GeForce RTX 3060 laptops vs. GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q: The cheaper option comes out on top in quite a few games

The mobile GeForce RTX 3080 is significantly slower than the desktop GeForce RTX 3080 for a variety of reasons, but that doesn't mean users should ignore GeForce RTX 30 laptops altogether. Our benchmark tests with some GeForce RTX 3060 laptops show them to be neck-to-neck with GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q laptops that retailed for higher prices just one or two years ago.

3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy numbers below reveal that the average GeForce RTX 3060 laptop is within just a few percentage points of the average RTX 2080 Max-Q laptop. Differences can vary more wildly between individual laptops, however, due to how wide the TGP ranges can be for some mobile Nvidia GPUs. Nonetheless, the fact that the mobile RTX 3060 can come so close to the generally pricier RTX 2080 Max-Q indicates higher performance-per-dollar for most RTX 3060 laptops.

Performance in real-world games shows similar results with the two GPUs trading blows. Our data is far from complete, but the mobile RTX 3060 is able to consistently outperform the RTX 2080 Max-Q in titles like Metro Exodus, Division 2, and Borderlands 3 by as much as 20 percent while the line between them becomes murkier for titles like Shadow of the Tomb Raider or Red Dead Redemption 2. Gaming performance seems to lie in between the GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q and mobile GeForce RTX 2080 before factoring in the benefits of DLSS or the effects of enabling RT.

For the end user, the data suggests that it might be better to go with a GeForce RTX 3060 SKU instead of an RTX 2080 Max-Q SKU if presented with two laptops to choose from. The Razer Blade 15, for example, is available with RTX 3060 and RTX 2080 Max-Q options which will almost surely perform similarly to one another despite being hundreds of dollars apart in price. Gamers in the market for a new laptop will want to look closely at the rest of the specifications as any differences between the two GPUs are arguably more minimal.