External power bricks or AC adapters for gaming laptops are getting kind of chonky

Nvidia recently made available the mobile GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti for laptops early last month. These new GPUs promise slightly faster performance than their regular RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 counterparts at similar TGP targets, if not higher. Judging by the trend from mobile Pascal to Turing and now Ampere, it's unlikely that the future mobile GeForce RTX 40 series will target lower wattages in order to maximize performance.

The problem with ever-higher power consumption is that it necessitates larger and/or heavier external AC adapters or power bricks. The MSI GP65 with RTX 2070 graphics, for example, comes with a 230 W adapter weighing ~729 grams while the newer MSI GP66 with RTX 3070 Ti graphics comes with a 280 W adapter weighing almost 1 kg. Some 15-inch Ultrabooks like the LG Gram 15 or Samsung Galaxy Book Pro weigh almost the same as a standard AC adapter for certain gaming laptops.

Smaller and more compact AC adapters are possible such as the ones that ship with Razer Blade models, but temperatures will inevitably be higher. Surface temperatures on the adapter for our Razer Blade Pro 17 would reach 70 C compared to ~60 C or cooler on most other larger adapters. Thus, while smaller adapters may be possible, temperatures can be a concern.

USB-IF announced last year intentions to bump up the USB-C Power Delivery standard from 100 W to 240 W which should hopefully lead to leaner and more portable AC adapters for higher-power gaming laptops or multimedia laptops. Until then, however, gamers and most power users will have to continue dealing with thick clunky power cables and large adapters that weigh almost as much as whole Ultrabooks.