This mod unlocks laptop RTX 4090's true potential, beating RTX 5090 laptops

Power limit is often what keeps a high-performance GPU from reaching its full potential. In a gaming laptop, with limited space and cooling capabilities, aggressive power limits are usually imposed to keep the system from throttling and delivering unstable performance. That being said, what if you could trick the system to think the components, specifically the GPU, is not reaching its power limit at all? A modder has managed to do just that and get significant performance gains, at times out performing a laptop RTX 5090.

Shared by ‘thatavidreadertrue’ on Reddit, they used shunt modding on a Zephyrus M16 that features an RTX 4090 GPU. Shunt modding is a physical modification to a resistor of the GPU due to which the GPU reports lower power consumption, allowing it to reach its full clock speeds. The Redditor added a 1 mOhm resistor on top of the existing 5 mOhm resistor. This mean the GPU was reporting six times lower power consumption than what it was actually drawing.

Of course, this means you would need a solid cooling system and a capable power supply. For this, the Redditor stated that the Zephyrus M16 has enough power phases and that they repasted the old paste on the CPU and GPU with a more high-performance solution. This led to the M16 reporting around 40W to 45W when the actual power draw would have been 240W (max capability of the power adapter).

Some of the benchmarks shared by the modder include Speedway, Steel Nomad, Port Royal, and Time Spy. In most cases, as you can see below, the shunt modded M16 outperformed the average RTX 5090 laptop.

Shunt modding, while effective, can be risky and requires some professional tools so if you plan on trying this out, know that there could be a chance of damaging the components permanently. If successful, you can get RTX 5090 laptop performance for half the price.