GeForce RTX 4070, 4060, 4050 Laptop Analysis - Nvidia's new Mainstream Laptop GPUs in Review
Nvidia just launched their new GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop and Geforce RTX 4080 Laptop flagship GPUs in the beginning of February. Our comprehensive analyses showed that the performance was much lower compared to their RTX 40 desktop counterparts due to TGP restrictions, but there is still a major performance improvement over the old flagship model GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop. Both the MSI Titan GT77 (RTX 4090) as well as the Razer Blade 16 (RTX 4080) also showed that both GPUs can easily handle high-re screens including 4K. However, these laptops are very expensive and the new mainstream GPUs will be more interesting for many customers.
Today, Nvidia launches the new models GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop, RTX 4060 Laptop as well as RTX 4050 Laptop, which are available in many gaming and multimedia laptops. In addition to synthetic benchmarks we will check the gaming performance including Ray Tracing and Nvidia's DLSS upscaling.
Update 03/02/2023: We performed additional benchmarks with the RTX 4050 Laptop and RTX 4070 Laptop at different power levels. The results are available at the end of the article.
Overview - RTX 4070, 4060 & 4050 Laptop
The new models GeForce RTX 4070, 4060 and 4050 are all based on the Ada Lovelace architecture and all versions support DLSS 3 as well as raytracing. There are obviously differences in terms of core counts, which is listed in the table below. The RTX 4070 Laptop is based on the AD106 chip, while both the RTX 4060 Laptop and RTX 4050 Laptop are based on the AD107 chip. All three GPUs can cover a wide range of systems with TGP settings between 35-115 Watts with an additional 25 Watts from the processor via Dynamic Boost. This means all three laptop GPUs can consume up to 140 Watts.
However, you will only see this value in synthetic workloads like FurMark, for example. The power consumption in real gaming scenarios will depend on the actual GPU load, so the consumption can be much lower. This is important when you analyze gaming benchmarks and sensor data, so you do not panic when the GPU does not hit its maximum TGP value all the time since everything works as intended by Nvidia. The wide TGP range can also be an issue for customers when laptop manufacturers do not disclose exact TGP figures for their products.
Our analysis of the RTX 4090/480 laptop showed efficiency improvements of more than 50 %, but Nvidia even advertises higher efficiency gains (3x). The press information now shows the scenario for this claim, which is not very practical. The comparison includes the new RTX 4070 Laptop running at 40W, which will offer the same performance as the old RTX 3070 Laptop. However, there are no further details on this comparison (like the application, game, settings, etc.).
We already talked about the technical details of the Ada Lovelace architecture in our analysis of the RTX 4090/4080 Laptop. We are currently still waiting to receive for more information and pictures of the new AD106 and AD107 GPUs from Nvidia and we will update the article as soon as we can.
Test Systems
We were able to use multiple systems to collect the following benchmark data. In addition to retail units, we also had access to engineering samples, which will not be sold to customers. This means there is no review about these systems right now, but we will test their retail counterparts as soon as we can.
- Schenker XMG Neo 17 Engineering Sample (RTX 4070 Laptop, 115W + 25W Dynamic Boost)
- Razer Blade 18 (RTX 4070 Laptop, 115W + 25W Dynamic Boost)
- Gigabyte Aero 16 (RTX 4070 Laptop, 80W + 25W Dynamic Boost)
- MSI Katana 17 (RTX 4060 Laptop, 105W Gesamt)
- Schenker XMG Focus 15 Engineering Sample (RTX 4050 Laptop, 115W + 25W Dynamic Boost)
All laptops were tested with the maximum performance settings and (if possible) deactivated iGPU. The two models RTX 4070 Laptop and RTX 4050 Laptop in the XMG systems as well as the Blade 18 are the fastest versions of the GPUs with the maximum TGP and the results represent the best performance you can achieve. Gigaybte and MSI use GPUs with a maximum TGP of 105W (80W TGP + 25W Dynamic Boost).
Synthetic Benchmarks
We start with synthetic 3DMark benchmarks, where the new RTX 4070 Laptop is right ahead the previous high-end GPU RTX 3080 Ti Laptop and on par with the Desktop RTX 3070. This also means there is a massive performance deficit compared to the RTX 4080 Laptop, where the most powerful version is about 40 % faster. The RTX 4070 with 105W in the Gigabyte Aero 16 on the other hand is just 4 % slower.
The 105W RTX 4060 Laptop is also just 13 % slower than the RTX 4070 Laptop in the XMG Neo 17 in the synthetic tests, but is also 33 % faster than the old GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop, so it is comparable to the RTX 3070 Ti Laptop overall.
The new RTX 4050 shows the biggest improvements with a performance advantage of 74 % over the old RTX 3050 Ti Laptop. However, we have to be a bit careful here since this is the fastest RTX 4050 Laptop (140W), but most retail units will probably have much lower TGP specifications.
Gaming Benchmarks
Our gaming benchmarks without raytracing and upscaling show a very similar situation compared to the synthetic tests. Overall, the RTX 4070 Laptop is once again very similar to the RTX 3080 Ti Laptop, only 4K settings sometimes show the limitation of the smaller VRAM. 4K gaming is still possible with the RTX 4070 Laptop in almost every modern game.
The RTX 4060 Laptop is once again comparable to the RTX 3070 Ti Laptop and is best suited for QHD and also 4K settings in many titles.
Our fast version of the RTX 4050 Laptop is on par with the GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop in many gaming benchmarks, which means it is ideal for 1080p gaming and also QHD settings in many titles.
Note: We included tables with more gaming benchmarks at the end of this article.
Raytracing Benchmarks
The results shift a bit once you start to use raytracing and the RTX 4070 Laptop is slightly behind the RTX 3080 Ti Laptop. You are basically limited to the 1080p resolution if you want to activate raytracing; 4K settings often suffer from low fps numbers.
The raytracing capabilities of the RTX 4050 are even more limited and even 1080p settings are sometimes too challenging, so you ave to use upscaling to get smooth frame rates (we will cover that in the next section).
Note: We will add raytracing benchmarks for the RTX 4060 Laptop shortly.
DLSS Benchmarks
We usually perform our gaming benchmarks without upscaling technologies like Nvidia DLSS or AMD FSR. However, the performance can benefit a lot when the title supports it and we noticed some major improvements with activated DLSS 3.0 without any visual deficits. We listed the results for the three new Laptop GPUs in the following tables.
DLSS Benchmarks RTX 4070 Laptop
| Title | Settings | DLSS off | DLSS on (Balanced) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spider-Man Miles Morales | 4K Ultra | 44 FPS | 57 FPS | +30 % |
| The Witcher 3 4.00 | 1080p RT Ultra | 36 FPS | 45 FPS | +25 % |
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.5 | 1080p RT Ultra | 42 FPS | 115 FPS | +157 % |
| God of War | 4K Ultra | 43 FPS | 59 FPS | +37 % |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 4K Ultra | 52 FPS | 83 FPS | +60 % |
DLSS Benchmarks RTX 4060 Laptop
| Title | Settings | DLSS off | DLSS on (Balanced) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spider-Man Miles Morales | 4K Ultra | 35 FPS | 55 FPS | +57 % |
| The Witcher 3 4.00 | 4K Ultra | 21 FPS | 32 FPS | +52 % |
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.5 | 4K Ultra | 21 FPS | 43 FPS | +104 % |
| God of War | 4K Ultra | 35 FPS | 51 FPS | +46 % |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 4K Ultra | 47 FPS | 74 FPS | +57 % |
DLSS Benchmarks RTX 4050 Laptop
| Title | Settings | DLSS off | DLSS on (Balanced) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spider-Man Miles Morales | 4K Ultra | 26 FPS | 36 FPS | +38 % |
| Spider-Man Miles Morales | 1080p RT Ultra | 44 FPS | 55 FPS | +25 % |
| The Witcher 3 4.00 | 1080p RT Ultra | 21 FPS | 29 FPS | +38 % |
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.5 | 1080p RT Ultra | 27 FPS | 85 FPS | +214 % |
| God of War | 4K Ultra | 28 FPS | 41 FPS | + 46% |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 4K Ultra | 39 FPS | 62 FPS | +58 % |
| Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 | 4K Ultra | 31 FPS | 50 FPS | +61 % |
| Dying Light 2 | 1080p RT Ultra | 52 FPS | 77 FPS | +48 % |
OpenGL, OpenCL & Compute
Our OpenGL, OpenCL, and compute benchmarks do not reveal any surprises and the ranking is roughly similar to the synthetic and gaming tests. The consumer models also perform really well in some of the professional SPECviewperf scenarios and can keep up with professional GPUs.
| GFXBench | |
| 3840x2160 4K Aztec Ruins High Tier Offscreen | |
| MSI Titan GT77 HX 13VI | |
| Razer Blade 16 Early 2023 | |
| Lenovo Legion Pro 7 16IRX8H | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 16 2023 M2 Max | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU (n=1) | |
| SCHENKER XMG Neo 17 2023 Engineering Sample | |
| MSI Katana 17 B13VFK | |
| SCHENKER XMG Focus 15 Engineering Sample | |
| Asus TUF Gaming A16 FA617 | |
| 2560x1440 Aztec Ruins High Tier Offscreen | |
| MSI Titan GT77 HX 13VI | |
| Razer Blade 16 Early 2023 | |
| Lenovo Legion Pro 7 16IRX8H | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 16 2023 M2 Max | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU (262 - 328, n=2) | |
| SCHENKER XMG Neo 17 2023 Engineering Sample | |
| MSI Katana 17 B13VFK | |
| SCHENKER XMG Focus 15 Engineering Sample | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU (n=1) | |
| Asus TUF Gaming A16 FA617 | |
| 1920x1080 Car Chase Offscreen | |
| MSI Titan GT77 HX 13VI | |
| SCHENKER XMG Neo 17 2023 Engineering Sample | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 16 2023 M2 Max | |
| MSI Katana 17 B13VFK | |
| SCHENKER XMG Focus 15 Engineering Sample | |
| Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU (n=1) | |
* ... smaller is better
GPU Efficiency
We use the Witcher 3 test running with an external screen for our efficiency test, so we can eliminate the influence of the integrated panel. Witcher 3 is also not very demanding for the processor, so the CPU impact is also very small, We see the new RTX 40 models leading the chart with the RTX 4090 Laptop at top , followed by the new RTX 4060 Laptop. We expect versions of the new GPUs with lower TGP settings will be even better in this regard. The only outlier is the GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop, which is right between previous Ampere GPUs. This clearly shows that high TGP values do not make much sense for the RTX 4050.
There is a noticeable efficiency improvement in general for the new Ada chips compared to previous Ampere GPUs. The comparison between the RTX 4070 Laptop/RTX 3080 Ti Laptop and RTX 4060 Laptop/RTX 3070 Ti laptop shows an efficiency improvement of 23-24 %, which means the advantage of the slower Ada GPUs is lower compared to the high-end models, where we noticed efficiency improvements of up to 53 %.
Overview Gaming Benchmarks
Schenker XMG Neo 17 Engineering Sample RTX 4070 Laptop
| low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K DLSS | 4K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GTA V (2015) | 187.1 | 184.1 | 182.9 | 130.5 | 92.2 | 92.5 | |
| The Witcher 3 (2015) | 258 | 124 | 60 | ||||
| Dota 2 Reborn (2015) | 233 | 206 | 195.4 | 180.6 | 150.7 | ||
| Final Fantasy XV Benchmark (2018) | 227 | 173.7 | 119.4 | 86.1 | 47.5 | ||
| X-Plane 11.11 (2018) | 212 | 187.1 | 144.4 | 122.7 | |||
| Far Cry 5 (2018) | 179 | 169 | 158 | 118 | 60 | ||
| Strange Brigade (2018) | 476 | 326 | 252 | 214 | 139.8 | 74.7 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) | 172 | 158 | 107 | 53 | |||
| Metro Exodus (2019) | 117 | 91 | 72 | 46 | |||
| Borderlands 3 (2019) | 139 | 109 | 75 | 40 | |||
| Horizon Zero Dawn (2020) | 143 | 126 | 98 | 52 | |||
| Watch Dogs Legion (2020) | 130 | 89 | 64 | 33 | |||
| F1 2021 (2021) | 520 | 407 | 306 | 157.5 | 114.7 | 63.4 | |
| Far Cry 6 (2021) | 144 | 126 | 91 | ||||
| God of War (2022) | 109 | 80 | 65 | 43 | |||
| Rainbow Six Extraction (2022) | 253 | 240 | 188 | 125 | 64 | ||
| Dying Light 2 (2022) | 95 | 64 | 32 | ||||
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 (2022) | 98 | 91 | 57 | 26 | |||
| Ghostwire Tokyo (2022) | |||||||
| F1 22 (2022) | 275 | 275 | 222 | 81.7 | 51.9 | 25.9 | |
| Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 2022 (2022) | 111 | 105 | 76 | 71 | 47 | ||
| Spider-Man Miles Morales (2022) | 115 | 110 | 86 | 44 | |||
| The Witcher 3 v4.00 (2023) | 101 | 85 | 54 | 28 | |||
| Dead Space Remake (2023) | 97 | 94 | 81 | 80 | 51 | 26 |
Razer Blade 18 RTX 4070 Laptop
| low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GTA V (2015) | 186.1 | 184.7 | 181.6 | 121.4 | 87.6 | 88.5 |
| The Witcher 3 (2015) | 617 | 405.9 | 240.9 | 113.9 | 72.5 | |
| Dota 2 Reborn (2015) | 225 | 200 | 191 | 178.6 | 145.5 | |
| Final Fantasy XV Benchmark (2018) | 231 | 166.9 | 115.2 | 82 | 46.6 | |
| X-Plane 11.11 (2018) | 203 | 178.9 | 137.9 | 117.7 | ||
| Strange Brigade (2018) | 464 | 315 | 243 | 208 | 136.7 | 71.9 |
| Metro Exodus (2019) | 208.9 | 139.8 | 109.7 | 86.8 | 69 | 44 |
| Borderlands 3 (2019) | 258.5 | 200.1 | 131.8 | 100.3 | 68.7 | 35.7 |
| Hitman 3 (2021) | 294.3 | 234 | 208.4 | 197.4 | 129.9 | 68.5 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 (2022) | 147.8 | 125.7 | 111.5 | 92.1 | 54 | 23.3 |
Gigabyte Aero 16 RTX 4070 Laptop
| low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GTA V (2015) | 185.3 | 186.4 | 183.1 | 123.2 | 90.6 | 75 |
| The Witcher 3 (2015) | 236 | 116 | ||||
| Dota 2 Reborn (2015) | 164.7 | 157 | 150.9 | 144.5 | 128.3 | |
| Final Fantasy XV Benchmark (2018) | 132.3 | 116.2 | 84.7 | 46.1 | ||
| X-Plane 11.11 (2018) | 169.3 | 148 | 115.3 | 98.5 | ||
| Far Cry 5 (2018) | 202 | 168 | 159 | 149 | 115 | 55 |
| Strange Brigade (2018) | 481 | 300 | 237 | 204 | 138.8 | 67.6 |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) | 158 | 129 | 70 | |||
| Assassin´s Creed Valhalla (2020) | 106 | 78 | 41 | |||
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 (2022) | 84.75 | 53.28 | 19.59 | |||
| F1 22 (2022) | 220 | 214 | 173.8 | 66.6 | 44.3 | 21.5 |
| Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 2022 (2022) | 101 | 72 | 39 | |||
| Spider-Man Miles Morales (2022) | 90.5 | 68.9 | 40.5 | |||
| The Callisto Protocol (2022) | 78.86 | 59.07 | 32.96 |
MSI Katana 17 RTX 4060 Laptop
| low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K DLSS | 4K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GTA V (2015) | 186.1 | 184.7 | 180.2 | 112.1 | 83 | 82.1 | |
| The Witcher 3 (2015) | 435 | 322 | 206 | 104.7 | 62.6 | ||
| Dota 2 Reborn (2015) | 184.6 | 171 | 164.1 | 156.3 | 126 | ||
| Final Fantasy XV Benchmark (2018) | 204 | 135.1 | 96.1 | 70.1 | 40.2 | ||
| X-Plane 11.11 (2018) | 178.6 | 154.9 | 118.9 | 98.9 | |||
| Far Cry 5 (2018) | 134 | 99 | 51 | ||||
| Strange Brigade (2018) | 508 | 270 | 216 | 185.1 | 126.4 | 67.2 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) | 155.6 | 120.7 | 67.2 | ||||
| Metro Exodus (2019) | 74.3 | 59 | 36.8 | ||||
| Control (2019) | 238 | 119 | 89 | ||||
| Borderlands 3 (2019) | 171.3 | 144.6 | 106.5 | 83.9 | |||
| Death Stranding (2020) | 200 | 158.9 | 150.3 | 146.7 | |||
| Horizon Zero Dawn (2020) | 108.3 | 85.9 | 46.5 | ||||
| Flight Simulator 2020 (2020) | 96.9 | 69.4 | 52.5 | ||||
| Crysis Remastered (2020) | 312 | 224 | 85.9 | 72.5 | |||
| Watch Dogs Legion (2020) | 65 | 44 | 25 | ||||
| Dirt 5 (2020) | 218 | 147.2 | 116.1 | 89.5 | |||
| Assassin´s Creed Valhalla (2020) | 135 | 111 | 96 | ||||
| Yakuza Like a Dragon (2020) | 131.7 | 123.2 | 117.4 | 109.6 | |||
| Hitman 3 (2021) | 267.5 | 197.7 | 172.7 | 163.5 | |||
| Days Gone (2021) | 148 | 131.4 | 100.2 | ||||
| F1 2021 (2021) | 389 | 312 | 244 | 128.9 | 93 | 50.2 | |
| Alan Wake Remastered (2021) | 149.8 | 144.9 | |||||
| Far Cry 6 (2021) | 97.2 | 32.6 | 3.38 | ||||
| Back 4 Blood (2021) | 245 | 197.5 | 188.2 | ||||
| Guardians of the Galaxy (2021) | 134 | 135 | 133 | ||||
| Riders Republic (2021) | 177 | 145 | 122 | 112 | |||
| Forza Horizon 5 (2021) | 137 | 125 | 84 | ||||
| Battlefield 2042 (2021) | 145.6 | 123 | 106.1 | ||||
| Halo Infinite (2021) | 144.9 | 123.6 | 114.2 | ||||
| God of War (2022) | 67.5 | 55.6 | 34.7 | ||||
| Rainbow Six Extraction (2022) | 149.1 | 106 | 52.4 | ||||
| Dying Light 2 (2022) | 64.7 | 43.8 | 23 | ||||
| GRID Legends (2022) | 126.4 | 102.2 | 63.9 | ||||
| Elden Ring (2022) | 59.5 | ||||||
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 (2022) | 73.81 | 45.9 | 21.1 | ||||
| Elex 2 (2022) | 115.4 | 115.4 | 113.5 | 96 | |||
| Ghostwire Tokyo (2022) | 68.6 | 65.9 | 36.8 | 29.6 | |||
| Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (2022) | 198.6 | 164.9 | 110 | 85.2 | |||
| Vampire Bloodhunt (2022) | 220 | 201 | 185.7 | ||||
| F1 22 (2022) | 247 | 240 | 179.2 | 65.4 | 41 | 19.7 | |
| The Quarry (2022) | 154.8 | 121.3 | 100.5 | 77.9 | |||
| A Plague Tale Requiem (2022) | 100.7 | 84.9 | 73 | 63.3 | |||
| Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection (2022) | 87.9 | 85.1 | 79.1 | 76.9 | |||
| Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 2022 (2022) | 87 | 59 | 55 | 34 | |||
| Spider-Man Miles Morales (2022) | 77.3 | 59.7 | 35.3 | ||||
| The Callisto Protocol (2022) | 68.9 | 48.6 | 27 | ||||
| Need for Speed Unbound (2022) | 127.4 | 117.2 | 98.9 | 98.6 | |||
| High On Life (2023) | 220 | 165.8 | 125.6 | 99.9 | |||
| The Witcher 3 v4.00 (2023) | 66.3 | 40.5 | 21.4 | ||||
| Dead Space Remake (2023) | 67 | 43.4 | 20.6 | ||||
| Hogwarts Legacy (2023) | 150 | 126.7 | 107.7 | 91.6 | |||
| Returnal (2023) | |||||||
| Atomic Heart (2023) | 167.3 | 129.2 | 81.6 | 66.8 | |||
| Company of Heroes 3 (2023) | 202.7 | 182.1 | 133.3 | 131.3 | |||
| Sons of the Forest (2023) | 82 | 79.1 | 73.3 | 71.8 |
Schenker XMG Focus 15 Engineering Sample RTX 4050 Laptop
| low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K DLSS | 4K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GTA V (2015) | 186.6 | 184.2 | 177.3 | 92.4 | 64.1 | 63.5 | |
| The Witcher 3 (2015) | 465 | 319 | 175 | 89 | 50 | ||
| Dota 2 Reborn (2015) | 192.6 | 176.1 | 169.1 | 161.7 | 115.2 | ||
| Final Fantasy XV Benchmark (2018) | 214 | 122.3 | 122.3 | 60 | 33.3 | ||
| X-Plane 11.11 (2018) | 161 | 142.3 | 113.1 | 97.9 | |||
| Far Cry 5 (2018) | 197 | 146 | 135 | 127 | 87 | 43 | |
| Strange Brigade (2018) | 481 | 221 | 178 | 153 | 100 | 53 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) | 215 | 150 | 134 | 116 | 73 | 33 | |
| Metro Exodus (2019) | 199 | 109 | 82 | 64 | 50 | 45 | |
| Control (2019) | 100 | 74 | 48 | 24 | |||
| Borderlands 3 (2019) | 171 | 139 | 96 | 73 | 50 | 26 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn (2020) | 170 | 131 | 114 | 98 | 72 | 39 | |
| Watch Dogs Legion (2020) | 138 | 120 | 105 | 49 | 37 | 26 | |
| F1 2021 (2021) | 377 | 292 | 219 | 109.7 | 76.1 | 38 | |
| Far Cry 6 (2021) | 166 | 133 | 114 | 82 | 58 | ||
| God of War (2022) | 121 | 102 | 81 | 55 | 44 | 28 | |
| Dying Light 2 (2022) | 88 | 74 | 62 | 41 | 21 | ||
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 (2022) | 108 | 83 | 72 | 65 | 32 | 18 | |
| Ghostwire Tokyo (2022) | |||||||
| F1 22 (2022) | 232 | 223 | 167.3 | 53.8 | 33.2 | 15.9 | |
| Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 2022 (2022) | 128 | 109 | 81 | 77 | 53 | 50 | 31 |
| Spider-Man Miles Morales (2022) | 112 | 101 | 96 | 85 | 53 | 26 | |
| The Callisto Protocol (2022) | 137 | 97 | 60 | 59 | 42 | 21 | |
| The Witcher 3 v4.00 (2023) | 106 | 76 | 68 | 59 | 37 | 17 | |
| Dead Space Remake (2023) | 67 | 64 | 55 | 54 | 35 | 17 |
Update: Performance at difference TDP levels
We used the freeware MSI Afterburner to adjust the power limits of the new RTX 40 GPUs. The application takes 115W as 100 % and then you can adjust the percentage. The maximum value is 121 % for 140 Watts (including Dynamic Boost) and down to 4 % for 6 Watts. We repeated some tests with the RTX 4070 and RTX 4050 in the two engineering samples from the manufacturer Schenker.
| GPU | 35 Watts | 50 Watts | 65 Watts | 80 Watts | 100 Watts | 115 Watts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop | 5272 points | 6784 points | 7528 points | 8156 points | 8497 points | 8508 points |
| GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop | 6844 points | 8752 points | 9668 points | 10878 points | 11811 points | 12140 points |
At the beginning of this article, we already mentioned that the power consumption depends on the actual load scenario and we can see the maximum consumption for both GPUs in the FurMark stress test. However, other synthetic tests like 3DMark only result in 115 Watts in certain scenarios. The performance curve of the RTX 4050 Laptop flattens at 80 Watts, the RTX 4070 Laptop does not see performance improvements above 100 Watts.
| Game | 35 Watts | 50 Watts | 65 Watts | 80 Watts | 100 Watts | 115 Watts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Witcher 3 Ultra 1080p | 61 FPS | 73 FPS | 80 FPS | 86 FPS | 89 FPS | 89 FPS |
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.5 Ultra 1080p | 43 FPS | 52 FPS | 58 FPS | 63 FPS | 65 FPS | 65 FPS |
| Game | 35 Watts | 50 Watts | 65 Watts | 80 Watts | 100 Watts | 115 Watts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Witcher 3 Ultra 1080p | 75 FPS | 94 FPS | 103 FPS | 116 FPS | 124 FPS | 124 FPS |
| Cyberpunk 2077 1.5 Ultra 1080p | 53 FPS | 66 FPS | 73 FPS | 79 FPS | 91 FPS | 91 FPS |
The power consumption is even lower while gaming with the RTX 4050 Laptop consuming up to ~90 Watts and the RTX 4070 Laptop ~100 Watts. This is a problem since we are not sure why Nvidia even advertises higher power limits for these models and why Nvidia uses the full power in certain tests like FurMark, but not during gaming.
Buyers of new gaming laptops could feel pretty mislead when the RTX 4070 is advertised at 140 Watts in a high-end device (which requires a better cooling solution), but it only achieves this value in certain situation and is limited to 100 Watts while gaming.
Verdict - Mainstream Ada GPUs with significant performance gains
Our verdict of the new (upper) mainstream GPUs based on the Ada Lovelace architecture is not quite as good as it was on the high-end version. Nvidia was able to improve the performance and the new RTX 4070 Laptop GPU at high TGP values is roughly on par with the old RTX 3080 Ti Laptop. There are some exceptions in 4K titles where the smaller VRAM of the RTX 4070 Laptop has an impact. The RTX 4060 laptop is comparable to the old RTX 3070 Ti Laptop and the testest RTX 4050 Laptop is similar to a RTX 3060 Laptop or even a little bit faster.
More performance for mainstream GPUs: Nvidia's new RTX 4070 Laptop and RTX 4060 Laptop replace the old GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop and RTX 3070 Ti Laptop, respectively. They offer plenty of performance for QHD panels and even 4K in some games, but the raytracing performance is still limited and you often have to reduce settings or use DLSS upscaling to achieve smooth frame rates.
These are good news, but the efficiency improvements are smaller compared to the high-end models RTX 4090 Laptop/RTX 4080 Laptop. We see an improvement of 23-24 % for the RTX 4070Laptop/RTX 4060 Laptop, but we can also clearly see that the high TGP version of the RTX 4050 Laptop does not make much sense and the efficiency drops to Ampere levels. We simple do not have sufficient data for slower version of the GPU to rate the efficiency. Nvidia's announcement with 3x higher efficiency is limited to a very specific scenario according to the press information, so we cannot confirm this statement.
The new GeForce RTX 4050 laptop offers the gaming performance of the old GeForce RTX 3060 and is best suited for 1080p displays. The raytracing capabilities, however, are limited.
The biggest issue with the new laptop GPU is the wide TGP range and manufacturers can configure all three GPUs (RTX 4070, RTX 4060 und RTX 4050) between 35-115 Watts or 140W considering up to 25W Dynamic Boost, respectively. It will be extremely important that manufacturer disclose exact TGP figures for their products, otherwise there can be spec sheet heroes that will be disappointing in practice, especially in slim laptops with limited cooling capabilities.
We expect that RTX 4070 Laptop and RTX 4060 Laptop will offer very similar performance figures and you can usually save the additional money for the RTX 4070 Laptop, especially on devices with 1080p or QHD screens.
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