Gadgetory

welcome back to hadron box since the launch of invidious r-tx GPUs for gaming laptops I've been intrigued about the performance difference between the laptop and desktop variants unlike with previous generation Pascal GPUs there is a distinct difference in specifications between GeForce 20 series products designed for power constrained laptops and GeForce 20 series discrete GPUs designed for fully fledged gaming desktops I wanted to make a video definitively comparing the two for some time and with this sort of lull period before Computex I figured there's no better time to get some testing under my belt now some viewers are probably already wondering why do this analysis it's obvious the desktop PCs offer better performance and better value so do you really need to drop a great big turd on laptops that's really not my intention with this video it's not meant to be a huge attack on gaming laptops because there is still reasons to buy one that I'll talk about later the idea here is to show laptop buyers exactly how their systems will differ to a typical gaming desktop which i think is especially relevant when invidious naming scheme has muddied the waters a bit so let's revisit the GeForce 20 series for laptops again and focus in on the RT X 2070 which is also what I'll be looking at today despite Nvidia using the exact same RT X 2017 name for the laptop and desktop variants the laptop variant is clocked lower it has the same cuda called count and same memory configuration but the boost clock is a hundred and 80 megahertz lower so straight away the desktop car is 13% faster in games that are shader limited provided this clock behavior plays out in the real world this situation of having the two versions called the same thing but differing in performance has already caught out a lot of people I've seen many comments from those in our very own community who was surprised to discover that if they bought an RT X 27 t laptop they actually wouldn't be getting RT X 370 desktop performance with desktop performance being mostly what we focus on on the channel so that's why I think talking about these differences and especially these bad naming practices is important today's testing is very simple I've taken an RT X 27 t laptop and compared it to an RT X 27 T desktop in a range of games I haven't tried to make this as super apples-to-apples comparison where I lock down the desktops hardware so it can directly compare the GPUs because the reality is there are many other factors that give performance advantages to desktops in most real world systems for example laptops are limited to ddr4 2666 memory whereas most PC builders will be using at least ddr4 3000 considering it's roughly the same price and indeed for this testing that's the speed difference we're seeing both with dual channel 16 gigabyte kits but the biggest story is the CPU most gaming laptops are limited to 45 watt CPUs and in particular use the core i7 97 58 which is a 6 core 12 thread CPU that's rated at a 2.6 gigahertz base and 4.1 googa Hertz or core boost however due to that power limit the i7 9750 H often sits in the mid 3 gigahertz range when fully utilized in contrast lots of desktop builders will choose something like the core i7 8700 K which has a much higher 95 watt TDP and easily exceeds that on a regular basis it's clocked at a 3.7 gigahertz base and boosts up to 4 point 3 gigahertz all core with typical behaviors seeing that CPU sit locked at 4.3 gigahertz in a multi-threaded workload from what I've seen the 8700 K is usually clocked one gigahertz higher hood thereabouts now for this test I could have chosen something much closer to the core i7 9 750 H like the 35 watt core i7 8700 T but I thought it was more appropriate to use one of the most popular 6 core 1230 gaming CPUs in the 8700 K I also could have chosen to beef it up more with an 8 core core I $9.99 hundred K but I thought I'd stick to 6 core models here so we can see how a six core laptop fares against a six core desktop the laptop I've used today is the msi ge70 5 Raider 9sf which is equipped as mentioned with the RT X 2070 laptop variant core i7 9750 H 16 gigabytes of ddr4 2666 and a 1080p display the desktop in question is my main test rig with an RT X 2070 founders Edition inside plus a core i7 8700 K running stock and 16 gigabytes of ddr4 3000 and I also tested with a 1080p display hooked up and as a quick note the - 90 X 2070 is clocked even higher against the laptop rate 19% higher rather than 13% but this is the same as on a factory OC cards that people buy so let's kick the testing off here with Metro Exodus and well it's not looking too bad for the gaming laptop here it is beaten by the RT X 2070 desktop but only by 11% looking in average frame rates and 14% looking at 1% Louis so despite the RT X between seven-year desktop card having nearly a 20% clock speed advantage the real world impact in Metro is somewhat limited which is nice to see but things can also go in the complete opposite direction in Resident Evil 2 the desktop RT X 20 70 beats up on the laptop vote to the tune of 33% which is a whopping margin given we are looking at frame rates well above 100 FPS here I suspect this is a tag team job with the faster 8700 K also lending some assistance to remove CPU bottlenecks hitman 2 is known to be a CPU demanding title and that plays out similarly to Resident Evil 2 delivering a huge 34 percent advantage to the desktop system although this diminishes to only 22% when viewing 1% low performance battlefield 5 is an interesting situation when looking at average performance we see the desktop pull ahead by a reasonable 12% nothing that's gonna make laptop owners cry but do 1% lower performance it's clear the desktop is providing a smoother and more consistent experience with the 29% higher one percent low again things like faster memory in a faster CPU help the desktop here significantly whereas laptops can feel a lil stuttery at times the Assassin's Creed Odyssey results surprised me a little bit because I know this can be a very demanding title however the desktop is a mere 15% faster which doesn't seem too bad up against the hitman 2 or Resident Evil 2 results there also isn't much difference in framerate stability between the two systems in Far Cry 5 were back out to around that nineteen percent margin with a 14% improvement to 1% loads in favor of the desktop system so this is bang on the difference in clock speeds and fairly representative of the typical differences here we have Star Wars Battlefront 2 and like with battlefield 5 this is another game that benefits from much better 1% low performance with the desktop system 1% lows a 25% higher here compared to just a 16% high average frame right again in favor of the desktop system watchdogs to is another one of those games that tends to struggle the long laptops given its heavy GPU and CPU requirements despite being a few years old now so it's no surprise to see that it too is a title with much high against one percent less than average frame rates when comparing the two systems shadow of the Tomb Raider is a really interesting case in one of the worst for the laptop here the average frame rates are 32% high on the desktop system but the one percent lows are more than twice as high the laptop is noticeable stuttering during some of the areas of the benchmark run whereas the desktop does not and I benchmarked this set of data at least 10 times because I really wasn't convinced about these margins but every time the desktop absolutely smoked the laptop so well here we are and finally I'm close near the in depth section with Grand Theft Auto 5 the oldest title here but also still quite popular among gamers the desktop RT X 370 holds a 17% advantage in average frame rates but surprisingly the damage to 1% loads is limited to just 10% which is one of the smallest differences I've seen so far here is the full performance breakdown comparing the RT X 2070 in desktops to the RT X 2070 in laptops across the games I've just talked about plus a few extras thrown into the mix when comparing average frame rates we left with the desktop clocking in 19% faster on average coincidentally this is identical to the difference in clock speeds now I say coincidentally here because when we get a 19% clock speed improvement on paper it's typical to see maybe a 15 to 16 percent improvement in real-world performance and as you can see a lot of titles fall into that sort of bracket quite consistently however the average gain is boosted by a few outliers that benefit from the desktop PCs advantages in other areas like CPU performance when comparing the difference in 1% low performance things are a little more all over the place there are some games where the difference really isn't that large maybe only 11 to 13 percent in favor of the desktop but then there are some significant outliers like shadow of the Tomb Raider and Deus Ex mankind divided where the desktop is literally twice as fast in this crucial metric the overall average of 34% is listed here but with this sort of variance it's not all that useful I haven't really talked about max-q laptops much in this video yet but I thought I'd throw this die in here as well this is the performance difference between the desktop RTX 2070 and the max-q variant of the r-tx 2070 the max-q model is designed for even more constrained systems typically thin and light machines and is clocked considerably lower than the desktop and even the laptop variants so it's no surprise that on average the r-tx 2070 for desktops is 42% faster while this margin is enormous at least the max-q model has a different name so what is this data telling us well simply put the desktop RTX 27 he was caught 19% high in my test configurations then the laptop RTX 2070 and performs 19 % better on average while GPU boost does play around with clock speeds there's not some magical wizard in the background boosting the laptop model up to the level of the desktop card the difference in clock speeds on paper does play out in the real world while this is generally the case there are also some times where a desktops other advantages assist with performance a faster CPU helps with 1% lower performance as does faster memory depending on where the bottlenecks lie better cooling capabilities allow the desktop to cope with a wider range of operating conditions without throttling and of course the desktop has much higher scope for overclocking which is typically very limited or even non-existent in laptops but all of those additional factors are known if you put an 8700 canid desktop of course it will perform better than the lower clock i 790 750 H of course a much larger desktop is going to have better cooling the real issue here is that an everyday user might not know that the RT X 27 in laptops isn't the same as the art X 27 in desktops so you can't expect the same performance and this issue is caused by both products having the same name if you've seen performance or even just gameplay footage from an RT X 2070 in a desktop how are you supposed to know this same GPU going on its name in the laptop is actually 60% slower unless you dig into the spec sheets I really hope we don't see this confusion play out with future product lines I hope new video learns from the mess with doing this dodgy product naming stuff I really don't like it and I hope that with the next generation of products from them that they go back to either giving the laptops and desktops the exact same GPUs with the same specs or calling those map top models something a little different aside from my complaints with the other thing to talk about when comparing desktops and laptops is value desktop PCs are not only faster but cheaper even when factoring in peripherals that are integrated into the laptop form factor the exact r-tx between 70 test system I used costs around 1,700 US dollars to build yourself and then you can throw in a 1080p 144 Hertz display mechanical keyboard and a decent Mouse for about three hundred dollars more and there you have a two thousand dollar system MSI's ge 75 Rader also costs $2,000 so at face value there's no difference in price but there is a handy difference in performance with a win there to the desktop however my test system does have a few overkill components in it that are more designed for testing higher-end configurations you really don't need something like a Zen 390 or s master or H 115 i platinum for a standard built swap a couple of those components out with more reasonable stuff and the entire system price drops to $1,800 so you end up saving $200 compared to the laptop and the left with better gaming performance there is no doubt building a desktop PC and buying the necessary peripherals is a better bang for buck option than buying a gaming laptop but again this doesn't mean laptops are pointless in fact they have a very specific in hand a use case and that's portability it's much easier to take around slimmest laptop to various places then it used to lug a desktop PC monitor keyboard and mouse so what you sacrifice in performance and value tends to go towards having everything in a highly portable form factor with that said it's important to keep this trade-off in mind when tossing it between a desktop and laptop there are many times they hear stories or know of people that keep their gaming laptop planted on their desk they never take it around and they even hook out to external peripherals like perhaps a higher resolution display these people really shouldn't have bought a gaming laptop they should have gone down the desktop route because if you're not actively harnessing the portability aspect of gaming laptops while you're missing out on valuable performance so those are my thoughts on laptops versus desktops and how to systems with similar specs in some areas can differ in performance this tends to be a question we get a lot in our Q&A series and on our videos as well you know should I buy a laptop or desktop considering my use case what are the differences in performance and so on so hopefully this video gives those people information they were looking for as always you can subscribe for more content and there's no better time than now with Computex just around the corner consider supporting us on patreon and I'll catch you in the next one