The differences between Nvidia’s desktop 3070 Ti and laptop 3070 Ti are much smaller
than you think!
We’ve tested 15 games at 1080p and 1440p resolutions to show you all the differences!
When I previously compared a 3070 laptop against a 3070 desktop, the desktop was about 28%
faster than the laptop, but when it comes to these newer 3070 Tis, the gap was much
smaller.
So you’re not actually gaining that much by going with a desktop.
Let’s find out why!
But first, you can get great deals on both laptop and desktop PCs with the Intel Gamer
Days sale at HP, who have sponsored this part of the video.
Prices have already been reduced, but you can save even more with these coupon codes.
With Intel’s Core i7-12700K processor, HP’s Omen 45L gaming desktop is ready to run whatever
you throw at it, with more than a $500 discount!
If you’re after more portability, HP’s Victus gaming laptop starts at $750 with Intel’s
Core i5-12500H, but both can be customized and upgraded with the sponsored link below
the video, so check that out for these limited time sales!
Back to the GPU comparison.
The desktop card only has 4% more CUDA cores compared to the laptop, and although both
have 8 gigs of VRAM, the desktop is using faster GDDR6X memory with more bandwidth.
The desktop card also has a higher GPU power limit at almost double the amount, which results
in it reaching higher clock speeds.
To do this testing I’m using MSI’s GE67 HX for the laptop.
It’s got a 16 core 24 thread Intel CPU with 32 gigs of DDR5-4800 memory in dual channel.
This laptop has a MUX switch, so all testing has been done with optimus disabled for best
results.
The desktop isn’t limited by optimus, and I figured most 3070 Ti laptops will probably
have a MUX switch anyway, so this keeps things fair.
The desktop PC on the other hand also has 32 gigs of DDR5-4800 memory, and although
it’s using an Intel 12th gen i7 CPU too, the 12700KF actually has half the E cores
compared to the laptop.
If I wanted the desktop to have the desktop with the same amount of cores as the laptop,
I would have had to of used the i9-12900K.
The problem with that though is the i9 has both higher single core turbo boost speeds
and more cache.
Two things which are known to affect gaming performance, and I’d argue that that would
affect more games compared to having fewer E cores compared to the laptop.
At the end of the day there’s always going to be a difference between desktop and laptop
processors.
That’s just the way it is, but I think this choice will at least minimize the difference
as much as possible so that we can focus on the differences between the GPUs.
If we look at the differences in CPU performance, the desktop i7 only ends up 5% ahead of the
laptop in single core performance.
The multicore score was 11% higher on the desktop despite it having half the amount
of E cores due to higher power limits, but regardless, we’ve got the best laptop i7
and best desktop i7 from Intel’s 12th gen.
We’re going to focus on higher setting levels in games too, which are usually more GPU bound
and that’ll mean that the differences between CPUs matter even less.
Now the RTX 3070 Ti in this laptop runs at 150 watts all day long, and that’s the best
you can get in any laptop.
According to Nvidia’s spec sheet, the 3070 Ti laptop’s power limit range is between
80 and 125 watts.
Some laptops can run the 3070 Ti right up to 150 watts with Nvidia’s dynamic boost.
But usually that only triggers if the CPU isn’t also loaded up at the same time as
the GPU.
But the GE67 kind of takes things to the next level and always runs the GPU at 150 watts
even if the CPUs under full load too.
So it’s basically a maxed out 3070 Ti laptop.
The desktop card on the other hand runs up to 290 watts, which is almost double the 150
on the laptop.
But as this is a best case laptop, the difference between these two will be smaller compared
to other laptops that have lower GPU power limits.
Say we had a thinner gaming laptop with an RTX 3070 Ti that ran the GPU at 80 watts,
then the gap between desktop and laptop would be even bigger than what I’m going to show
here.
Laptops have to have lower GPU power limits because more power equals more heat, but more
power also equals more performance.
I don’t know if you can tell, but there’s a pretty big size difference between these
two.
Basically laptops just have to have less space for cooling because they need to remain portable,
and the laptop would still be smaller and more portable even if we had a mini ITX build
over here.
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.
Despite the desktop running quieter, it’s pulling 65% more power from the wall when
running Fortnite at 1440p epic settings, or 84% more power in Control at high settings.
The game benchmarks are coming soon, but spoiler, the performance gain on the desktop isn’t
anywhere near 60%, the laptop is far more power efficient.
The desktop’s GPU was running a little warmer compared to the laptops, but as we just saw
it is also using significantly more power, and more power means more heat to dissipate.
Not only that, but the laptop’s fans were louder too.
The higher power levels from the desktop also result in higher clock speeds compared to
the laptop.
Just before the games, I also want to note that there’s a PCIe bandwidth difference
here.
All gaming laptops in 2022 have 8 lanes of PCIe Gen 4 for the GPU.
A 3070 Ti desktop card can use 16 lanes though, so double the bandwidth, but honestly in most
games, this difference shouldn’t matter too much.
I suppose we could have tried limiting the desktop graphics card to also only use 8 lanes
of PCIe Gen 4.
But I figured most people getting a 3070 Ti desktop system wouldn’t be doing that.
It’s just a legitimate difference between the two platforms.
Alright, with that in mind let’s get into the game benchmarks!
We’ve compared 15 games at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions, and then after that we’ll
check out price differences as well as content creator workloads like 3D modeling, video
editing and rendering.
Let’s start out with Cyberpunk 2077.
I’ve got the RTX 3070 Ti in the laptop underneath the desktop version, with the 1080p results
underneath the 1440p results.
At 1080p the desktop was 15% ahead of the laptop, and then the desktop had a slightly
larger 17% lead at the higher 1440p resolution.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark, and had one of the smaller
differences out of all 15 games tested.
At 1080p the desktop was only 12% ahead in average FPS, and then again a slightly larger
14% lead at 1440p.
The performance gap generally increases at higher resolutions, as these are more GPU
bound.
God of War also had a slightly bigger difference at 1440p, but the game would still be quite
smooth at max settings on the laptop.
We could of course enable features like DLSS in this game as well as the ones before it
to further boost frame rates too.
Without that feature, the desktop was 17% faster than the laptop at 1080p, and 19% faster
at 1440p.
Forza Horizon 5 was tested with the game’s benchmark.
This game had the smallest difference out of all 15 titles tested at the higher 1440p
resolution, with the desktop just 13% ahead of the laptop.
Again like the other games, the laptop is still offering a great result.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge.
This one had the smallest difference out of all games at 1080p, with the desktop only
9% ahead of the laptop.
The desktop’s lead is a little bigger with a 15% higher average FPS at the higher 1440p
resolution, but yeah again the laptop is still running above 60 FPS high settings 1440p,
not bad.
Far Cry 6 was tested with the game’s benchmark, and was a more middle of the pack result compared
to others.
The desktop was reaching a 17% higher average FPS here, though the 1% lows from the desktop
were 41% higher compared to the laptop.
From my experience, 1% low differences are usually more due to CPU differences than the
GPU, and the desktop CPU does objectively perform better than our laptop, as discussed
earlier.
In Call of Duty Warzone the desktop was reaching a 19% higher average frame rate at 1440p,
but the laptop was still able to easily give us more than 100 FPS at max settings, so it’s
still running well.
This is also another game with DLSS support so that could be used to further boost FPS
too.
Apex Legends was similar.
The desktop was reaching a 21% higher average frame rate at the higher 1440p resolution,
but again the laptop is still offering good performance, it’s not as if 160 FPS at max
settings is unplayable or anything.
Fortnite was tested with the game’s replay feature, so the exact same test run through
the game on both machines, and the desktop was 18% ahead of the laptop at 1440p.
We could further boost FPS by turning on DLSS, but like the previous games we’re still
able to get fairly high frame rates with the laptop.
Rainbow Six Siege is an older one, but still quite popular.
We’re getting even higher frame rates here, the laptop has a 1440p 240Hz screen and the
average FPS at 1440p is still higher than this at max settings.
That said, even the dips in performance from the desktop measured by the 1% lows were ahead
of the average FPS coming out of the laptop.
Control is fairly GPU heavy, and had the biggest gain from the desktop at 1440p out of all
15 games tested with a 22% higher average frame rate.
The 1% lows from the desktop were ahead of the laptop’s average FPS at 1440p here too.
I’ll just quickly skip through the last 4 games so you don’t get too bored, feel
free to pause the video if you want a closer look at any of these results.
If you were falling asleep, now's the time to wake up!
On average out of all 15 games tested at the lower 1080p resolution, the desktop RTX 3070
Ti was performing 15% better than the laptop RTX 3070 Ti.
Of course some of this difference would be due to the CPU differences, so let’s instead
focus on the higher 1440p resolution, both because this is more GPU heavy and better
for a GPU comparison, but also because realistically people buying a 3070 Ti GPU will probably
at least be targeting 1440p.
The desktop was almost 18% faster than the laptop at the higher 1440p resolution, but
as we can see the results depend on the specific game.
Forza Horizon 5 down the bottom for example was only 13% ahead on the desktop, while Control
up the top was 22% ahead.
There’s only a 9% performance gap between the smallest and largest difference.
As mentioned earlier, the difference between non Ti 3070s was a 28% gain from the desktop,
so the Ti’s are much closer together.
I’ve also included a bunch of other RTX 3070 Ti laptops I’ve got data for in just
one game at 1440p to help demonstrate that MSI’s GE67 HX really is a best case laptop
with this GPU.
It’s not that far ahead compared to others that also have high power limits, but the
difference starts getting bigger if we’re comparing it to thinner laptops with lower
GPU power limits.
The desktop is reaching a 46% higher average FPS compared to the lowest laptop result,
for example.
Just before we get into the price differences, what about content creation?
It’s not all just about max FPS and headshots.
Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmark, which should make use of Optix where possible.
The desktop card was 14 to 15% faster than the laptop, so quite similar compared to what
we just saw in the games on average.
The desktop card only has 4% more CUDA and RT cores, so I’m guessing the gap is simply
due to the bigger power limit difference.
The difference was a little smaller in V-Ray.
The desktop was only scoring 7% higher in the CUDA test and 10% higher in the ray tracing
test.
DaVinci Resolve was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark, and this video editing
workload generally benefits from more GPU power.
The desktop was scoring 16% higher compared to the laptop here, so similar to what we
saw in Blender and the games earlier.
SPECviewperf tests out various professional 3D workloads.
The desktop 3070 Ti, shown by the red bars, was generally ahead of the laptop 3070 Ti
in the purple bars, though in some cases it was close with a small difference that’s
within the margin of error.
Alright so the desktop 3070 Ti was better than the laptop 3070 Ti in pretty much all
workloads, surprising absolutely no one.
But what about the difference in price?
Pricing and availability will change over time, so refer to those links below the video
for updates and current sales.
Right now the price of a 3070 Ti laptop can vary significantly based on the specific model.
The cheapest one starts at $1700 USD, but its max power limit is 105 watts, quite a
bit lower than what we've tested here.
MSI’s GE67 HX that I tested in this video is closer to $2500, quite a bit more.
Right now at Newegg, RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards start at around $600, thanks to the
price drops we’ve been getting over the last few months, but they can easily go beyond
$800 depending on the specific model.
The rest of the price will greatly depend on the other parts you select.
I’ve picked cheaper stuff that somewhat closely matches what I’ve tested here, though
the specific parts I’ve used do cost more as that’s just what I have available to
me.
You can find links to everything I’ve used in the video description.
We’re looking at around $1600 for a 12700KF and 3070 Ti machine, though just being realistic,
I’d probably get a better case, SSD and cooler than the random parts I’m showing
here.
Not to mention this doesn’t include a monitor, keyboard or mouse, all of which are built
into the laptop.
Although the desktop 3070 Ti was performing better, the performance gap between them wasn’t
as big as I thought.
But generally speaking, it seems that the desktop 3070 Ti is going to be cheaper than
buying a 3070 Ti laptop.
Even if you have to go out and buy a whole new PC.
I’m sure many of you out there already have a PC and you could just do a drop in replacement
to the new graphics card.
Granted depending on your older CPU and RAM, maybe the two would perform even closer than
what I’ve shown here.
At the end of the day, to me personally the price difference isn’t even what’s most
important.
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 actually need portability, then the laptop is the clear choice.
Or maybe it’s another reason like you just don’t have enough desk space at home to
keep something like this permanently set up.
Of course you can definitely build a smaller PC than this one here, but the fact is laptops
are still going to take up less space.
It all really depends on your personal use case.
Obviously this one is going to be much easier to upgrade in the future.
You can’t take out the CPU and GPU of the laptop.
If you want to upgrade those you need to replace the whole machine in most cases.
Of course there are some laptops that do have socketable CPUs or MXM graphics that do have
some more upgradeability, but those are pretty uncommon.
And then of course there’s the whole eGPU route where you could connect an external
desktop graphics card to the laptop with a Thunderbolt enclosure, but that has its own
issues.
The main point I’m trying to make here is there are different solutions for different
people.
So basically don’t just be that one guy in the comments who is always like “just
buy a desktop”.
Check out how the most powerful gaming laptop compares against the most powerful desktop
PC that I could build in this video next.
The differences are much bigger than what we’ve seen in this video, so I’ll see
you in that one next!