I'm curious about the MX150. It's the only GeForce GPU in the Pascal series that didn't keep the desktop GPU name despite being basically a GT 1030. Does anyone know why thats the case or if this isn't the mobile 1030?
Oh and has NV released a Quadro variant of the MX150 yet? I can imagine that there are a few OEMs that have historically depended on low end dGPUs in their business notebooks that would find a professional version appealing in the same way dGPUs like the NVS 1x0m series was commonplace a few years ago.
I would assume the MX150 has stricter power limits and thus clocks significantly lower than the 1030, making using the same name incongruous compared to the rest of the lineup. I might of course be wrong.
As for a pro version, at least Lenovo uses the 940MX in their ThinkPad line, so perhaps demand for a Quadro that low-end is very low, or might not be worth the cost for software validation and so on?
I'm not sure that the presence of gaming GPUs in business notebooks is entirely due to low OEM and customer demand. Maybe, but keep in mind AMD and nVidia have been driving power and TDP demand up with each subsequent generation rather than using the headroom gained from manufacturing improvements in the name of better thermals and increased efficiency. They also cut out the bottom end of the GPU market. NV's 1030 is the first sub-35W GPU released since the 730 which is pretty old by graphics card standards. Part of that might have been due to improvements in iGPUs when Intel enjoyed a node shrink advantage with 22 and 14nm parts while GPUs were stuck on 28nm for what seemed like an eternity. I think the demand is pent up and I really hope to see professional mobile discrete graphics now that Intel's stuck in a lurch. If the comsumer segment is getting dGPUs more commonly, maybe that'll spill over to the professional space? I certainly hope so!
The MX150 has a 25W TDP (vs 30W for 1030) and only clocks 100MHz lower, so it's anyone's guess as to why they decided to rename it. Perhaps it has to do with the prevalent notion that the x30m gpus are low performance and not worth buying? Since the 730m/930m didn't offer a significant enough performance increase over integrated graphics, but the MX150 turns out to perform slightly better than a 950M which is pretty impressive imo
The fanless liquid cooling system held up well enough against an i7-7500u alone, with barely any throttling, but I really doubt it can handle a 4c/8t AND an MX150 at the same time without extreme throttling, since even regular notebooks with fans struggle with throttling
I agree. I don't see how Acer is going to dissipate over 40w of heat under load in something this thin with no active cooling. Even with constant throttling, the life expectancy of the surrounding electronics over prolonged extreme temps is going to make the durability of this thing questionable.
But who knows, I'm an engineer but not a system designer. They could be working some magic but simple thermodynamics dictates they are trying to do the impossible here.
The number of cores and threads doesn't matter. The tdp is still the same. In fact, it's probably a little less because the igpu will always be idle or not active at all. Also the extra die space required for two more physical cores along with the idle gpu die space will give way more surface area for thermal transfer. If anything it will be break even with precious generations.
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BrokenCrayons - Thursday, August 31, 2017 - link
I'm curious about the MX150. It's the only GeForce GPU in the Pascal series that didn't keep the desktop GPU name despite being basically a GT 1030. Does anyone know why thats the case or if this isn't the mobile 1030?Oh and has NV released a Quadro variant of the MX150 yet? I can imagine that there are a few OEMs that have historically depended on low end dGPUs in their business notebooks that would find a professional version appealing in the same way dGPUs like the NVS 1x0m series was commonplace a few years ago.
Valantar - Thursday, August 31, 2017 - link
I would assume the MX150 has stricter power limits and thus clocks significantly lower than the 1030, making using the same name incongruous compared to the rest of the lineup. I might of course be wrong.As for a pro version, at least Lenovo uses the 940MX in their ThinkPad line, so perhaps demand for a Quadro that low-end is very low, or might not be worth the cost for software validation and so on?
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, August 31, 2017 - link
I'm not sure that the presence of gaming GPUs in business notebooks is entirely due to low OEM and customer demand. Maybe, but keep in mind AMD and nVidia have been driving power and TDP demand up with each subsequent generation rather than using the headroom gained from manufacturing improvements in the name of better thermals and increased efficiency. They also cut out the bottom end of the GPU market. NV's 1030 is the first sub-35W GPU released since the 730 which is pretty old by graphics card standards. Part of that might have been due to improvements in iGPUs when Intel enjoyed a node shrink advantage with 22 and 14nm parts while GPUs were stuck on 28nm for what seemed like an eternity. I think the demand is pent up and I really hope to see professional mobile discrete graphics now that Intel's stuck in a lurch. If the comsumer segment is getting dGPUs more commonly, maybe that'll spill over to the professional space? I certainly hope so!Retycint - Thursday, August 31, 2017 - link
The MX150 has a 25W TDP (vs 30W for 1030) and only clocks 100MHz lower, so it's anyone's guess as to why they decided to rename it. Perhaps it has to do with the prevalent notion that the x30m gpus are low performance and not worth buying? Since the 730m/930m didn't offer a significant enough performance increase over integrated graphics, but the MX150 turns out to perform slightly better than a 950M which is pretty impressive imoRetycint - Thursday, August 31, 2017 - link
The fanless liquid cooling system held up well enough against an i7-7500u alone, with barely any throttling, but I really doubt it can handle a 4c/8t AND an MX150 at the same time without extreme throttling, since even regular notebooks with fans struggle with throttlingSamus - Friday, September 1, 2017 - link
I agree. I don't see how Acer is going to dissipate over 40w of heat under load in something this thin with no active cooling. Even with constant throttling, the life expectancy of the surrounding electronics over prolonged extreme temps is going to make the durability of this thing questionable.But who knows, I'm an engineer but not a system designer. They could be working some magic but simple thermodynamics dictates they are trying to do the impossible here.
Ej24 - Friday, September 1, 2017 - link
The number of cores and threads doesn't matter. The tdp is still the same. In fact, it's probably a little less because the igpu will always be idle or not active at all. Also the extra die space required for two more physical cores along with the idle gpu die space will give way more surface area for thermal transfer. If anything it will be break even with precious generations.