Desktop GeForce vs. Laptop GeForce: Gaming Performance Compared

Um... did you actually read what I posted? I asked why Techspot didn’t include the 2080 or 2080 super in their reviews... I gave an example of a laptop (the Area 51 from Dell) but clearly there are others...
Mmmh... the Dell Alienware Area51m is not a good example. It is using desktop grade CPU and GPU, so it would be out of context in this comparison (because you should report it below the “desktop” category).
 
Steve and Tim can only work with what they have and what can be achieved within publication schedules. Hardware vendors are unlikely to provide a sample that’s not going to receive a full review within a reasonable timeframe, and while going out and buying a motherboard or two as an addition for a comparison article is a viable option, shelling out $1500 or more for a laptop is another matter entirely.

Benchmarking also takes a huge amount of time - tests are run multiple times to produce a more useful data sample, and each of these runs vary a lot in time too. As an example, it took almost 20 hours of testing just to collate all of the data required for this article:


Then there’s the images to produce, text and videos to write/script, and edit. As much as we’d all like every review and article to cover every possible combination of available hardware, there’s always some constraints that prevent this.
You don't have to apologize in my opinion. They are speaking about a rather unusual class of desktop replacement like the MSI Titan and Alienware Area 51m which are not really laptops (weight above 4 kg !) but more a "compact computer ", using desktop components sometime even user replaceable . Performance in that case clearly are better than a true notebook because you have much more thermal headroom (but still slightly lower than a proper desktop because of the limited cooling system).
 
Because I post at the MSI Titan boards and the Area 51m boards as well as the Asus Mothership boards. A lot of us use an external monitor when using the laptop at home.

Man you don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Yeah, I do. And I have also heard many of these socalled gaming laptops run games for more than 5 minutes, crazy noise output and throttling then.

1-2 small fans are not going to be able to keep up in the long run, which is why they ramp up to 100%

Hell the last two MSI gaming laptops I heard were louder than my vacuumer :D and the last Asus gaming laptop sounded like my GFs hair dryer...

This is what happends when you cram high TDP parts into a small chassis without adequate cooling. Which is why "gaming laptops" always made me cringe. Most even have RGB and huge logo's all over, you clearly see that their target audience is teenagers.

Why pay more for less?
 
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Yeah, I do. And I have also heard many of these socalled gaming laptops run games for more than 5 minutes, crazy noise output and throttling then.

1-2 small fans are not going to be able to keep up in the long run, which is why they ramp up to 100%

Hell the last two MSI gaming laptops I heard were louder than my vacuumer :D and the last Asus gaming laptop sounded like my GFs hair dryer...

This is what happends when you cram high TDP parts into a small chassis without adequate cooling. Which is why "gaming laptops" always made me cringe. Most even have RGB and huge logo's all over, you clearly see that their target audience is teenagers.

Why pay more for less?

Really ? My Acer Triton 500 with 10875H + 2070 Super Max-Q 90W would beg to differ.

Granted the stock booster behavior of this CPU is out of wack, basically its turbo boost clocks are not realistic for any laptop cooling solution (low to medium mounting pressure). If you let it run at stock settings, the CPU would just reach 95C real quick and just thermal throttle.

After using ThrottleStop to undervolt by -100mV and lower the turbo boost clock by -500mhz, the CPU max out at 80C and GPU max out at 70C with only around 45dBa of fan noise.

So yeah, check out ThrottleStop if you have a laptop.

After reading some reviews the Triton 500 actually has the best cooling solution for thin and light laptop, certainly better than MSI and Asus equivalent.




 
Did anyone else notice that in the "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" benchmark the RTX 2070 Super is above the RTX 2080 Super, which is in contradiction with all other displayed benchmarks (and common sense). I think it's a typo. Isn't it?
 
Steve and Tim can only work with what they have and what can be achieved within publication schedules. Hardware vendors are unlikely to provide a sample that’s not going to receive a full review within a reasonable timeframe, and while going out and buying a motherboard or two as an addition for a comparison article is a viable option, shelling out $1500 or more for a laptop is another matter entirely.

Benchmarking also takes a huge amount of time - tests are run multiple times to produce a more useful data sample, and each of these runs vary a lot in time too. As an example, it took almost 20 hours of testing just to collate all of the data required for this article:


Then there’s the images to produce, text and videos to write/script, and edit. As much as we’d all like every review and article to cover every possible combination of available hardware, there’s always some constraints that prevent this.
I understand... it’s just that we’re comparing an entire line of video cards but leaving out the top 2...
And while I understand the expense and time... isn’t that kind of the point of this website?
 
Yeah, I do. And I have also heard many of these socalled gaming laptops run games for more than 5 minutes, crazy noise output and throttling then.

1-2 small fans are not going to be able to keep up in the long run, which is why they ramp up to 100%
You are talking about machines such as thin and light gaming laptops that can get quite hot. They also barely qualify as "Gaming Laptops" so, there you go.
Hell the last two MSI gaming laptops I heard were louder than my vacuumer :D and the last Asus gaming laptop sounded like my GFs hair dryer...
Then do your homework before you buy.
 
I understand... it’s just that we’re comparing an entire line of video cards but leaving out the top 2...
And while I understand the expense and time... isn’t that kind of the point of this website?
As far as I know there is not such a thing as a “mobile” 2080 Super capped at 200W.
You are speaking about a desktop solution adapted to a “notebook” like the Titan or Area 51m.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/gaming-laptops
 
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Really ? My Acer Triton 500 with 10875H + 2070 Super Max-Q 90W would beg to differ.

Granted the stock booster behavior of this CPU is out of wack, basically its turbo boost clocks are not realistic for any laptop cooling solution (low to medium mounting pressure). If you let it run at stock settings, the CPU would just reach 95C real quick and just thermal throttle.

After using ThrottleStop to undervolt by -100mV and lower the turbo boost clock by -500mhz, the CPU max out at 80C and GPU max out at 70C with only around 45dBa of fan noise.

So yeah, check out ThrottleStop if you have a laptop.

After reading some reviews the Triton 500 actually has the best cooling solution for thin and light laptop, certainly better than MSI and Asus equivalent.
Do you really think that crippling an expensive CPU by 500 MHz just to keep temperatures under control is speaking about a good cooling system ?
Don’t get me wrong, your notebook is not worse than others. This is a common issue for gaming notebooks.
I owned a 17” 9750H + 2070 Max Q and thanks to Throttlestop I undervolted it by -150 mV and I limited Turbo Boost by 100 MHz, so I mostly preserved performance keeping temperatures under control.
But gaming performance compared to my roughly equivalent desktop (9600K + 2070 Super) were ridiculous. I ended up selling it.
 
Do you really think that crippling an expensive CPU by 500 MHz just to keep temperatures under control is speaking about a good cooling system ?
Don’t get me wrong, your notebook is not worse than others. This is a common issue for gaming notebooks.
I owned a 17” 9750H + 2070 Max Q and thanks to Throttlestop I undervolted it by -150 mV and I limited Turbo Boost by 100 MHz, so I mostly preserved performance keeping temperatures under control.
But gaming performance compared to my roughly equivalent desktop (9600K + 2070 Super) were ridiculous. I ended up selling it.
When you buy a gaming laptop you shouldn't be expecting 2070 like performance. When pascal mobile was out the way it was that the mobile gpu's had more cores than the desktop equivalent but lower wattage and clocks. Turing is different. There is no core increase for the rtx cards. They're the exact same. With lower clocks and wattage. The other way to increase laptop gpu performance is voltage tuning, or getting the gpu to run at higher clocks at lower voltage. It's the reason why the gtx 1080 mobile was so popular, so one could argue to get a 1080 laptop over an rtx 2070 laptop due to the higher wattage.
 
As far as I know there is not such a thing as a “mobile” 2080 Super capped at 200W.
You are speaking about a desktop solution adapted to a “notebook” like the Titan or Area 51m.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/gaming-laptops
I believe there is.. it doesn't go to 200w though (that's the "desktop" version adapted for the Area 51). It's different than the Max Q though...
 
When you buy a gaming laptop you shouldn't be expecting 2070 like performance. When pascal mobile was out the way it was that the mobile gpu's had more cores than the desktop equivalent but lower wattage and clocks. Turing is different. There is no core increase for the rtx cards. They're the exact same. With lower clocks and wattage. The other way to increase laptop gpu performance is voltage tuning, or getting the gpu to run at higher clocks at lower voltage. It's the reason why the gtx 1080 mobile was so popular, so one could argue to get a 1080 laptop over an rtx 2070 laptop due to the higher wattage.
I agree, so they should have called it 2070M, not 2070...
 
Do you really think that crippling an expensive CPU by 500 MHz just to keep temperatures under control is speaking about a good cooling system ?
Don’t get me wrong, your notebook is not worse than others. This is a common issue for gaming notebooks.
I owned a 17” 9750H + 2070 Max Q and thanks to Throttlestop I undervolted it by -150 mV and I limited Turbo Boost by 100 MHz, so I mostly preserved performance keeping temperatures under control.
But gaming performance compared to my roughly equivalent desktop (9600K + 2070 Super) were ridiculous. I ended up selling it.

Well when you have a choice between a Desktop PC or a laptop, always choose Desktop.
My main rig is a 8700K @ 5.1ghz and 2080 Ti, I don't really want to play on laptop unless I had no other option...
Anyways between maximum performance with 55dBa of fan noise and 95% perf with 45dBa of fan noise, I choose the latter. Performance is perfectly fine btw, my laptop still performs about the same as 2080 Super max-Q 80W in this article. With DLSS I have no doubt this laptop can play Cyberpunk 2077 with ease @ 1080p
 
You don't have to apologize in my opinion. They are speaking about a rather unusual class of desktop replacement like the MSI Titan and Alienware Area 51m which are not really laptops (weight above 4 kg !) but more a "compact computer ", using desktop components sometime even user replaceable . Performance in that case clearly are better than a true notebook because you have much more thermal headroom (but still slightly lower than a proper desktop because of the limited cooling system).

In other words the worst of both worlds, not truly portable like a laptop and lacking the full performance of a desktop with the same components.
 
In other words the worst of both worlds, not truly portable like a laptop and lacking the full performance of a desktop with the same components.
The problem isn't heating. It's power. Most laptops have batteries in them with most of those DTR's having 90whr's. Look at the alienware 51m for example. They draw so much power. The gpus also have lower clocks. Even if the laptop itself can handle the heat the problem is the power draw management. It's not like you can just go to afterburner and raise or decrease the tdp of the gpu at will. It doesn't work like that. Also add the fact that laptops vary too much in heating. And nvidia has 4 options for mobile gpus.
80w
90w
115w
150+W
Most 1660ti laptops will use 80 to 90w
Some oems will go to 115w.
 
The problem isn't heating. It's power. Most laptops have batteries in them with most of those DTR's having 90whr's. Look at the alienware 51m for example. They draw so much power. The gpus also have lower clocks. Even if the laptop itself can handle the heat the problem is the power draw management. It's not like you can just go to afterburner and raise or decrease the tdp of the gpu at will. It doesn't work like that. Also add the fact that laptops vary too much in heating. And nvidia has 4 options for mobile gpus.
80w
90w
115w
150+W
Most 1660ti laptops will use 80 to 90w
Some oems will go to 115w.
Problem is most 2060 and 2070 laptops are using 80 to 90W.
 
Problem is most 2060 and 2070 laptops are using 80 to 90W.
Tbh I wonder why that is done. But I don't know I'm not amd nor am I the company that produces the laptops. I do know that the GP65 has a 115w 2060. With some clevos and tongfangs having 115w 2070's
 
Tbh I wonder why that is done. But I don't know I'm not amd nor am I the company that produces the laptops. I do know that the GP65 has a 115w 2060. With some clevos and tongfangs having 115w 2070's
I don’t know about that specific model but I worked on a couple of MSI recently, with 2060 and 2070 and they were using 90W GPUs.
 
Which msi model was it
Can’t say for sure (they weren’t mine... I just set it up for a couple colleagues with an undervolting on both ).
One was a GE75 with 2060, the other I have to check but it has the 2070.
 
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While admittedly a niche product - and most people who buy them SHOULDN'T.... Desktop replacement laptops ARE essential for some people...

Some of us need as much performance as possible and also must be able to use the laptop in multiple locations - portability is essential, even if the actual machine is "really heavy" - it's still easier to move than a desktop.

I bought the Alienware 18 many years ago (with dual 880 GPUs) - it might have weighed like 12 pounds, but it needed to be used in multiple classrooms in my schools, be able to render video..... plus be able to come back home on weekends for me to game on :)
 
While admittedly a niche product - and most people who buy them SHOULDN'T.... Desktop replacement laptops ARE essential for some people...

Some of us need as much performance as possible and also must be able to use the laptop in multiple locations - portability is essential, even if the actual machine is "really heavy" - it's still easier to move than a desktop.

I bought the Alienware 18 many years ago (with dual 880 GPUs) - it might have weighed like 12 pounds, but it needed to be used in multiple classrooms in my schools, be able to render video..... plus be able to come back home on weekends for me to game on :)
You are right: a niche product still is a product.
 
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