Modded Gaming Laptop With A Desktop GeForce RTX 4090 Is A Hefty Gaming Beast
NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 is a powerful GPU, dominating the charts across virtually all games today (see our GeForce RTX 4090 review). The RTX 4090 variants found in mobile laptops, while still powerful in their own right, are not the same GPU with performance on a much lower tier compared to their desktop counterpart. As such, a modder in China decided to change that, using a full desktop RTX 4090 GPU in a heavily customized (and downright heavy) laptop.
The reason why NVIDIA uses a mobile RTX 4090 in laptops is simple and comes down to thermal management. With a high power draw, it just is not reasonable to pack a larger desktop GPU in a small form factor. It would be impractical for weight and battery life to have this 450-watt desktop GPU in laptops, so users have to be content with the lower spec mobile version. The laptop version of the RTX 4090 will typically top out at 175 watts for its TDP, shy of the massive 450 watt figure of the desktop version. Furthermore, it only has 16GB of VRAM as opposed to the full-fat 24GB VRAM found the larger desktop variant.
These specs remain king, at least until NVIDIA launches its next-generation RTX 50 series that should pack a punch with a rumored 32GB of VRAM for its flagship GeForce RTX 5090. The RTX 5090 is also potentially coming with a 600-watt TDP, which would easily eclipse the 450-watt RTX 4090.
The reason why NVIDIA uses a mobile RTX 4090 in laptops is simple and comes down to thermal management. With a high power draw, it just is not reasonable to pack a larger desktop GPU in a small form factor. It would be impractical for weight and battery life to have this 450-watt desktop GPU in laptops, so users have to be content with the lower spec mobile version. The laptop version of the RTX 4090 will typically top out at 175 watts for its TDP, shy of the massive 450 watt figure of the desktop version. Furthermore, it only has 16GB of VRAM as opposed to the full-fat 24GB VRAM found the larger desktop variant.
These specs remain king, at least until NVIDIA launches its next-generation RTX 50 series that should pack a punch with a rumored 32GB of VRAM for its flagship GeForce RTX 5090. The RTX 5090 is also potentially coming with a 600-watt TDP, which would easily eclipse the 450-watt RTX 4090.
While this custom laptop will not win any aesthetic design awards, it certainly does blend an interesting mix of creativity and performance. Starting with a mini-ITX ASUS ROG Strix B650i motherboard, it packs AMD's Ryzen 9 7959X3D desktop CPU. Together with 32GB of RAM, this is virtually a small form factor (SFF) PC packed into a laptop form factor, albeit a chunky one.
How does it handle this much power in such a comparatively small space? According to the modder, it maintains 70C for GPU temperatures and does not appear to have any stability issues overall. The custom blower-style RTX 4090 is certainly a big help, removing heat from inside the chassis instead of circulating hot air as with a traditional multi-fan GPU. The TDP should be going up for the RTX 50 series, so the RTX 40 series is a good candidate for such mods.
There is a catch, however, and that comes down to a lack of battery. While you would not expect to lug this laptop around and play on battery power, it still makes it more of a desktop than anything else. It is also very heavy, coming in at 6.7 kg (nearly 15 pounds) for the laptop and an additional 1.3 kg (nearly 3 pounds) for its power supply.
How does it handle this much power in such a comparatively small space? According to the modder, it maintains 70C for GPU temperatures and does not appear to have any stability issues overall. The custom blower-style RTX 4090 is certainly a big help, removing heat from inside the chassis instead of circulating hot air as with a traditional multi-fan GPU. The TDP should be going up for the RTX 50 series, so the RTX 40 series is a good candidate for such mods.
There is a catch, however, and that comes down to a lack of battery. While you would not expect to lug this laptop around and play on battery power, it still makes it more of a desktop than anything else. It is also very heavy, coming in at 6.7 kg (nearly 15 pounds) for the laptop and an additional 1.3 kg (nearly 3 pounds) for its power supply.
Technology is improving at such a rate that soon we should have desktop RTX 4090 performance within reasonable svelte gaming laptops, maybe as soon as the next-generation. Current mobile RTX 4090 models already reach the performance of desktop GeForce RTX 4070 Ti GPUs, so it is not unrealistic to expect a bump with RTX 50 series laptops.
