Is there any point of getting a laptop with an RTX 5090 GPU? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Freesurfer
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2025, 09:29:48 pm
content: I am looking for a lightweight laptop and have stumbled across an MSI Stealth 18 HX AI, which seems promising as the weight of the laptop is just 2.89kg and with a 280W power adapter that is surprisingly only around 300g from what I could gather. I think this weight is quite impressive for such a powerful laptop with an 18" display, and is in total even lighter than my current 15.6" laptop.However I am wondering if it is actually worth getting the version of the laptop that has an RTX 5090, considering that this GPU will run on tight power specs and be throttled by power and thermally. There are RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 versions of nearly the same laptop, which come at a much lower price point. These are of course weaker chips, but I will imagine that they can reach closer to their true max performance with less power and thermal throttling. So is it pointless to get the 5090 version? I mean, if the chip can only run at for example 60% of its theoretical performance, then it is pointless if the weaker chips can nearly keep up without the same restrictions. And since the laptop will be used for gaming, I won't benefit from short bursts of peak performance.The problem when looking at benchmark websites is that it may not tell which system and what power levels the tests are run on. So I am wondering if anyone is up to date on powerful laptops, and can come with some suggestions?

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2025, 03:21:18 am
content: I haven't looked at the Nvidia laptop GPUs in years. In general more execution units clocked slower (when thermally throttled) is pretty good way to get more throughout from the same TDP. The 5090 chips might also be selected dies thet are more efficient than the 5080. So I think it's pretty likely that the 5090 will get better performance (in terms of flops/watt -- the effect on games might well be marginal) than the cheaper devices.All that said the highest performance chips are always a relatively poor value proposition. They are targeted at people who for whatever reason want or need "the best." Tbh, if you are price comparing the answer is probably that there is no reason to get the top of the line GPU.

author: Simmed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2025, 03:40:52 am
content: Quote from: Freesurfer on June 15, 2025, 09:29:48 pmi think GPU embedded lappy are never lightand always >150wlast week i was mucking around newegg and saw AMD 395which is interesting because it was <150w and it is AMD APUand then there is the ASUS model which has 128Gb DDR (USD$2.8k ~ approx)i got curious and found out that you could allocate up to 96Gb DDR to the internal GPUso after mucking around some morei found some mini PC which also feature this 395 and also possibly 128Gb equippingand they are under US$1kwhich is very delicious imohowever this AMD 395 is not a 5090 direct competitorit is only comparable to 4070 ~ 4080from newegg pov, 5090 lappies sit at $4k+++ and (32G DDR mostly)and the GPU DDR is iirc up to 24Gb ?from FPS pov, the 395 maybe hitting most games at 60 80 ? (5090 should be hitting maybe 120~150 ?)

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 16, 2025, 04:03:38 am
content: Are you restricted to a PC-based workflow? Have you considered a Macbook? Those things are a powerhouse, even my M2 Macbook Air (which is my daily driver) is easily capable of playing games at high resolutions. Fantastic battery life, lightweight and powerful.

author: Freesurfer
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 17, 2025, 01:36:42 pm
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on June 16, 2025, 03:21:18 amYeah this seems to be my conclusion too. I want something in the top range, but within reasonable limits. And it seems like people agree that it is a bit misleading of Nvidia to even call this GPU a 5090, as it is actually just an improved 5080, built on that chip just with more RAM and cores shoved in. So it is not even trying to be a real RTX 5090, other than when it comes to the price sticker.So I guess I will be looking at something 5070-5080, and when those become obsolete, I still afford another laptopQuote from: Halcyon on June 16, 2025, 04:03:38 amI'm not familiar with macs, but for games and other stuff, windows paired with an x86/x64 is pretty much mandatoryQuote from: Simmed on June 16, 2025, 03:40:52 amIt might be worth looking into what AMD have to offer in the top GPU range. I haven't seen any AMD 395 on any of the top benchmarks though but I will look into it.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2025, 12:27:19 pm
content: Perhaps a week late, but afaik the only 5090 mobile selling point is more VRAM. Mobile GPUs can be misleading anyhow because a card that gets "faster core" at 100W vs "slower core" at 200W TGP will perform dramatically different.The reviews I saw on these laptops on Dutch IT tweakers.net showed the RTX5090 is barely any faster in raw horsepower than the RTX5080 (and RTX4090). I'm sure there are more review sites that will show similar figures.The whole 5000 series is a bit of dead on arrival though. They are not bad products in itself, but giving they are the same CUDA architecture as 4000 with the same node size, there is no generational efficiency improvement. And hence in a laptop, where efficiency is king, there is almost no improvement to be seen. At best the whole stack gets a spec bump which at the top end saturates.Perhaps the only advantage of this generation is new software features (like MFG), and the later release date means that these cards will be supported for slightly longer than the RTX4000 series.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2025, 02:59:42 pm
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on June 16, 2025, 03:21:18 amThat is what I would expect. All of the alternatives have to fit within the same power envelope so higher power parts are being more selectively graded for low power operation. So by selecting the nominally higher performance part, you may actually be selecting for a better grade optimized for lower power.QuoteThat duplicates my thinking, although I question getting a dedicated GPU for any laptop. Long ago I did that for a Pentium 4 laptop, but in retrospect I think I would have been better off building a custom small form factor system for gaming; I could even have afforded to build 2 or 3 of them considering the price of the laptop.My current laptop has an AMD 5700U and the built in graphics are good, but I do not game on it.