloads, neither GPU is able to hit its 80 watt cap due to the thermal
constraints.
I’ve also measured total system power draw from the wall with The Witcher 3, which if
you recall was able to get a larger 20% improvement with the 2070 Max-Q. To do this the 2070 Max-Q
laptop was using around 9% more power.
As for the areas where you’ll be putting your hands, the 2070 Max-Q machine did appear
to be a little warmer, which was interesting given both machines were running the same
workloads and that the internals were capped to the same limits. Fan noise was otherwise
the same.
I’ve also got some 3DMark benchmarks to compare, as these synthetic tests are more
GPU heavy we’re seeing much better results with the 2070 Max-Q. There was a large 38%
increase to the graphics score in firestrike for example, and the port royal score was
200% higher as that test incorporates ray tracing.
I’ve also tested exporting the same 4K video project with Adobe Premiere, interestingly
the 1660 Ti machine was a little quicker, though it wasn’t by much. The results were
consistent, as these are averages from 5 exports on each machine. The Intel GPU seemed to be
pegged at 100% most of the time even with CUDA selected, the Nvidia GPU wasn’t utilized
anywhere near as much which I suspect is why I didn’t see big improvements from the 2070
Max-Q, so that could vary by projects, I was just exporting one of my laptop reviews.
Both laptops have the same large 6 cell 94 watt hour battery. They were both tested the
same, with the screen at 50% brightness, background apps disabled and all RGB lighting off. The
results don’t make sense to me. In the watching YouTube test the 2070 Max-Q machine was only
able to hit 3 hours, but the 1660 Ti system passed 7 hours in the same test. I tested
the 2070 Max-Q machine again, same result, and I even tried a Windows reset incase there
was something strange going on but no change again. The gaming results make a bit more
sense, we’d expect the 2070 Max-Q to burn through power a bit quicker, but yeah take
my out of gaming results with a grain of salt because this much difference shouldn’t be
happening with Optimus.
Now for the final difference, the price. Here in Australia if you want to get the Vapor
15 from Aftershock we’re looking at $780 AUD extra, or 34% more money. In the US, the
MAG-15 from Eluktronics which is the same Intel designed chassis seems to go for $1600
USD for the 1660 Ti model, or $1900 USD for the lowest 2070 Max-Q model, which is 18.7%
more money. In Europe the XMG Fusion 15, again same laptop, is 465 more for the 2070 Max-Q,
or 21.5% more money.
In all of these cases, personally I find the extra cost hard to justify for the 2070 Max-Q.
Although results do depend on the specific game you’re playing, as we saw earlier on
average there was less than a 13% improvement out of the 16 titles that I’ve tested at
stock. The 1660 Ti is offering much better value, and in most cases is still a great
match up with the 144Hz screen. It is of course worth considering that the 2070 Max-Q also
has 2gb more VRAM which could be more beneficial in future, and I need to mention that you
can’t upgrade the GPU after buying. Generally for this reason I recommend buying the best
GPU you can afford, but as we don’t seem to be getting full performance here it’s
harder to justify.
You could also argue that if you want to use ray tracing you need the 2070 Max-Q, and while
that’s true, personally I think ray tracing still has a long way to go before I’d look
at spending more money to get it. There are still very few games that support it, and
the ones that do perform significantly worse with it enabled. By the time we have enough
games implementing it well we’ll probably be past this 1st gen RTX hardware.
Basically for most people I don’t think it’s worth paying more for the 2070 Max-Q.
The 1660 Ti offers fair levels of performance for the majority of users. Let me know which
option you’d pick and why down in the comments, I’m interested to hear if there are other
reasons I haven’t considered, and if you’re new to the channel consider getting subscribed
for future tech videos like this one.