China-only RTX 4080M puts laptop GPU in desktop case, uses far less power

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As a manufacturing hub, China sees plenty of unique hardware projects—like this gaming Megazord . But there's plenty of innovation to be found beyond one-and-done projects like this.

For instance, back when the US Department of Commerce restricted the export of Nvidia's RTX 4090 cards , Chinese manufacturers got creative. The so-called RTX 4080M card was one result of that, featuring laptop GPU silicon on top of a custom desktop PCIe board (via Videocardz ). To be clear, this is not an unofficial Nvidia product and therefore doesn't enjoy official driver support or warranties.

In fact, Nvidia addressed the gap in the China market the 4080M attempted to fill with the export-only RTX 4090 D model back in 2023 . However, testing by Bilibili user 杰某 (Jie Mou) suggests this curio is at least worth a closer look.

The Bilibili user carried out testing on a machine with an Intel Core Ultra 270K Plus CPU mounted on a Maxsun Z890-A motherboard, plus 32 GB of DDR5 RAM. The 4080M achieved a graphics score of 18,614 in 3DMark Time Spy. Though that's not unimpressive in itself, what's perhaps more interesting is that it did this by pulling a fraction of the power required by a traditional RTX 4080.

An official Nvidia RTX 4080 mobile can draw a maximum of 175 W TGP, though the unofficial RTX 4080M used only 100 W.

So yes, that would all be very impressive, were it not for the fact that the RTX 4080M is only available in China and currently costs between 2,700 and 2,800 RMB due to various component shortages. Very roughly equivalent to $400 or £300, this price tag makes it comparable to the going rate for both Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti and AMD's RX 9070 GRE in China.

The unofficial 4080M did hold its own in gaming tests pitted against the similarly priced RX 9070 GRE (Both cards also enjoy 12GB of VRAM). Though the RX 9070 GRE had the edge in most games, the 4080M enjoyed about 10 more fps in Delta Force (4K, Ultra settings). PUBG proved another interesting outlier, with the 4080M achieving 100 more frames than the AMD card (2K, Ultra).

All of that said, the 4080M arguably isn't the card to go for if you're based in China—unless you're building an ITX system where limited thermal headroom is a concern. Otherwise, the Bilibili tester says that PC builders are generally better off going with a newer, more performant card that's similarly priced (though personally I'm still compelled to give the 4080M points for its small form factor cuteness).

As for PC gamers based in the US, you can keep track of the GPU market's ups and downs with our graphics card price watch .