Bottom line: Nvidia's change of philosophy with regards to RTX 30-series laptop GPU branding is a big win for gamers, fifty-fifty though it'll be a headache for OEMs that would be more than than happy to go along y'all in the dark about which variant you're getting with a particular laptop.

You need not expect further than our review of the GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU to understand that while information technology does offer groovy value, it comes in several configurations that brand it very difficult for the boilerplate consumer to differentiate. We're talking nearly more than 70 different laptop models beyond various price points.

In the past, Nvidia used a somewhat adequate approach that helped potential buyers base of operations their decision on the branding seen on product pages of laptop OEMs. At that place were notwithstanding many sub-variants to choose from, just people who wanted lower-power versions would look for "Max-Q" in the name, while enthusiasts who wanted the all-time performance would chase for the "Max-P" versions.

Image credit: Asus via Tweakers.net

With 2022 laptops, Nvidia made things more confusing by choosing to name all variants of a given RTX 30-serial GPU the same, explaining that optimizations had been fabricated at the system level on all laptops using the new GPUs. After giving it more thought, the company will now require all companies selling these laptops to exist more transparent almost their graphics subsystems.

In other words, while Nvidia used to encourage manufacturers to country clocks and power consumption on their product pages, now information technology requires them to practice so. Withal, the Max-Q branding can still exist used, admitting for different reasons, such as indicating support for Dynamic Boost 2.0, Advanced Optimus, and Whisper Fashion 2.0.

Many RTX 30-serial laptop listings take withal to exist updated to reflect differences in the clock speed and total power consumption. Nevertheless, manufacturers like Asus, Acer, Razer, Origin, MSI, Alienware, and Gigabyte accept already updated some product pages, so things are moving in the right direction for consumers.