Intel seemingly compares a 90W NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q laptop with 60W RTX 2060 Laptop to highlight Comet Lake S i7 performance gains over Renoir

[Redaktion]

According to tipster @_rogame, Intel appears to have compared a Comet Lake i7-10750H laptop equipped with a 90W GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q with a Renoir Ryzen 9 4900H laptop sporting a 65W variant in a slide highlighting frame rate improvements

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-seemingly-compares-a-90W-NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-2060-Max-Q-laptop-with-60W-RTX-2060-Laptop-to-highlight-Comet-Lake-S-i7-performance-gains-over-Renoir.477168.0.html

[Grinnie Jax]

Typical Intel.

[_MT_]

Trying to stir up sensation again? It's just a slide. They're often half the story without the commentary. Not to mention that marketing people can be clueless. If they're talking about the value of the entire platform, i.e. the laptop, then they're right that the one with their CPU offers better performance at a lower price. The difference is probably not because of the CPU but that doesn't change the results. I guess this is training for salespeople. So that when someone walks in looking for a gaming laptop, they know what to recommend. And there are not going to be many laptops offering RTX with Ryzen. So, Intel might be able to retain the value advantage for some time simply due to a broader offering.

As for the GPU, specification of the MSI doesn't say Max-Q and it's even highlighted (it's bold while the other RTX isn't). For all we know, the speaker could have highlighted that you're getting the full mobile version (if that's what it indeed has and the missing Max-Q isn't just an omission) as an advantage of that system. That disclaimer should mean that other systems, even with the same specification, can perform differently than this one. The funny part is that they talk of non-CPU components. Implying that CPU performance doesn't vary between systems. :D

It's also not surprising that performance doesn't scale linearly with power. I mean, that's elementary knowledge.

[Tov]

Is this illegal in USA?

[Valantar]

First off, this article needs editing. Which GPU is called Max-Q and which isn't is all over the place. The correct thing would be to say that the 90W version is either a no-suffix or Max-P edition, no?

Trying to stir up sensation again? It's just a slide. They're often half the story without the commentary. Not to mention that marketing people can be clueless. If they're talking about the value of the entire platform, i.e. the laptop, then they're right that the one with their CPU offers better performance at a lower price. The difference is probably not because of the CPU but that doesn't change the results. I guess this is training for salespeople. So that when someone walks in looking for a gaming laptop, they know what to recommend. And there are not going to be many laptops offering RTX with Ryzen. So, Intel might be able to retain the value advantage for some time simply due to a broader offering.

As for the GPU, specification of the MSI doesn't say Max-Q and it's even highlighted (it's bold while the other RTX isn't). For all we know, the speaker could have highlighted that you're getting the full mobile version (if that's what it indeed has and the missing Max-Q isn't just an omission) as an advantage of that system. That disclaimer should mean that other systems, even with the same specification, can perform differently than this one. The funny part is that they talk of non-CPU components. Implying that CPU performance doesn't vary between systems. :D

It's also not surprising that performance doesn't scale linearly with power. I mean, that's elementary knowledge.

This doesn't change the fact that they're selectively picking an expensive, semi-premium thin-and-light, 14"/1.6kg gaming laptop to compare against a decidedly mainstream (15.6"/2.3kg) alternative. You would agree that something like the Asus TUF A15 would be a more 1:1 comparison, no? I mean, MSI explicitly frames the GL65 as a budget gaming laptop. There are $999 Ryzen 4800H laptops with the same RTX 2060 Max-P GPU if you want a more even playing field, which would be a much more honest and equal comparison to the Intel laptop. With this in mind, you're giving an unreasonable amount of goodwill to Intel here. Yes, all marketing is BS, and while this is by no means the worst example I've seen, it is nonetheless a very explicit attempt at making an unequal comparison to make themselves look good. While the speaker might indeed have highlighted the non max-Q GPU as an advantage over the G14, that would nonetheless be a false equivalency as there are - contrary to what you say - definitely non max-Q 2060 AMD-based laptops out there (TUF A15 and HP Omen 15, to mention a few). Either they are misrepresenting the truth by implying that there are no better value, non max-Q AMD laptops out there, or they are misrepresenting the truth by trying to present a GPU power advantage as a CPU/platform performance advantage. So regardless if they're talking about the value of the entire platform or specifically gaming performance, the comparison is a direct attempt at promoting a false equivalency to make themselves look better.

It doesn't matter how much good will you approach this with, it's still fundamentally problematic.

[_MT_]

This doesn't change the fact that they're selectively picking an expensive, semi-premium thin-and-light, 14"/1.6kg gaming laptop to compare against a decidedly mainstream (15.6"/2.3kg) alternative. You would agree that something like the Asus TUF A15 would be a more 1:1 comparison, no?

Truth be told, I'm not really interested in gaming laptops and know little of them, especially the cheaper ones. MSI in particular is a rather uncharted territory for me; I have no clue which model is which with the designations they use. I look at them out of desperation, you could say, as workstations can be a pretty sad sight these days.

Yes, I suspected it wasn't completely apples to apples (G14 doesn't have much direct competition and it's not meant to be a budget option). But I wasn't sure what was available at the time they wrote it. It's not up to date. And G14 was the first I believe. I guess the A15 might have been available as it wasn't far behind. And yes, it would have been a better match.

I was under the impression that laptops with RTX 2060 are going to be fairly rare from the moaning we got in the comments about configurations. That most are going to be 16xx series GPUs (if not AMD) with no option of an RTX.

Reality is that where I live, there are almost no Ryzen laptops on offer. I guess we've got about five. And most of them appeared in the last month IIRC. G14, A15, one ProBook, Acer Swift 3, one Lenovo; maybe one Omen. And last time I checked, most of them had zero stock, sometimes unknown availability. It's end of 6/2020. Generally, I don't see such problems. It's hard to judge how the current health situation have impacted it (not only release to market, but also things being sold out). It might be different elsewhere and I guess that sentence about maintaining the advantage was inaccurate and even ill-informed. Frankly, when I was writing it, I forgot about A15's existence.

The thing is, this material was never intended for the public. And it's up to AMD to provide balance through their training. It's a known advantage of Intel that they have more money and therefore more people to do this stuff. This is not a place where consumer protection applies. I doubt advertising regulations apply either. We all know that sales people can talk complete nonsense. And this is where some of that nonsense has origin.

And that's why it doesn't move me. The laptop they chose was cheaper and posted better numbers. Had I remembered the A15, I might have responded differently. But the basic idea remains. They might have been fully aware of the GPU difference, it might have been a talking point and I think that disclaimer is funny in another way. After all, the article wasn't arguing that these two laptops are from different segments and that there are better options if you want value.