NVIDIA T550 Laptop GPU vs NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 (Laptop) vs NVIDIA Quadro T1000 Max-Q

The Nvidia T550 Laptop GPU (formerly known as Quadro T550 Mobile) for laptops is a professional mobile graphics card that is based on the Turing architecture (TU117 chip). It is based on the consumer GeForce MX550 and features the same 1024 cores and a 64 Bit memory bus. The card offers 4 GB GDDR6 with a maximum bandwidth of 112 GB/s and no dedicated display outputs (iGPU display outputs used via Optimus). The chip is manufactured in 12nm FinFET at TSMC. 

The professional GPUs offer certified drivers, which are optimized for stability and performance in professional applications (CAD, DCC, medical, prospection, and visualizing applications). The performance in these areas is therefore much better compared to corresponding consumer GPUs.

The Turing generation did not only introduce raytracing for the RTX cards, but also optimized the architecture of the cores and caches. According to Nvidia the CUDA cores offer now a concurrent execution of floating point and integer operations for increased performance in compute-heavy workloads of modern games. Furthermore, the caches were reworked (new unified memory architecture with twice the cache compared to Pascal). This leads to up to 50% more instructions per clock and a 40% more power efficient usage compared to Pascal. In contrary to the faster Quadro RTX cards, the T550 does not feature raytracing and Tensor cores.

The Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 for laptops is a professional high-end graphics card for big and powerful laptops and mobile workstations. It is based on the same TU104 chip as the consumer GeForce RTX 2080 (mobile) but offers more shaders (128 more). Compared to the desktop RTX 5000, the mobile variant offers lower clock speeds. There are different versions available with 110 Watt (1035 - 1545 MHz) and 150 Watt (1350 - 1770 MHz) in addition to the even lower clocked Max-Q variant.

The Quadro GPUs offer certified drivers, which are optimized for stability and performance in professional applications (CAD, DCC, medical, prospection, and visualizing applications). The performance in these areas is therefore much better compared to corresponding consumer GPUs.

Features

NVIDIA manufacturers the TU104 chip on a 12 nm FinFET process and includes features like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and Real-Time Ray Tracing (RTRT), which should combine to create more realistic lighting effects than older GPUs based on the company's Pascal architecture (if the games support it). The Quadro RTX 5000 is also DisplayPort 1.4 ready, while there is also support for HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) and H.265 video en/decoding (PlayReady 3.0).

Performance

Depending on the application or game, the Quadro RTX 5000 is even faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 and therefore the fastest mobile graphics card. Especially for some professional apps and workflows that make use of the large VRAM, the Quadro can best the RTX2080 clearly.

The high power consumption of the RTX5000 makes the card most suited for big and heavy laptops. The slower Max-Q variant is intended for thinner laptops.

The Nvidia Quadro T1000 with Max-Q Design is a professional mobile graphics card that is based on the Turing architecture (TU117 chip). Compared to the consumer GTX 1650, the Quadro T1000 features less CUDA cores / shaders (768 versus 896). The chip is manufactured in 12nm FinFET at TSMC. Compared to the normal Quadro T1000, the Max-Q variants are clocked lower and work in a more efficient state. Currently, we know of two variants with different clock speeds and power consumptions (35 and 40 W).

The Quadro T1000 is a mobile graphics card that is based on the Turing architecture (TU116 chip). Compared to the faster RTX 2000 GPUs (e.g. RTX 2060), the T1000 integrates no Raytracing or Tensor cores. Due to the same boost clock as the mobile T1000, the Max-Q variants can perform similar with sufficient cooling.

The Turing generation did not only introduce raytracing for the RTX cards, but also optimized the architecture of the cores and caches. According to Nvidia the CUDA cores offer now a concurrent execution of floating point and integer operations for increased performance in compute-heavy workloads of modern games. Furthermore, the caches were reworked (new unified memory architecture with twice the cache compared to Pascal). This leads to up to 50% more instructions per clock and a 40% more power efficient usage compared to Pascal.

Thanks to the low power consumption, the Max-Q T2000 GPU can be used in thin and light laptops. The used TU116 chip is manufactured in 12nm FFN at TSMC.