RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop performance, specs & price

In the battle between RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 4090 laptop GPUs, which is the most deserving of your hard-earned cash?

Aaron Ritchie

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See below for all you need to know about RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop performance, price and specification data to help you pick between these hugely powerful Nvidia 40s-series laptop graphics cards.

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RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 4090 laptop specs

GPU & CUDA Cores

Nvidia’s GPU-naming convention means bigger/better GPUs actually have a smaller number. As a result the the AD103 GPU in the RTX 4090 laptop graphics card is the more powerful of the two (in case you were wondering, the prefix AD is the shortened version of ‘Ada Lovelace’ – the name of the architecture 40s-eries GPUs are based on).

The RTX 4090 laptop has the clear advantage in CUDA Cores, having 31% more, which should translate to substantially more processing power.

Clock speed & TGP

Clock speed is one of the key determinants when looking at performance, though in this case the two graphics cards have an equal upper boost clock number (though the RTX 4090 has more cores operating at the same speed).

TGP (Total Graphics Power) is the usual determinant of how much power the graphics card draws, which has a direct affect on the power of its output (in FPS terms say), and on the battery life of a laptop. Both cards have the same upper TGP bound, though the floor is lower on the RTX 4080.

VRAM, Memory Bus & Memory Bandwidth

VRAM aka video random access memory is essentially the short term memory of the graphics card that acts as a frame buffer and as pixel storage. The memory bus and bandwidth enables the transfer of this information. More VRAM and a larger memory bus/bandwidth enables a smoother experience with better framerate and latency. It’s especially useful for larger resolutions as they have higher pixel counts to fill up many gigabytes.

As you can see, both the bus-size and bandwidth on the RTX 4090 are greater, meaning it should have the edge on higher resolutions.

RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop price

It’s hard to say exactly the price difference between RTX 4090 laptops and RTX 4080 laptops is as it varies from brand-to-brand, model-to-model, but generally, everything else being equal, you’re talking about an additional $600-$800 for the RTX 4090 model approximately.

Often however, ‘everything else’ is usually not equal: RTX 4090 laptops typically come with more RAM and SSD storage than their RTX 4080 counterparts in most online retailers which increases the relative pricing further.

Take a look at our Where to buy RTX 4080 laptop and Where to buy RTX 4090 laptop pages for the various models on sale in your region.

RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop performance

The number one true-blue gaming laptop geezer Jarrod’sTech has done his usual excellent job of benchmarking RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 laptops in a couple of different videos (click the links if you want to see them). Whilst he didn’t directly compare the two against each other, he’s compared the performance of both against the most powerful gaming laptop GPU of last year: the RTX 3080 Ti, across 25 games, and from this we can ourselves compare the performance of both.

As you can see in the third lot of results where we’ve taken the difference between the tests, the difference in performance increases as resolution increases, which is unsurprising given the extra VRAM and CUDA Cores in the RTX 4090. In virtually all instances the RTX 4090 outperforms by some degree, although there are a couple of games out of the 25 tested where there is barely any performance uplift whatsoever between the two GPUs, and one game (Microsoft Flight Simulator – a well-known CPU reliant title) where the RTX 4080 actually outperformed at 1080p resolution, though this may just be due to anomalies with that particular test.

RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 Ti laptop FPS benchmarks

• 1080p: 28.79% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4080 (ranging between 12 – 43%)
• 1440p: 30.57% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4080 (ranging between 18 – 39%)
• 4K: 26.59% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4080 (ranging between 0.5 – 37%)

RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 3080 Ti laptop FPS benchmarks

• 1080p: 43.94% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4090 (ranging between 4 – 72%)
• 1440p: 52.76% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4090 (ranging between 18 – 72%)
• 4K: 53.38% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4090 (ranging between 18 – 65%)

RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop FPS benchmarks (extrapolated)

• 1080p: 15.15% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4090 (ranging between -8 – 29%)
• 1440p: 22.19% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4090 (ranging between 0 – 33%)
• 4K: 26.79% average increase in FPS for the RTX 4090 (ranging between 17 – 28%)

RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop: which should you buy?

As discussed the price difference for an RTX 4090 laptop GPU can amount to an additional $600-$800 approximately, which can translate to a price increased of anywhere between 15% – 27% of the laptop’s MSRP depending on the value of the laptop: for the expensive Razer Blade 18’s it’s closer to 15%, but for the (relatively) affordable MSI Stealth it’s closer to 27%.

Regardless of the percentage though, $600-$800 is still a lot of money, and we can definitively say that if you’re only looking to game at 1080p, do not bother with an RTX 4090 machine. At 1440p/1600p resolution the choice is a bit more uncertain, though we’d lean towards the RTX 4080 laptop unless you’re also going to be using your laptop for demanding rendering/workstation tasks along side gaming. At 4K resolution though we’d opt for the RTX 4090 laptop over the RTX 4080.

If you’re only intending to play a few different games on your laptop, definitely check how they perform on both GPUs. If you’re buying a gaming laptop primarily to play Microsoft Flight Simulator, then we’d certainly advise against buying and RTX 4090 laptop.

See below for our top current picks of both devices, or read our best RTX 4080 laptop guide and best RTX 4090 laptop guide for more info.

Our RTX 4090 laptop picks

Our RTX 4080 laptop picks

RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 4090 laptop FAQs

RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop : Final Word

Hopefully you now know all you need to know about the RTX 4090 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop graphics cards, enough to help you make the purchase that’s right for you. Do be sure to check out our myriad other gaming laptop guides in the mega menu above.