Nvidia’s RTX 4080 graphics card and 4080 laptop GPUs share the same name, but that’s
about all they have in common.
I’ve compared both in 25 games at 4K, 1440p and 1080p resolutions, as well as thermals,
power draw, fan noise, price & more to show you all the differences!
The desktop graphics card has 31% more CUDA cores compared to the laptop version, and
it’s able to use much more power, which allows it to reach higher clock speeds.
The desktop card has 33% more memory capacity, and it uses faster GDDR6X memory with a bigger
memory bus.
To do this testing I’m using XMG’s Neo 16 gaming laptop because it has water cooling
support, which means this is a best case result for an RTX 4080 laptop as there’s no thermal
throttling, but I’ll compare thermals on air and water.
It’s paired with Intel’s Core i9-13900HX CPU and 32 gigs of DDR5-5600 memory.
Along with the RTX 4080 graphics card, the desktop system has Intel’s Core i9-13900K
processor, which was chosen as it has the same amount of cores, threads and cache as
the laptop CPU.
I’ve also tested with 32 gigs of DDR5-5600 memory with the exact same timings as the
laptop.
There are always going to be differences between desktop and laptop parts, that’s just the
way it is.
But by using CPUs with similar specs and the same memory speed, we’re able to reduces
these as much as possible so that we can just focus on the GPUs.
And all 25 games have been tested at max settings, which are usually more GPU heavy too.
The RTX 4080 laptop GPU in XMG’s Neo 16 runs between 150 and 175 watts with dynamic
boost, which is basically the best case for a laptop.
The 4080 laptop GPU can technically run as low as 60 watts, so expect lower performance
compared to what I’m showing here in a thinner and lighter laptop with lower power limit.
Laptops simply have to have lower power limits because more power equals more heat, and I
don’t know if you can tell, but there’s a pretty big size difference between these
two.
Laptop’s just don’t have as much space for cooling.
This means that the laptop fans need to spin faster and louder to keep things cool compared
to the desktop, let’s have a listen.
The desktop is running quieter despite the fact that it’s using 58% more power from
the wall when running Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K max settings, or 68% more power in Control
at max settings, at least when compared to the water cooled results.
The laptop air cooled results weren’t using as much power, partially because the cooler
was off, but also due to thermal throttling.
The laptop GPU was hitting Nvidia’s 87 degree Celsius thermal throttle limit on air cooling,
but with the water cooler connected it wasn’t actually much warmer compared to the desktop.
I’ve included air and water results for this thermal testing, but all games were tested
with the water cooler connected, as I want to compare with a best case 4080 laptop with
no limits.
The extra power allows the desktop GPU to reach higher clock speeds in games when compared
to the laptop version, which will mean more FPS for the desktop, but as we saw, at the
expense of more power.
It’s worth noting that we see a clock speed boost on the laptop with the water cooler,
because this removes thermal throttling and it can use more power.
The laptop actually ends up more power efficient in terms of performance per watt.
The desktop 4080 does hit higher FPS, as you’ll see shortly in the 25 game comparison, but
it also needs more power to achieve this.
Both the laptop and desktop have 16 lanes of PCIe Gen 4 between the CPU and GPU, so
no bandwidth differences here.
Alright, with all that in mind let’s get into the game benchmarks!
After the 25 game comparison we’ll also check out price difference as well as content
creation.
Let’s start out with Cyberpunk 2077.
I’ve got the 1080p results down the bottom, 1440p in the middle and 4K up the top, with
the laptop GPU below the desktop GPU.
The laptop was still performing pretty well at 1440p ultra settings at just under 80 FPS,
but the desktop was 40% faster in this one.
I’ve also tested the higher ray tracing ultra preset, but as this is quite intense
I’ve also set DLSS to quality mode and enabled frame generation.
The desktop still had a clear lead as expected, but again the laptop is still doing quite
well and running nicely at 1440p.
Hogwarts Legacy was tested in Hogsmeade, and the laptop definitely felt a bit less consistent,
as shown by the lower 1% lows.
The desktop was 38% faster than the laptop at 1440p, but 45% faster at the higher 4K
resolution where we’re more GPU bound.
This is another game where I’ve tested with DLSS set to quality mode and frame generation
enabled, which felt much better, especially on the laptop.
I’ve played this game for more than 40 hours with DLSS and frame gen on the entire time,
and in my opinion it runs much nicer with these features than without them.
4K was actually usable on the laptop now.
Marvel’s Spider-Man remastered had some of the smaller differences out of the 25 games
tested, as it’s more CPU heavy, even at higher resolutions.
The 4080 desktop was 34% faster than the 4080 laptop at 4K, which sounds alright, but that’s
the second smallest change at that resolution.
This game also has DLSS and frame generation support, though I don’t think they were
really needed as the laptop was already close to 100 FPS at 4K without them.
The Witcher 3 was tested with its next gen update with the ray tracing preset, and this
game on the other hand had the second biggest lead on the desktop out of all 25 games tested,
reaching a 54% higher average frame rate.
Even the 1% lows from the desktop were a fair bit ahead of the average FPS coming out of
the laptop at 4K and 1440p, and close at 1080p.
Again with frame generation and DLSS on, both are able to get a nice boost.
The laptop was actually usable at 4K now, at just over 60 FPS, of course assuming we’re
counting generated frames.
Regardless, like Hogwarts legacy earlier, I think it played better with it than without.
And ultimately that's what matters.
A plague tale requiem wasn’t going too well on the laptop at 4K, where the desktop was
49% faster, but 1440p wasn’t too bad and was at least much more playable, though the
desktop still had a similar 48% lead there.
Again single player games like this that aren’t latency sensitive can benefit from features
like DLSS and frame generation.
4K on the laptop definitely felt much better with these on when running through the game
for my test, but yeah the desktop still has quite a lead.
Microsoft Flight Simulator on the other hand is another CPU heavier game, as shown by the
minor performance differences at 1080p and 1440p resolutions with the desktop around
16% faster.
The GPU difference starts to matter more at the higher 4K resolution though, as the desktop
was now 48% faster than the laptop.
Turning on DLSS and frame gen offers both desktop and laptop an improvement, but the
biggest gap between them was still seen at 4K.
I want to go through Rainbow Six Extraction next, because it shows an important issue
that current 13th gen HX gaming laptops seem to be subject to, which is more dips in performance,
as shown by the poor 1% lows.
Although the desktop was reaching a 43% higher average frame rate at 1440p, the 1% low was
244% higher, so a much more stable result on the desktop.
Interestingly I’ve found better 1% lows from Intel’s lower tier H processors which
have fewer cores and threads, which tells me that there just might not be enough power
to go around on the laptop.
Something the desktop isn’t limited by.
This is also seen in Forza Horizon 5, where the desktop 4080 was just 29% faster in average
FPS, but its 1% low was 137% higher, again just way more stable.
I’ve noticed this in Dead Space too, now that I’ve tested it a few times recently.
The desktop was 37% faster in average fps at 1440p, but it’s much more stable too,
though to be fair when actually playing the dips didn’t seem as noticeable to me as
other games.
Doom Eternal was another game where this large difference was noted, fortunately for the
most part this was less of an issue in the rest of the games tested.
So yeah, something to be aware of in some games with current gen laptop hardware, regardless
of GPU, because I’ve seen this on 4060, 4070 and 4090 laptops too.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark.
The laptop was still hitting 69 FPS at 4K max settings, nice, but the desktop was 40%
faster.
Apex Legends in the firing range has a 300 FPS frame cap, which the desktop could hit
at 1080p, and that seems to result in it having a worse 1% low compared to 1440p.
In any case, the laptop was still above 100 FPS at 4K max settings, not bad.
Alright so the desktop 4080 graphics card was always beating the laptop version, you
get it.
Instead of wasting your time talking through the rest of the 13 games that I’ve tested,
I’ll instead just quickly skip through the rest of the results on screen now, so feel
free to pause the video if you want a closer look at any of the other games tested.
I think it’s important to test a wide selection of games so that we can get an accurate picture
of the average performance differences to make the fairest possible conclusion.
In other words, more data equals more better.
Let’s look at those average differences next.
On average over all 25 games tested, at 1080p the RTX 4080 desktop GPU was about 30% faster
when compared to the RTX 4080 laptop GPU.
Results clearly depend on the specific game, as CPU heavier titles like Far Cry 6, Watch
Dogs Legion, Flight Sim and Spider-Man saw the smallest gains on the desktop, while other
GPU heavy titles were up to 46% faster on the desktop.
The desktop’s lead increases at the higher 1440p resolution, now coming out 39% ahead
of the laptop.
For comparison, when I did this same comparison between an RTX 4090 desktop card and 4090
laptop there was a larger 49% difference, so the gap isn’t quite as massive at 1440p
with the 4080s.
Again a number of CPU heavy games saw less of a difference, even at this higher resolution.
This changes at the highest 4K resolution, where even the smallest improvement was a
32% boost with the desktop, and on average out of all 25 games the desktop was now 45%
faster than the laptop.
Again for comparison, the 4090 desktop was 67% faster than a 4090 laptop in a similar
selection of games, so the 4080 gap isn’t as big, but it’s still fairly large considering
both GPUs have the same name.
Here’s how frame rates look if we instead take the average of all 25 games at all resolutions
at max settings.
I think this better allows us to visually see how much better the desktop is in a quick
and easy summary.
The 4080 laptop GPU was definitely still capable, considering these results don’t include
features like FSR, DLSS or frame generation.
It’s just that the desktop offers more performance comparatively.
Just before the price difference we’ve got a couple of content creation tests.
The 4080 desktop was scoring 62% higher in the Blender Classroom test, 57% higher in
the Junkshop test, and 59% higher in the Monster test.
DaVinci Resolve tests video editing with the Puget Systems benchmark, and the 4080 desktop
was scoring 40% higher in this one.
So the desktop 4080 was better than the laptop 4080 in every workload, surprising no one.
But what about the price?
Prices and availability will change over time, so check those links below the video for current
updates and sales.
And speaking of sales, we update the gaminglaptop.deals website every day so that you can get the
best deal on your next gaming laptop!
Again check that out with the link below.
Right now we’re looking at around $3335 USD for a brand new PC with similar components
to what I’ve tested here.
Obviously you could get a cheaper motherboard, power supply, CPU cooler, case and less SSD
space to lower the price even further while getting similar performance in games, but
this is a similar configuration to what I’ve tested here.
I mean just getting the cheapest 4080 currently available instead would save you $200.
The laptop on the other hand is actually cheaper at around $2950 USD, and that includes $150
for the optional liquid cooler.
I suppose I didn’t include a screen, keyboard, and mouse in the desktop build budget, so
that’s something to factor in too if you don’t already have those.
There are also cheaper 4080 laptops than this, but not by much, and they’re definitely
not water cooled.
The desktop setup is winning from a cost per frame perspective.
Yeah it costs around $400 more money if using the same graphics card I’ve tested with,
but this is offset by the higher performance that it’s able to offer.
So despite costing more, the desktop 4080 offers better value.
Not to mention the desktop can also be easily upgraded in the future.
Next gen if you really wanted to you could just take out the 4080 and stick in a 5080
or whatever comes out.
But for the laptop you’d have to replace the entire machine.
Ultimately for the most part, it’s going to come down to whether or not you need portability.
If you do, then good luck taking something like this to school or the office.
Of course you could build a much smaller PC, my point is you would also need to take things
with you like a monitor, keyboard, mouse and some sort of power supply like a heavy UPS.
These are different machines for different people with different use cases.
It all comes down to personal preference.
I mentioned earlier that there’s an even bigger performance difference between a 4090
desktop and 4090 laptop.
Check out this video next to find out if it’s worth paying more for the 4090 over the 4080s.
I’ve compared the same 25 games at 3 resolutions, so you’ll be able to compare the results
with this video.
I’ll see you in that one next!