CheckMag | Are top-end graphics cards ever coming to laptops?

Today’s gaming laptop GPUs lag far behind their desktop counterparts both in terms of their specifications and performance. The mobile RTX 4090 is a glaring example of this; it’s not even based on the same die as the desktop RTX 4090. Its specs are more in line with the desktop RTX 4080 as both of them use the same chip (codenamed AD103) rather than the larger chip (codenamed AD102) used in the desktop RTX 4090. Longtime Nvidia consumers are rightfully upset about this as laptops toting the mobile RTX 4090 are sold at obscene prices while being marketed as top-end options. The mobile RTX 3080 fared even worse as it wasn't powerful enough to come close to the desktop RTX 3070.

Some performance loss is to be expected as laptops have less headroom for heat dissipation and power usage than their desktop brethren, but both should at the very least employ the same chips, as was the case with the previous Pascal and Turing generations. Even then, the best Nvidia had to offer to laptop buyers was anything but the best. The largest consumer graphics chips at the time, GP and TU102, were reserved for the xx80 Ti and Titan cards - options gaming laptops would never get.

Top-tier desktop GPUs were and still are using rather large chips which may be too big for laptops. Advancements in manufacturing processes may allow us to have more graphics power in a smaller space, but this doesn’t always translate to a chip size reduction or a ‘die shrink’. Nvidia’s move from the RTX 30xx’s 10nm process to the RTX 40xx’s more efficient 5nm process allowed the company to shrink its flagship die sizes just slightly from 628mm² to 609mm². Electronics manufacturers tend to opt for bigger and more complex designs to deliver better performance with every consecutive generation of chips. This is especially the case with GPUs.

There’s also the matter of having to do a major redesign every few years to comfortably fit ever-growing chips inside a certain laptop model, especially since the top desktop options from Nvidia and AMD now come with as much as 24GB of VRAM. I can imagine OEMs claiming that top-end gaming laptops are a niche product that is not worth the investment compared to more popular mainstream and budget gaming laptops. For comparison, liquid-cooled graphics cards as well as cards designed for extreme overclocking continue to exist in the desktop PC realm and keep on evolving despite their price tags. Apparently, hardcore enthusiasts willing to pay a premium for such products exist and are not really in short supply. High-end laptop buyers on the other hand are few and far between.

Shoving top-tier chips into laptops poses three challenges: Power draw, heat dissipation and size requirements (placing all the components of a large graphics adapter on the same board as the CPU and everything else while maintaining portability). Both GPU manufacturers and laptop OEMs likely know this and need to be given motivation to meet on common ground and heavily invest in such a daunting undertaking. At the same time, consumers must be given more reasons to spend a pretty penny on top-end gaming laptops in order to give manufacturers the incentive to pursue this endeavour. Only then will the prospect of top-tier chips in portable laptops will be realized. Until both of these conditions are met, gamers on-the-go will have to continue settling for second-best.