Don’t waste your money buying a high powered RTX 4050, 4060 or 4070 laptop GPU! They don’t
actually perform any better in games compared to cheaper laptops with lower powered versions.
In the past, gaming laptops with higher powered GPUs would get better FPS in games. More power
equals more performance. But that’s not always the case with Nvidia’s new RTX 40 series.
These are the power level ranges that all 5 of Nvidia’s new RTX 40 laptop GPUs can run between,
without dynamic boost. If we include dynamic boost then the actual maximum is 25 watts higher than
all these. and brands are definitely advertising their laptops with these maximum power levels.
But check this out. Here’s how the RTX 4050, 4060 and 4070 laptop GPUs perform
with only the Heaven GPU stress test running. These are all max powered 140 watt laptops,
including 25 watts of dynamic boost. The 4050 seems to be running around 80 watts,
the 4060 is below 100 watts, while the 4070 is below 90 watts.
But then on the other hand, the higher tier RTX 4080 and 4090
laptop GPUs are able to run closer to 160 watts in the same GPU stress test,
so they’re actually able to run in the dynamic boost range closer to their maximum limit.
So what’s going on with the lower tier GPUs? They’re not thermal throttling,
so why aren’t they going higher?
If we look under the GPU performance limiters section of hardware info,
we can see that the reliability voltage limit gets hit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this
before RTX 40 series, but it’s happening on the 4050, 4060 and 4070 in a GPU only stress test.
If we change to a different GPU workload like Furmark,
then suddenly we’ve got no problem hitting 140 watts. The voltage limit is not hit,
so it clearly depends on the GPU workload being run.
Which makes me wonder, do games actually perform any better at 140 watts?
These lines show how all 5 GPUs score in Timespy graphics in 10 watt power
increments. At around 100 watts or so, the 4050, 4060 and 4070 start flat lining and
are not able to achieve higher scores despite there being more power limit headroom available.
This is because they’re hitting that voltage limit, preventing them from actually running
at higher wattage. The 4080 and 4090 on the other hand have no problem reaching higher
scores with more power. Interestingly, the 4090 doesn’t really perform all that
differently between 80 and 95 watts, but that’s a story for another time.
Of course Time Spy isn’t an actual game. Different games require different resources
and perform differently, so I’ve tested 10 games on the RTX 4050, 4060 and 4070 laptop
GPUs in 10 watt power increments to see if more power actually gives us more FPS.
These are the average frame rates from all 10 games tested on the RTX 4050
laptop GPU at 1080p at different power levels. We start out with 40 watts down
the bottom to represent a more budget friendly laptop with lower power limit,
and go right up to 140 watts to show what the most powerful 4050 can achieve best case. Once
we get to about 90 watts, the 4050 isn’t really giving us any more FPS with higher
power levels. Because they're not actually being reached due to NVIDIA's voltage limit.
Now here’s how things look if we average the same 10 games, but on the higher tier RTX 4060 laptop
GPU at the higher 1440p resolution. This time there’s not really a performance improvement
beyond 100 watts. We’re talking about less than a 1 FPS difference between 100 and 140 watts,
so within the margin of error range and not something you’d notice when playing. There’s
a 53% FPS boost going from 40 to 90 watts, that’s where most of the gains come from.
It’s a similar deal on the RTX 4070 laptop GPU, with a 47% improvement going from 40
to 90 watts. Again 100 watts and above gave basically no extra performance,
while 90 watts is only like 1 FPS slower than 100 watts on average, so diminishing returns
above 90 watts, because it’s not actually going any higher due to the voltage limit.
The dips in performance, as measured by the 1% lows, weren’t as consistent as the average FPS
at 100 watts and above. I don’t think this is due to dynamic boost, because again the higher
wattages aren’t actually getting hit. If I had to guess, constantly hitting the voltage throttle
limit and operating in that state may not be as smooth compared to not running into it at all.
I didn’t test all 10 games on the RTX 4080 and 4090 laptop GPUs, but there’s no need
to. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is enough to confirm what we saw in the Time Spy graph
earlier. That the 4080 and 4090 are able to scale better, more power gives them more performance.
You can check the raw FPS numbers in all 10 games at 11 different power levels on
all 3 GPUs with the link below the video. I’ve uploaded them for channel supporters,
as this amount of testing takes an enormous amount of time, and it's your support that
allows me to do these thorough investigations. But spoiler, in the 10 games that I tested there
weren’t any outliers. All of the games stopped performing better once we got to 100 watts.
Now I have only tested games here. It is possible that other workloads or maybe even specific games
might be able to get a performance improvement at 140 watts without being hit by that voltage
limit. But that wasn’t the case in the 10 random games that I’ve tested here,
so I can only assume that that’s going to be the case in the majority of games.
I don’t know if there will ever be a way to remove the voltage limit, or why it exists,
maybe the GPUs just can’t take any more and it’s some kind of hardware limitation. Either way,
it’s definitely an Nvidia limitation, as I’ve seen this happen from 4050s,
4060s and 4070s regardless of laptop brand. The cynical side of me wonders if it’s an artificial
limit so that there’s some space to launch an RTX 4070 Ti laptop GPU next year or something.
If the 4050, 4060 and 4070 don’t actually run above 100 watts in most actual games,
is it even fair to advertise them with these power limits?
In the past, an 80 watt RTX 3060 was looked down upon compared to a 140 watt version as
it doesn’t perform as well, and the 80 watt version would be found in either a
cheaper or thinner laptop. But now a 70 watt 4060 can match that 140 watt 3060,
it’s just that the 4060 stops getting a benefit at around 100 watts.
So a plus side of these lower powered 40 series laptop GPUs is that they can still perform pretty
well in thinner and more budget friendly laptops. It’s just that they seem to max out at around 100
watts or so even though the spec sheet kind of implies that they should go higher. Which I think
most people would think means more performance in games, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
In my laptop reviews I always mention the minimum and maximum GPU power limit,
and the way I find the minimum power limit is by running a CPU and GPU stress test at
the same time. But now I think I’m going to have to change the minimum wattage number to
whatever number gets hit in a GPU only stress test when the voltage limit gets
hit. And the maximum will just be what is specified in Nvidia’s control panel,
even if technically we might not actually ever see that in many games. Because as we saw,
some workloads can run there. So based on these results, there’s no real reason to make
the mistake of spending more money on a higher wattage RTX 4050, 4060 or 4070 gaming laptop.
If you see either of those three GPUs advertised at 140 watt max power limit,
don’t be fooled, it’s not really going to matter in most games.
You’re just not really going to see an FPS boost going up from 90 to 100 watts.
Check this video next to find out about other common gaming
laptop mistakes and how you can avoid them!