The first laptops containing Nvidia's top-of-the-line RTX 5090 chip have begun to ship, and details on the performance figures have begun to leak out. Some online reviewers have already tested some of the models available, and the results do not paint a rosy picture for Team Green. While you can never expect a laptop GPU to be as powerful as its desktop counterpart, these new benchmarks are worse than expected.

Respected online publication NotebookCheck tested and benchmarked two RTX 5090 laptops, the 2025 Razer Blade 16 and the ASUS Strix Scar 18 G835LX. The results of these tests exposed an enormous gap between the desktop and laptop GPU performance.

RTX 5090 laptop GPU is up to 50% worse than desktop

Due to the much smaller form factor, laptops are far more thermally restricted, as there's no room to slap a massive fan or heatsink in to cool everything down. It was widely believed that the days when desktop performance vastly eclipsed the laptop equivalents were long gone, but the RTX 5090 laptop benchmarking tests suggest it has made an unwelcome return.

On the positive side, the tests showed a 15-30% performance uplift when compared to laptops using the RTX 4090. These are decent figures and don't take into account the impact of DLSS features like frame generation. However, considering the price tag of RTX 5090 laptops and how long customers have been waiting, a 30% increase might not be worth it.

When the mobile RTX 5090 is pitted directly against its desktop equivalent, a very different picture begins to form. Benchmark figures showed the mobile RTX 5090 was up to 50% slower than the desktop version.

For example, the Desktop Nvidia Zotac RTX 5090 GPU produced a 3DMark score of 93.4. The Razer Blade 16 RTX 5090 managed 45.7, while the ASUS Strix Scar scored only 23.7. Results were a little better in gaming benchmarks, Dota 2 Reborn on Ultra settings at 1920×1080 resolution got a framerate of 291 FPS on average from the Zotac desktop RTX 5090. The Razer Blade 16, by contrast, managed 137 FPS on average.

Some of this discrepancy can be put down to the difference in power requirements. The RTX 5090 on desktop has a TDP that reaches a massive 575W. Laptop GPUs usually have a TDP of 150 W or lower to keep things cool.

Unless this power difference can be resolved, the gap between desktop and laptop performance might start opening wider.

About the Author

Rebecca Hills-Duty

Writing and journalism experience at VRFocus, UploadVR, The Escapist, HTC, PC Gamer, Tech Radar+ and Dexerto. Can sometimes be found playing with retro tech.