NVIDIA's most expensive laptops are a terrible value — Here's what you should buy instead

Laptops with NVIDIA's RTX 50-series mobile GPUs are officially on the market, but the high-end models aren't exactly blowing anyone away.

As I wrote earlier this week, the RTX 5090 Laptop GPU is much closer to the desktop 5080's performance than it is to its 90-class counterpart.

Comparing raw specs, it's easy to see why. The mobile RTX 5090 and the desktop RTX 5080 share the same GB203 GPU, and the rest of the stats are quite close.

The mobile 5090 does, of course, have a boosted 24GB of VRAM compared to 16GB in the desktop 5080.

Laptop versions of GPUs are always slower than their desktop counterparts. That's unsurprising. By how much is what everyone was interested in before the new laptops launched.

Overall, the mobile RTX 5090 is about 50% slower than the desktop version in real-world PC gaming performance and in synthetic benchmarks.

Those findings came from Notebookcheck's Allen Ngo, and he's now returned with more information.

NVIDIA's mobile RTX 5080 is only about 10% slower than the 5090

It's not looking any better for the mobile RTX 5090 now that Notebookcheck compared it to the mobile RTX 5080 in an otherwise identical system.

Ngo's testing with synthetic benchmarks and real-world gaming FPS reveals an approximate 10% performance difference between the two laptop GPUs, and that counts whether or not DLSS is used.

Notebookcheck tested both GPUs in a Schenker XMG Neo 16 A25 laptop with identical specs, so it's not like the GPUs' support system is influencing the divide.

While the performance gap between the laptop versions of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 might be similar to the gap between the mobile RTX 4090 and RTX 4080, the price difference is not the same.

Turning to the new Razer Blade 16 for 2025, you're looking at an extra $800 to land the mobile RTX 5090 compared to the RTX 5080.

Compared to the RTX 5070 Ti laptop, the price difference is $1,400. You can get a quality gaming laptop for that money left on the table.

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 is another laptop recently refreshed for the RTX 5000 cards, and the price differences between models are similar.

Models with the mobile 5090 cost $4,600, while models with an RTX 5080 (and otherwise similar specs) come in at $3,600, a full $1,000 cheaper.

Putting things into perspective a bit, Windows Central Senior Editor Ben Wilson's testing for his desktop RTX 5080 review reveals about a 32% performance difference compared to the desktop RTX 5090.

At MSRP (which is rare these days), the RTX 5090 costs $2,000, twice as much as the RTX 5080.

But as I mentioned above, the laptop version of the 5090 is but a shadow of its desktop counterpart, coming much closer to the desktop RTX 5080's capabilities.

My advice? Forget about RTX 5090 laptops.

It's always tempting to buy the latest and greatest hardware. Believe me, I know.

However, I fail to see how a potential buyer could reasonably opt for the mobile RTX 5090 when it's only about 10% more powerful than the mobile RTX 5080.

Perhaps if the price difference were closer to the 10% performance difference?

Making RTX 5090 laptops around $300-$400 more expensive (which is about 10% of the average cost of high-end RTX 50-series laptops) would make a lot more sense.

As it stands now, I recommend NOT buying a gaming laptop with an RTX 5090 unless absolutely necessary.

NVIDIA's RTX 5080 laptops are a much better value for those who want high-end performance, and there are always the RTX 70-class mobile cards for those looking to spend even less on a laptop.