NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 is a high-end desktop graphics card based on the AD104 chip using the Ada Lovelace architecture. The 4070 offers 5,888 cores and 12 GB GDDR6X graphics memory with a 192 bit memory bus and clocked at 21 Gbits. The card offers a good raytracing performance thanks to the 46 dedicated raytracing cores. For AI calculations (and DLSS 3 in games), the RTX 4070 has 184 Tensor cores.

The gaming performance is well suited for 2k/QHD gaming in most demanding games, and should be able to handle 4k gaming for lesser demanding games (or with reduced settings / DLSS activated). The raw gaming performance is comparable to an older RTX 3080 or a AMD Radeon 6800 XT. Compared to the similar named mobile GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, the desktop variant is much faster.

The AD104 chip is manufactured in the modern 5nm process at TSMC (4N with EUV) and specified with a TGP (Total Graphics Power) of 200 Watt (compared to the 450 Watt of the RTX 4090).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 with the Max-Q design is a mobile high-end GPU from the Pascal series. It is designed for thin and light laptops and about 10-15% slower than a regular GTX 1060 for laptops based on the cooling capabilities. The base frequency (1063-1265 MHz) is also much lower than on the regular GTX 1060 (1506 MHz, at least -16%) and the Boost (1341-1480 MHz) is also much lower compared to 1708 MHz (at least -13%) for the regular GTX 1060. The memory clock, however, is identical.

The clock is not the only difference compared to the regular GTX 1060 though. The drivers for the Max-Q version were optimized for efficiency (and not performance; only for Max-Q models), there are optimized voltage converters for 1V operation, high-end cooling methods, and a 40 dB limit for the fan noise (with clock adjustments to ensure this at all times).

Features

The GP106 chip is produced in 16nm FinFET at TSMC and offers a range of new features, like DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) and improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). A list of improvements and features can be found in our article on the Pascal architecture.

The power consumption of the Max-Q design is notably lower than the normal GTX 1060 for laptops and ranges between 60 and 70 Watt (TGP) according to Nvidia.