This gaming laptop has a full-size Nvidia RTX 4090, but there’s a catch

This DIY laptop from China is faster than most gaming PCs, let alone laptops, with a desktop-grade Nvidia GPU placed inside a 17lb case.

Over in China, big things are happening. In this case, it’s one big DIY laptop, designed by a Chinese modder to fit a desktop PC with a full-size Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card into a laptop-style shell casing. The desktop version of the RTX 4090 is a powerhouse, making this DIY gaming laptop one of the most powerful laptops you’ll never own.

If you’re looking for raw power, the desktop version of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is easily the best graphics card you can buy. Nvidia hasn’t shared the same power with the laptop-equivalent RTX 4090 GPU, however. It might have the 4090 label slapped on it, but typical RTX 4090 laptop performance will match an RTX 4070 Ti under normal conditions.

If you can’t comprehend the power of this fully operational gaming station, let’s go over the specs. According to the video on Chinese video platform Bilibili, this laptop/desktop combo includes a custom blower-style RTX 4090 with a 450W thermal design power (TDP), not the slower 4090D with a 425W TDP released by Nvidia for the Chinese market.

The laptop also includes an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, one of AMD’s best gaming CPUs, along with 64GB (2x32GB) of SK Hynix DDR5-6800 RAM, and an Intel Optane P5800X NVMe SSD. This would be a top-tier PC build under normal circumstances, but the video mentions that the “barebone notebook” can be customized to suit any configuration, much like a typical PC could.

To put that into perspective, on paper, this DIY laptop has similar specs to a MSI MEG Trident X2 14th, one of the most powerful options in our best gaming PCs guide. In theory, this laptop should be able to handle any game you can throw at it with system resources to spare. The video also includes a benchmark shot showing a 28,490 Time Spy score in 3D Mark.

The power behind this lap-desk-top is one thing, but the build quality is pretty impressive, too. From the pictures, the laptop has a fully functional hinged plastic casing that integrates both the screen, keyboard, and internal desktop-grade components. The video shows the laptop fitting into a typical backpack, but weighing 17.63 pounds (8kg) with the external PSU and with a 2.75-inch width (7cm), it’s certainly going to be thicker and heavier than what you might expect from a typical gaming laptop like the Razer Blade 16.

This project isn’t going to be hitting retailers any time soon, but as a proof-of-concept, it’s an interesting look at the tradeoffs that laptop manufacturers usually have to make to make a laptop smaller, quieter, and cooler. If you want a more traditional portable gaming experience, however, then you can always pick up a gaming laptop, and our best gaming laptop guide has a list of recommendations for you to consider.