The good news is that you can grab an RTX 4090 laptop to get you started on the next era of mobile computing. Designed to be the ultimate desktop replacement, RTX laptops unlock unmatched performance in content creation, design rendering and video editing thanks to new dedicated hardware and feature-rich RTX accelerations in top creative apps.
1. Intel Core i9-13980HX
If you’re looking to grab a top-end laptop that can handle heavy workloads while on the go, the good news is that you can now get an RTX 4090. It’s not going to be cheap, but you can certainly make up for it in performance if you’re willing to splurge.
Intel has just announced a huge boost to its 13th-gen mobile processor lineup, which sees the first 24-core chips crammed into laptop form factors. The Core i9-13980HX is the flagship of the pack, with 24 cores and 32 threads paired with an industry-leading 5.6 GHz turbo frequency.
The chip uses the same silicon as the Raptor Lake desktop PC chips, but Intel shaved 55W off its power envelope and jammed it into the slimmest form factor possible for a high-end gaming laptop.
As you can see from our Cinebench R23 test, the CPU is more than capable of chewing through workloads like renders and other heavy tasks. But it’s a bit overkill for mainstream apps, so you may want to look elsewhere for the best budget option.
2. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 is the most powerful graphics chip in the world, and it’s now available in laptops. These are incredibly powerful machines, and Jarrod of Jarrod’s Tech has a hands-on with one of the Razer Blade 16 models equipped with the new GPU.
If you want the best performance, though, you’ll need to pay top dollar for this beast of a card. It costs $1,599 for an RTX 4090, and that’s a lot of money for a GPU, especially for an enthusiast laptop.
But here’s the good news: Nvidia clocked its GeForce RTX 4090 laptop chip considerably lower, so it uses less power than a desktop RTX 4080. In the 150W configuration, this laptop GPU uses a boosted clock speed of 2,040 MHz, 500 MHz less than its desktop counterpart.
This means that the RTX 4090 laptop can deliver a 48 percent boost over its predecessor, which is one of the largest single-generation increases we’ve seen in laptops. That’s incredible, and it’s even more impressive when it comes to ray tracing.
3. Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
The good news is that you can grab an RTX 4090 laptop for a relatively reasonable price. Asus has the ROG Zephyrus G14, which packs an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU and Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card into a 14-inch form factor.
This makes for a compact, portable laptop that can still hold its own in the most demanding games. It’s also an impressively thin and light machine with a vapor chamber and liquid metal cooling system that ensures it’s not overheating during gameplay.
Gaming is well catered for on this machine, with the AMD Ryzen CPU doing the heavy lifting and the RTX GPU doing its job in most titles. Its performance isn’t as good as a desktop-based RTX 3070 laptop, but it performs better than many of the cheaper Nvidia mobile options we’ve tested in recent years and beats larger laptops that are equipped with more powerful graphics cards like the XMG Neo 15 E22.
4. MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X
MSI has two custom graphics cards to choose from with the RTX 4090 SUPRIM X, an AIO-cooled model and an air-cooled version. I’m reviewing the latter today, so be sure to check that out if you’re interested in it.
The GeForce RTX 4090 delivers an enormous leap in performance, efficiency and AI-enhanced graphics capabilities to allow you to play the latest games with extreme frame rates and immersive visuals. This new powerhouse also brings you advanced ray tracing and low-latency rendering to accelerate content creation and streamline workflows in unprecedented ways.
The RTX 4090 can pull quite a bit of power, so it’s no surprise that MSI has designed a massive cooler for this card. The 240mm all-in-one (AIO) design uses two 120mm fans to keep the GPU cool, and it’s also equipped with a pump that spins down completely when idle or under light load. Using this type of cooling is great because it keeps the card cool and quiet without adding extra noise.
