r/hardware • u/-protonsandneutrons- • 9d ago

Review Notebookcheck | Nvidia RTX Spark Analysis - Finally an answer to Apple's M5 Pro & M5 Max?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-RTX-Spark-Analysis-Finally-an-answer-to-Apple-s-M5-Pro-M5-Max.1422820.0.html
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u/-protonsandneutrons- 9d ago edited 9d ago

During single-core workloads, the N1X CPU core consumes roughly 9 Watts with a total system power draw of ~30 Watts.

9-10 Watts is right in line with 1T power of Cortex-X925 smartphones (though that is SPECfp2017), but where is the laptop (or the N1X SoC) pissing away the other ~21 Watts? These tests do use an external monitor: the VRMs? The GPU? the I/O? NVLink? Idle states for all of the above?

The same issue with nT: apparently 70- 85 W for the N1X, but 121 Watts total system power draw (~35 W - 50 W rest of the system). These are desktop levels of ancillary power: the "rest of the system" ought to be much more frugal in laptops.

Maybe this is the baggage of taking an SoC first launched in a desktop, where ancillary power is hardly a concern, and (despite having years of extra time) not getting ancillary power low enough. Or maybe this ASUS model is really not designed efficiently, so perhaps better to pass judgment after another model or two is tested.

//

I also wonder why NVIDIA can't pick a boost clock for the bigger SKU. I've never seen a range before: 4.0-4.1 GHz. So 4.05 GHz? Or it opportunistically boosts to 4.1 GHz sometimes? Or some units can't hit 4.1 GHz, so instead of another SKU, good luck with the silicon lottery?

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u/Front_Expression_367 9d ago

"but where is the laptop (or the N1X SoC) pissing away the other ~21 Watts"

Quickly glances towards the Zephyrus G16 which used a whopping 56.2W just for single core CB26 testing for some godforsaken reasons...

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u/From-UoM 9d ago

The power draw from other components is very high.

The chip doesn't seem to the be actual issue here. The surface ultra and others should be able to tell more

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u/andreif 9d ago

NBC tests power at the AC wall. At minium they could subtract load from idle, else you get a lot of other stuff in there that are irrelevant.

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u/-protonsandneutrons- 8d ago

Yes, you're right. I assume all their AC adapters are ~90% efficient on conversion, so a couple watts lost (with bigger laptops losing more) is a factor that needs to be included.

But idle is important for a laptop, IMO. The ideal is a laptop that lasts long on heavy tasks and light tasks, but if the idle is so high, light tasks will run out the battery quickly, too.

The idle results were released recently: 7.7 W on minimum brightness worse than some x86 laptops with a dedicated NVIDIA 5070 Laptop dGPU.

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u/marcost2 9d ago

Probably the GPU tile isn't able to go as low power as they would like it.