Laptop vs Desktop (RTX 3070) - What's The Difference

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHow much better is Nvidia’s desktop RTX 3070 graphics card compared to the laptop  3070? I’ve compared both in 17 different games at 1080p and 1440p to find out!Here are the differences in specs between the 3070 mobile and desktop GPUs. Both are GA104 dies,  but the desktop 3070 has 15% more CUDA cores compared to the laptop version.  They both have 8 gigs of GDDR6 memory at the same speed, but the desktop card is of course  able to hit higher clock speeds as it’s got a higher 220 watt power limit.The laptop 3070 has to have lower power limits because more power generally equals more heat,  and I don’t know if you can see the size difference here but it’s pretty big!  Basically the laptop just has less space for cooling.To do this testing I’m using the XMG Neo 15 for the laptop,  it’s got an 8 core Ryzen 7 5800H processor and 16 gigs of DDR4-3200 memory in dual  channel. I’ve chosen this model because it both runs the RTX 3070 mobile at its  full power limit and it has a MUX switch allowing us to disable optimus and bypass  the integrated graphics - something that our desktop system here isn’t subject to.Now technically the Nvidia spec sheet does allow the RTX 3070 mobile to run all the  way down to 80 watts, so expect an even bigger difference compared to what I’ll  be showing with these two here. This is basically a best case 3070 laptop.The desktop PC also has an 8 core Zen 3 processor, but it’s the Ryzen 7 5800X  and like the GPU that does run at a higher power limit compared to the laptop. I’ve  also used 16 gigs of DDR4-3200 dual channel memory here, granted the timings are lower.Alright let’s get straight into comparing laptop 3070 against  desktop 3070 in 17 different games at 2 different resolutions, then after that  we’ll compare pricing and availability, power draw and content creator workloads.Let’s start out with Red Dead Redemption 2, which was tested with the games benchmark. I’ve got the  1080p results below and the 1440p results above, with the laptop results underneath  the desktop results. At 1080p the desktop 3070 was reaching 18% higher average FPS compared  to the laptop 3070, a below average result out of the 17 tested, with a similar 19% lead at  1440p. This game recently added DLSS support, and with this enabled both were able to get a  further performance boost. 85 FPS on a laptop at high settings 1440p is by no means unplayable,  so although the desktop is still around 19% higher, the laptop still offers a good result.Cyberpunk 2077 also had a below average difference out of all of the games tested. High settings  at 1440p was just above 60 FPS on the desktop, putting it 24% ahead of the laptop. Even the 1%  low from the desktop was ahead of the average FPS from the laptop. The difference was similar at the  lower 1080p resolution with the desktop system almost 26% faster than the laptop now. This is  another game with DLSS support, and both machines are able to get a decent performance boost by  enabling this simple setting, though the desktop was still 26% ahead of the laptop at 1080p,  so no change there, but the laptop was now capable of averaging above 100 FPS at high settings.Call of Duty Warzone was tested with all settings maxed out. The 1% lows from  the desktop 3070 were close to the average frame rates that laptop was able to offer,  though with the laptop capable of about 100 FPS at the higher 1440p  resolution at max settings it’s not exactly terrible, despite the desktop reaching 30%  higher average FPS. At the risk of sounding like an Nvidia shill, this game has DLSS support too,  and both machines can get an FPS boost by enabling this setting. The desktop 3070 was now about 28%  ahead of the laptop, so a similar margin, and both were running the game without issue.Control is a fairly GPU heavy game, though the differences between the two machines were close  to the 17 game average. The desktop had 1% lows higher than even the average FPS from the laptop,  a common trend in this testing. Again I’d argue 60 FPS at max settings 1440p on a laptop is quite  decent, but the desktop 3070 was reaching a 32% higher average frame rate compared to  the laptop here, and had a similar 31% lead at 1080p. This game also has DLSS support,  so yeah now that we’re above 100 FPS at 1440p on the laptop there’s really no concern about  playability or anything, but the fact is the desktop was now 34% ahead of the laptop,  so it’s receiving a larger gain. I’ve also tested both with ray tracing enabled. Sure,  DLSS could have been used here to boost performance, which would be recommended  given the frame rates at 1440p, but I wanted to see the RT difference between laptop and desktop.  Both resolutions were around 27% faster on the desktop, a lower difference.F1 2021 was also tested with some ray tracing,  because the maximum ultra high setting preset enables some of these settings by default.  Again 1% lows from the desktop were beating the average FPS from the laptop. The desktop  was reaching 33% higher average FPS at 1080p and 32% higher at 1440p.Microsoft Flight Simulator was right in line with the 17 game  average at 1080p with the desktop 3070 reaching 30% higher average frame rate,  though in this game I wouldn’t be surprised if processor difference was playing a part,  but that’s just the way it is when comparing laptop and desktop. At 1440p the desktop was  reaching 33% higher average FPS compared to the laptop, the 4th best result at this resolution.Watch Dogs Legion on the other hand had one of the smaller differences  out of all games tested, at least in terms of average FPS,  the 1% low gap seems to be larger. At 1440p the desktop was reaching 24% higher average FPS,  but the 1% low is almost 49% higher, so a much more stable experience on the desktop,  but again it’s hard to say how much of this is due to other components such as the processor,  it’s not just the GPU that has a higher power limit in the desktop, the CPU does too.  This game also has DLSS support which can be enabled to further boost performance on both GPUs.Shadow of the Tomb Raider had the largest difference out of  all 17 games tested in favor of the desktop 3070. At 1080p  the desktop had a massive 47% lead over the laptop, and then it was 36% ahead at 1440p.Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on the other hand had the smallest difference between the laptop  and desktop out of the 17 games tested. The desktop was reaching just 11% higher average  FPS at 1080p and 15% higher at 1440p. Given the laptop is still above 60 FPS here though,  like most of the other games covered, it’s not like it’s going to be unplayable,  and that’s coming from someone who has played this game for more than 100 hours now.Fortnite was tested with the exact same replay file on both machines. Like many other games,  the 1% lows from the desktop were ahead of even the average FPS from the laptop,  but 100 FPS at max settings 1440p on the laptop is of course still playable,  the desktop is just reaching 33% higher average FPS.Instead of talking through the rest of the 7 games in detail, I’ll just quickly skip  through them so we can get onto looking at the average differences of all games tested  as that’s more interesting, just pause the video if you want a detailed look  at any of these results. Differences can vary a fair bit between games,  which is why it’s important to test a large sample so that we can get a better average.On average over all 17 games tested at 1080p, the desktop RTX 3070 was 28% faster than the laptop,  much more of a difference compared to my recent comparison between the laptop and  desktop 3060 which only saw the desktop 8% faster than the laptop in these same games.  I suppose the 3060 laptop and desktop have a lower 55 watt power difference, while the 3070 laptop  and desktop’s gap is larger at 95 watts, and I believe this is why the difference is larger here.Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolution the performance difference is slightly smaller on  average, but still quite similar and close to the 29% point. Most of the games covered seem  to be around 30% faster on the desktop, but yeah as you can see it depends on the game,  worst case Valhalla down the bottom was less than 15% faster on the desktop.The desktop system is definitely using more power when compared to the laptop. Both were measured at  the wall, so this is the total power that the entire machine is using and not just the GPU.  In control at 4K, a GPU heavy game at a high resolution, the desktop system was  drawing around 65% more power from the wall, and granted I didn’t test FPS at 4K, 1080p and  1440p resolutions were about 30% higher average FPS on the 3070 desktop compared to the laptop,  so there’s definitely an argument to be had for the laptop being more power efficient.Just before we get into the price differences,  I’ve also compared both in some content creator workloads, it’s not all just about gaming.Blender was tested with CUDA, and the results were quite close together. The  longer classroom test was nearly 12% faster on the desktop 3070, which I suppose makes sense  when you consider that the desktop 3070 has 15% more CUDA cores and this is a CUDA test.  It would seem that the power limit difference means less here compared to the games previously.Likewise V-Ray was also tested with CUDA, and the desktop card was scoring 18%  higher than the laptop graphics here. I’ve also run its ray tracing test,  and the desktop was scoring about 9% higher than the laptop there.SPECviewperf tests out various professional 3D workloads. The desktop 3070, shown by the  red bars, was always ahead of the laptop in the purple bars,  but the margins could vary significantly depending on the specific test.So the desktop 3070 was generally better, surprising absolutely no one.  The next question is what’s the price difference? Prices will of course change  over time so refer to those links in the description below for updates.Right now the price of a 3070 laptop can vary significantly based on the specific  model. On Newegg we’re generally looking at $1800 to $2200 USD.  The XMG Neo 15 I’ve tested is currently 2200 Euro,  but I’ve seen other full powered 3070 laptops like the Legion 7 on sale for about $1600 USD.For a desktop PC, well, we all know that graphics card prices have been  all over the place for months now. The RTX 3070 was meant to have a $500 USD MSRP,  but we can see on Newegg that the cheapest one currently in stock is $1050 USD,  with most being more than this, even the lowest out of stock ones are mid 700s.The rest will greatly depend on the other parts that you select,  the 5800X I’ve used for example is another $400  alone, but honestly something like a 5600X for less money will probably still do well.Of course if you already have a PC,  just upgrading the GPU is also an option that’s not available with a laptop.I’m not going to go ahead and do a complete PC build because as mentioned prices are just all  over the place, and it’s going to heavily depend on what components you pick anyway,  but once you factor in everything like motherboard, case, power supply, RAM, storage,  screen, keyboard, you’re probably going to end up paying a similar amount to a laptop anyway. But  as mentioned it really will depend on the hardware selection, again I’ve got absolutely no doubt that  you can find cheaper desktop components and even a cheaper 3070 laptop, I’m just speaking generally.At the end of the day, to me personally cost isn’t even the major factor. It  comes down to whether or not you actually need portability. Do you actually need to take your  machine with you? If you do, good luck taking something like this to school or the office.  For people that do need portability, a laptop is clearly the superior option, or it might even  be another reason like just not having enough desk space to keep something like this setup,  or maybe as this short foretold you’re having a hard time getting your hands on these parts.For some people it might be easier just to find a laptop in stock. It depends,  the point is obviously there are scenarios where a laptop has its benefits. Generally though if you  do have the space for a desktop PC and you don’t need portability I would suggest a desktop PC.Mostly because it’s way easier to upgrade compared to a laptop. With a laptop the CPU  and GPU are soldered to the motherboard and you can’t upgrade them unless you replace the entire  machine. Kind of inefficient, whereas on the desktop I can just pull out this 3070  and put the next gen graphics card straight in, of course assuming they’re in stock.Anyway I guess the point I’m trying to make is different things for different people, and while  the desktop 3070 was a fair bit better compared to the laptop 3070, the fact is the laptop  3070 was still offering a pretty great gaming experience even at the higher 1440p resolution.Personally, what I was most interested in was to see the performance gap between the laptop  3070 and desktop 3070 being larger compared to the laptop and desktop 3060, and that’s  because the power limit difference between these two is higher compared to the 3060 versions.  Now the power limit difference between the 3080 laptop and 3080 desktop is even bigger than this,  so let me know if I should revisit this video but using the RTX 3080 instead.You can check out my comparison between the laptop and desktop 3060 over here,  and I’ve also done the same type of comparison with previous gen  graphics over here, which might be easier to get your hands on than this new stuff.  Make sure you’re subscribed for future comparisons like this one, and come and  join me in Discord and get behind the scenes videos by supporting the channel on Patreon.\n"