Laptops with an NVIDIA RTX 5090 graphics card are almost twice as expensive as those equipped with an RTX 5080, but do not demonstrate the same level of performance.
Website Notebookcheck tested a gaming laptop with an RTX 5080 and compared it to a more expensive competitor and found a glaring imbalance in the price-performance ratio. In fact, laptops with RTX 5090 cost more than $4000, while prices for the RTX 5080 variant start at $2500. Therefore, the mobile RTX 5080 seems like a good option, as it is only slightly slower than the flagship.
Earlier, the site tested a laptop with RTX 5090 and found almost no difference with the mobile RTX 4090 and almost half the performance of the desktop 5090. This is quite surprising given the almost full GB203 processor and almost the same characteristics as the desktop RTX 5080. The top-of-the-line portable graphics card offers 37% more CUDA cores than the RTX 5080, but is also limited to 150W (175W with Dynamic Boost). This is probably where we should look for the reason for the poor performance.
3DMark tests of two Schenker Neo 16 laptops with identical Ryzen 9 9955HX processors show that the RTX 5080 is about 10-15% slower. However, the difference is quite noticeable in Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XV, Alan Wake 2, and Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The difference is greatest in 4K and decreases with decreasing resolution.
Notebookcheck is careful to note that the «relatively small difference in performance between the two graphics cards for enthusiasts means that it may be worth trying laptops with RTX 5080 instead of RTX 5090 to save hundreds of dollars or get better performance for the dollar». Website VideoCardz clarifies that the RTX 5080 is 10-15% slower, but has 27% fewer GPU cores and 33% less memory. At the same time, laptops with RTX 5090 are 72% more expensive if we take the cheapest options. In the case of the Schenker Neo 16 test laptops, the difference between the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 models is €855, or about 20%.
