The differences between Nvidia’s desktop RTX 3050 graphics card and an 3050 laptop
were bigger than I expected, as you’ll see in this 15 game comparison.
When I previously compared a 3060 desktop and 3060 laptop,
the desktop was just 8% faster than the laptop.
Then when I did the same test between a 3070 desktop and 3070 laptop, the desktop was 28%
faster, then with a 3080 desktop compared to a 3080 laptop,
the 3080 desktop was 45% faster than the laptop.
So the performance difference was getting larger between desktop and laptop at higher power limits.
So based on this trend, I was expecting the differences between the 3050 to be
even smaller than what I saw with the 3060. But that just wasn’t the case, and the performance
difference between a desktop and laptop 3050 was bigger than I expected. Let’s find out why!
This part of the video has been sponsored by GIGABYTE and AORUS gaming and creator laptops,
featuring up to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
graphics card and up to the latest 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor.
The Aorus 17x takes gaming to the next level with a fast 360hz screen,
a 16 core processor and plenty of room for cooling to keep your games running smoothly.
With an amazing looking 4K 16:10 OLED screen and top end specs,
Gigabyte's Aero 16 is perfect for content creators on the go.
You can enter to win an Aero laptop with the sponsored link in the description.
Back to the 3050 comparison. Checking out the differences in specs between the RTX 3050 mobile
and desktop GPUs gives us some hints as to why the difference was bigger than expected.
They’re actually using different dies,
and the desktop card has 25% more CUDA cores compared to the laptop. Not only that,
but the desktop card has 8 gigs of VRAM while the laptop has half the amount at just 4 gigs,
plus the desktop card has more memory bandwidth and a higher GPU power limit.
To do this testing I’m using the Core 17 from XMG for the laptop.
It’s got a 6 core 12 thread Intel i5-11400H CPU and 16 gigs of DDR4-3200 memory in dual channel.
Unfortunately this model does not have a MUX switch, so all testing has been done
with an external screen connected to bypass optimus. The desktop system isn’t limited
by integrated graphics and I didn’t want that to be a factor on the laptop side.
The desktop PC on the other hand also has 16 gigs of DDR4-3200 memory.
The timings are lower, but I’d argue that’s just a common difference between
laptops and desktops. It’s also got a 6 core 12 thread Intel processor, the i5-11400F.
I bought this just to try and make the comparison as fair as possible. Both are
Intel 11th gen chips, though the laptop’s is based on 10nm while the desktop is 14nm,
but both have the same core and thread count, same amount of cache and similar clock speeds.
Look, there’s always going to be a difference between laptop and desktop processors,
that’s just the way it is, but I think that this choice best minimizes these differences
as much as possible. And we can see this in the performance differences,
which don’t actually end up being all that big in a CPU test like Cinebench. We’re talking about
the desktop CPU scoring 2% higher in multi core while the laptop was 5% ahead in single core, so
I’m going to say that this is as good as it gets for a fair comparison between laptop and desktop.
We’re going to focus on higher setting presets in games too,
which are usually more GPU bound and care less about the CPUs anyway.
Now the RTX 3050 in my gaming laptop runs between 80 and 95 watts,
and this is basically the best a gaming laptop can do when it comes to the 3050.
It’s worth mentioning though that the laptop 3050 can run as low as 35 watts in thinner
laptops according to Nvidia’s spec sheet. And less power would equal less performance.
So consider this comparison as somewhat of a best case, as this is basically
the fastest laptop 3050 that we can get. Other gaming laptops with lower powered
3050s would result in a bigger performance gap between the laptop and the desktop.
Laptops have to have lower GPU power limits, because
more power equals more heat, but more power does also equal more performance.
I don’t know if you can tell, but the size difference between these two is pretty big.
Basically laptops just have less space for cooling because they’re meant to be
more portable. And that would still be the case even if we had a Mini ITX PC build.
This means that the laptop fans need to spin faster and
louder to keep things cool compared to a desktop.
Despite the desktop running quieter, it’s pulling 60% more power from the wall when running an
actual game compared to the laptop. The game benchmarks are common soon,
but spoiler, the performance gain isn’t also 60%, the laptop is more power efficient.
The laptop’s GPU was only running a little warmer with the fans on auto, but it is
also using less power while sounding louder. The laptop could also run cooler if we boost its fans,
but there isn’t really a need, it’s far below Nvidia’s 87 degree thermal throttle limit.
Just before the games, I also want to note that there’s no PCIe bandwidth difference here,
both the laptop and desktop GPUs have 8 lanes of PCIe gen 4 connectivity to the CPU.
Alright so with all of that in mind let’s get into those game benchmarks.
We’ve compared 15 games at 1080p, then after that we’ll check out
content creator workloads including 3D modeling, rendering and video editing.
Let’s start out with Call of Duty Warzone. I’ve got the RTX 3050 in the laptop underneath the
desktop version, and both were tested at 1080p max settings. The desktop system was reaching a 24%
higher average FPS compared to the laptop, which is an above
average difference out of the 15 games tested.
There was a smaller difference in Apex Legends, with the desktop system just 12% ahead of the
laptop now. Honestly with the laptop still running above 100 FPS at max settings, it’s
still going to play the game just fine without too much performance loss compared to the desktop.
Fortnite was tested with the game’s replay feature, so the exact same test through the game
on both machines, and the desktop was only 10 FPS higher than the laptop at high settings,
or a 14% boost to average FPS. So again the desktop is better,
but it wasn’t that big of a difference in this game.
The laptop's 4 gigs of VRAM start becoming more of a limit in more demanding games like
Cyberpunk 2077, which is one of the reasons why the desktop now had a much higher 33%
average FPS compared to the laptop. I mean even the dips in performance
measured by the 1% lows on the desktop were ahead of the laptops averages.
Other games like Forza Horizon 5 don’t really seem to care about the difference, as this game
had the smallest difference out of all 15 titles tested. The desktop was only reaching an 8% higher
average frame rate, so yeah it’s still winning, but the laptop really isn’t far behind at all.
Metro Exodus Enhanced on the other hand had the biggest difference out of all 15 games tested.
The desktop 3050 was able to get us a 68% higher average FPS, quite a big change.
The difference in Red Dead Redemption 2 wasn’t quite as big though. The desktop
was just able to get above 60 FPS in the game’s benchmark,
which puts it 17% faster compared to the laptop 3050. This game and many others
do support either DLSS or FSR, so these could also be used to further boost FPS.
Watch Dogs Legion was tested because this game is quick to complain about there not
being enough VRAM available unless we’ve got 8 gigs, but even with the 4 gigs available
to the laptop we only found the desktop 11% higher. 70 FPS on the laptop at high settings
is still absolutely playable. And again you could boost either machine with DLSS.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla had a larger 25% boost with the desktop. I’ve seen this game do quite
poorly at higher setting levels with just 4 gigs of VRAM, so I think it’s pretty safe to say that
this memory difference is why there’s an above average improvement seen with the desktop 3050.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was reaching a 15% higher average FPS with the desktop 3050
at high settings, while God of War had a very similar 14% boost to average FPS on the desktop.
Again the laptop is still playing the game just fine at about 60 FPS high settings,
the desktop isn’t that much faster in this one.
Far Cry 6 was tested with the game’s benchmark tool,
and while we usually test with HD textures on, we had to test with them off due to the 4 gig
VRAM limit on the laptop. The desktop had a 14% higher average FPS in this one too,
though either machine could turn on FSR if we want even higher frame rates.
Dying Light 2 was 17% faster with the desktop 3050,
though at 48 FPS you might want to either lower from high settings or enable DLSS.
We could have tested with lower levels, but I chose to stick to higher settings where possible
as these tend to be more GPU heavy, and this is a GPU comparison afterall.
Control is a fairly GPU heavy game, which might just explain why it had the second
biggest difference out of all 15 games tested with the desktop reaching a 49%
higher average frame rate. This is another game where even the dips in performance
shown by the 1% lows on the desktop were even quite a bit ahead of the averages on the laptop.
This was the game we compared the power draw with earlier. The desktop was using 60%
more power in order to get us that 49% FPS boost, so I’d say the laptop is more power efficient,
especially considering that most other games weren’t seeing FPS gains this large.
Rainbow Six Siege had a below average difference though, with the desktop around
17% faster compared to the laptop, so a nice boost with the desktop, but given the laptop
is running around 200 FPS at ultra settings it’s not as if it’s even close to unplayable.
On average over all 15 games tested at 1080p, the desktop RTX 3050 was 23% faster than the
laptop. As we can see here, the results really vary based on the specific game.
Forza Horizon 5 down the bottom for example was only 8% faster on the desktop, while Metro
Exodus Enhanced had a much higher 68% boost over the laptop. We would expect the games
that are limited by the 4 gigs of VRAM on the laptop to show up closer to the top,
given that’s one of the biggest differences between the laptop and desktop 3050.
Alright so what about non-gaming differences? It’s not all just about maximum FPS and headshots.
Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmark, which should make use of Optix where possible.
The differences in the classroom and monster tests were 10 and 9% faster on the desktop respectively,
so a bit lower compared to the majority of the games we just looked at. The junkshop test was
scoring way higher on the desktop though. I suspect this is due to the VRAM differences,
because we’ve found this Blender benchmark to fail often on laptops with just 4 gigs of VRAM.
The difference was a little smaller in V-Ray. The desktop was scoring 5% higher in the CUDA test,
not super impressive considering the desktop card has 25% more CUDA cores than the laptop.
V-Ray also has a ray tracing test, and this was scoring just 6% higher on the desktop.
DaVinci Resolve was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark, and this video editing workload
generally benefits from more GPU power. That said, I was still expecting the CPU and RAM difference
to result in a bigger change here, but the desktop was only scoring 8% higher than the laptop.
SPECviewperf tests out various professional 3D workloads. The desktop 3050, shown by the
red bars, was pretty much always ahead of the laptop 3050 in the purple bars,
with the exception being the energy test which might be an outlier. Though that
said there’s actually very little difference between both GPUs in most of these tests.
Alright so the desktop 3050 was better in all workloads, surprising no one.
But what’s the price difference? Pricing and availability will change over time,
so refer to the links below the video for updates.
Right now the price of a 3050 laptop can vary significantly based on the specific model.
At Newegg 3050 laptops start at around $700 USD with the same 11400H CPU that I’ve tested here,
but we can see they easily start approaching $1000 USD.
Pro tip, don’t spend $1000 on a 3050 gaming laptop,
you can squeeze a 3060 into that budget on sale and it will absolutely destroy a 3050.
For a desktop PC, well, graphics card prices have been all over the place
but are finally starting to come down.
The cheapest 3050 card on Newegg right now is Gigabyte’s Eagle at $327 USD, and this
is actually the exact same card we tested with, and prices go up from there based on the model.
The rest of the price will greatly depend on the other parts you select.
I’ve picked basically the cheapest stuff that somewhat closely matches what I’ve tested here,
though my RAM is double at around $100. This also doesn’t include a monitor,
keyboard or mouse though, all of which are built into a laptop, but still it’s possible to build
a 3050 based desktop PC for around the general sort of price range that 3050 laptops occupy.
At the end of the day, to me personally, the price difference isn’t even that much
of a major factor. Do you actually need to take your machine with you? If you do,
then good luck taking something like this to the office or school. For people that
do actually need portability, then the laptop option is the no-brainer.
Or maybe it’s another reason, like you just don’t have enough desk space to keep something
like this hanging around all the time. Laptops clearly take up less desk space if you don’t have
that much room. It all really depends on your personal use case. If you do need portability,
then consider the laptop, if you don’t need portability then consider a desktop.
Obviously this is going to be much easier to upgrade. You can’t take out the CPU
and GPU of the laptop and change them later, but you can do that with this.
The point I’m trying to make is there are different solutions for different people.
I just get way too many comments on videos like this of people saying stuff like “buying a laptop
is a mistake, just get a desktop”. Really when it comes down to it, it depends on what you need.
Now this doesn’t necessarily mean you should even buy an RTX 3050 for your desktop.
As Hardware Unboxed recently said in this video over here, you’d be mad not to buy the Radeon RX
6600 instead, as it’s both 29% faster in games in a 50 game average while also being cheaper.
But nevertheless, we have fairly been able to compare
a 3050 in a desktop and a 3050 in a laptop.
Now Nvidia’s RTX 3060 performs way better than the 3050, but the differences between a 3060
desktop and laptop aren’t actually that big. You can check out all of
the differences over in this video next. Or if you instead want to see the even bigger
difference between laptop and desktop 3070s or 3080s then check out one of these videos
instead. Or check out this one if you want to see the most powerful laptop compared to
the most powerful desktop I could build. I’ll see you in one of these videos next.