For us PC gamers, the most important part of a gaming notebook is its GPU. Knowing what the best graphics card for laptops is could be the key that stops you from either spending too much on a machine that fails to perform or buying a gaming laptop without the necessary grunt to deliver the frame rates you crave.
The best graphics card for laptops is currently the RTX 5080, a remarkably powerful mobile GPU available in a range of power configurations in some of the best gaming laptops money can buy. The best budget mobile GPU is the RTX 5060, a surprisingly punchy performer, especially combined with Nvidia's Multi Frame Generation tech.
But just being confident about the specific graphics chip you're after isn't quite enough—you need to know how much power the manufacturers are letting that GPU chow down on, commonly referred to as the TGP. Laptop manufacturers have a habit of tucking this away in the specs sheet, but we make sure to highlight it in all our gaming laptop reviews to make sure you know exactly what you're buying. Choose wisely, and you really can pick up a remarkably powerful mobile gaming machine.
In his two decades as a technology journalist and PC gaming tech aficionado, Dave has reviewed, tested, and broken more laptops than any normal human should. He has been formulating benchmarking criteria and testing methodology since he was struggling to form even a facsimile of a beard, and has put pretty much every generation of graphics chip—in both desktop and mobile form—through their paces. He's personally run systems with all the chips recommended in this guide, and is speaking from a whole lot of experience.
Updated September 03, 2025 to give this guide a thorough going over and crown the new Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs in their respective categories. The RTX 5080 has taken the top spot overall, with the RTX 5060 coming in as best budget, the RTX 5070 as best mid-range, and the RTX 5090 as the best high end. It's all green up in this guide, with new charts and copy to show (and tell) you exactly which GPU you should be aiming for in your next laptop purchase.
Updated February 27, 2025 to note the upcoming launch of RTX 50 series laptops. As they aren't here yet and we haven't tested them, they won't yet be included but they could be very soon.
The quick list
Best overall
The RTX 5080 mobile is a seriously capable graphics chip, available in a wide range of laptops, often in some very high-powered configurations. You'll only find it in some of the pricier machines, mind, but it's got the sort of firepower that's had us all kinds of impressed.
Best budget
The RTX 5060 might not be the gruntiest of Nvidia's current stable, but it's available in some very affordable machines and capable of great 1080p and 1440p performance, particularly when you take advantage of DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation.
Best mid-range
The RTX 5070 isn't exactly a quantum leap ahead of the mobile RTX 4070 of old, but it's still where you want to be if you're looking for the pricing sweet spot. It too benefits from a spot of MFG, but it's a very capable performer in some brilliant mid-range machines.
Best high-end
The RTX 5090 is a whole lot of GPU to cram into a mobile frame, and as a result you'll only find it in the priciest of gaming laptops. It's an expensive option, and the RTX 5080 is still more suited to a mobile form factor—but if you must have the very fastest, here it potentially is. In the right config, that is.
Best integrated graphics
The gaming performance of Strix Point APUs with their RDNA 3.5 iGPU is pretty damned impressive. We were already into the 780M and its 1080p gaming chops, but the 890M of the Ryzen AI 9 HX APUs is another level beyond that.
Best graphics card for laptops
✅ You want an excellent performer for somewhat-sensible money: While laptops featuring the RTX 5080 are very unlikely to be outright cheap, what you're getting for your cash is a gaming GPU that's more than capable of spitting out impressive frame rates in demanding games, and gives DLSS and Multi Frame Generation an excellent baseline to work with.
✅ You want something reasonably portable: Nvidia's RTX 5090 can be found in some slim machines, but it's held back by the cooling capabilities of a thin chassis, even in the excellent Razer Blade 16. The RTX 5080 makes much more sense if you're planning on taking plenty of gaming performance with you on the move.
❌ You're on a budget: The RTX 5080 is still a high-end GPU, and that means high-end prices. The RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 below are better choices if you're watching the pennies as much as you're watching frame rates.
❌ You're after the best thin and light machine: While the RTX 5080 is a relatively cool runner overall, the 120 W variant found in some slim machines can prove to be slightly hamstrung. The RTX 5070 Ti and the RTX 5070 can sometimes come within touching distance of it, and should be a fair bit cheaper, too.
💻 The Nvidia RTX 5080 is the best laptop GPU overall this generation, delivering a hefty dose of base frame rate grunt in some of our favourite mobile machines. Those looking for something more affordable will be well served by the RTX 5060 and RTX 5070 below, but the 175 W and 150 W variants of the RTX 5080 are super solid performers, and the one to watch out for in your next purchase. The 120 W version is pretty punchy too, but it's worth checking out the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti in slimmer machines to maximise the bang for your buck.
The Nvidia RTX 5080 mobile is the best overall gaming laptop GPU you can get your hands on, thanks to its combination of excellent performance, reasonable thermals, and availability in a range of power configurations. Given that many gaming laptops are now upping the resolution of their panels ever higher, you're going to want some serious firepower in a modern GPU, and that's exactly what the RTX 5080 mobile provides.
Of course, given that we're now living in the age of DLSS upscaling and Multi Frame Generation, you're still likely to need a dose of either (or both) to take advantage of the high refresh rates of modern laptop displays. Still, the RTX 5080 has enough grunt to ensure that the base frame rate underneath is plenty good enough for those tools to work with, minimising potential latency issues and leading to a pretty seamless gaming experience.
We've tested the 175 W, 150 W, and 120 W TGP variants of this mobile GPU in a variety of laptops, and while the 175 W variant is the one to pick if you want to maximise performance, the 150 W version is still a very capable GPU. Your mileage will vary on a game to game basis, of course, but all of them provide a good dose of raw grunt at 1440p, and have proven to run reasonably cool under duress, too. Still, I'd say the 120 W variant should only really be considered for thin and light machines, as it does trail the pack somewhat.
While RTX 5080 laptops can be expensive, the MSI Vector 16 HX AI can sometimes be found for a touch over $2,000, and that's actually a darn good price for such a capable gaming laptop. The Alienware 16 Area-51, HP Omen Max 16, and the truly excellent Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 are usually a fair chunk over $3,000, although it's worth keeping an eye on our cheap gaming laptop deals page if you're planning on picking up a bargain, as we regularly find them for a fair bit less than that.
Our Nvidia RTX 5080 gaming laptop reviews:
- Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10
- MSI Vector 16 HX AI
- Alienware 16 Area-51
- HP Omen Max 16
- MSI Raider 18 HX AI
- MSI Stealth 18 HX AI
- Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 2025
- Gigabyte Aorus Master 16
Best budget graphics card for laptops
✅ You're shopping for gaming laptops around the $1,000 mark: RTX 5060-touting machines are already seeing significant discounts, making them very good value if you can grab one for significantly less than an RTX 5070-equipped model.
✅ You want a small, super-portable machine: The RTX 5060 has a tendency to crop up in thin and light gaming laptops, as well as 14-inch travel machines, and that's all thanks to its tendency to behave well in smaller chassis designs. That being said, we'd avoid anything too low wattage, unless you're only planning on using it for light gaming.
❌ You've got the budget to range a bit higher: While the RTX 5060 is capable of performing very well for the cash, if you can stretch to an RTX 5070-equipped laptop, all the better. It might sound obvious to say our best mid-range option is better than the budget, but it's often capable of trouncing the RTX 5060 mobile by a significant amount.
❌ You haven't checked the specific TGP of the laptop you're considering: Many manufacturers have unfortunately made it difficult in recent years to double check the power rating of GPUs in specific machines, but it's still worth doing your research before you lay down your hard-earned cash. Variants under an 80 W TGP are more likely to struggle with highly-demanding games, so bear that in mind.
💻 The Nvidia RTX 5060 is the best budget laptop GPU thanks to its mix of affordability and performance. It's a comfortable 1080p performer with 1440p chops to boot, and while you'll be leaning on upscaling and Frame Gen to really push the frames on a high refresh rate screen, it's generally a pretty smooth experience. That being said, Multi Frame Generation can expose the RTX 5060's latency limits, and it's important to pay attention to the TGP of whichever version you're buying, as some of the low-power variants are likely to be a little disappointing.
If you're looking for the best budget graphics card for laptops, look no further than the RTX 5060 mobile. It's got a few caveats, sure, and it's not the most exciting of GPUs. But thanks to its good 1080p and 1440p performance—and the fact that, like all RTX 50-series GPUs, it's capable of taking advantage of DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation—it's a budget GPU that can provide a surprisingly smooth gaming experience.
You'll find the RTX 5060 mobile in a variety of power configurations, but much like the RTX 4060 before it, it's probably best to adjust your expectations when it comes to the ultra-low-wattage variants. Cutting the TGP down below 80 W is likely to take a significant toll on the performance, but the higher-wattage versions really do deliver a surprising amount of punch.
Like the 110 W variant you'll find in our best value 14-inch gaming laptop pick, the Asus TUF A14 2025. While the 115 W RTX 5070 mobile does range ahead significantly, the RTX 5060 in this little machine delivers enough base frames for MFG to do its job without tanking the latency to unplayable levels, as our Jacob found in his review.
And, as with all budget GPUs, tweaking the ingame settings will make a major difference. It's about keeping your expectations reasonable at this end of the market, and the RTX 5060 makes a good case for itself in this regard—especially when you can find one in frequently-discounted laptops that sometimes dip towards $1,000.
RTX 50-series laptops are still the hot new thing on the block, but we're already starting to see RTX 5060 machines with significant amounts knocked off the price, and that's a good news for anyone looking for a cheap gaming machine with great GPU performance—providing you don't mind keeping the resolution sensible, the settings reasonable, and the upscaling enabled. Plus, it runs cool and quiet, which makes it ideal for smaller laptop chassis designs. Just keep an eye on the wattage specs before laying down your cash, yes?
Our Nvidia RTX 5060 gaming laptop reviews:
Best mid-range graphics card for laptops
✅ You're looking for the mid-range sweet spot: The RTX 5070 mobile isn't perhaps the major leap forward we were looking for compared to the RTX 4070 mobile, but it's still the GPU to aim for in the middle of the current market. While the RTX 5070 Ti mobile can range ahead of it, RTX 5070 machines can be found for more reasonable prices.
✅ You're looking at laptops with 1440p screens and above: Even with DLSS and Multi Frame Generation turned up, the budget RTX 5060 mobile starts to tap out when the resolution gets too high, while the RTX 5070 can usually keep cruising without issue with the AI doohickeys turned on. It's still got its limits, mind.
❌ You can find a similar-wattage RTX 5070 Ti machine for the same cash: While the RTX 5070 Ti mobile isn't massively faster than the RTX 5070 at the same power levels, it does have the edge, and every frame matters when you're looking at really demanding games. While we'd still plump for the RTX 5070 if it's significantly cheaper, even out the money metric and the RTX 5070 Ti mobile is the more powerful (and more desireable) GPU.
❌ You want maximum performance: The RTX 5070 mobile is no slouch, but it's not going to be bothering most versions of the RTX 5080 mobile in the frame rate stakes. Or the above-mentioned RTX 5070 Ti, all things being even.
💻 The Nvidia RTX 5070 mobile sits in the mid-range sweet spot this generation, taking over the space occupied by the RTX 4070 mobile before it. It comes with a healthy 12 GB of GDDR7, and enough shaders and bus width to allow it to crunch out some good base frame rates at 1440p—with the potential to range much higher thanks to its Multi Frame Generation and DLSS 4 support. Again, it's worth paying attention to the TGP, as the 115 W variant (and above) is where you want to be aiming for the demanding stuff, but it's a GPU with major frame rate potential when you take advantage of all it has to offer.
Like the mighty RTX 4070 mobile before it, the best mid-range laptop graphics card of this generation is the RTX 5070, err, mobile. It's not quite the quantum leap in gaming performance over its predecessor we were hoping for, but it does have a significant advantage over its predecessor—which you've probably guessed by now if you've read the rest of this guide.
Yep, it's good old DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Gen once more. However, unlike the RTX 5060 in our best budget spot above, the RTX 5070 is actually capable of a good turn of speed at 1440p+ native resolutions too, which is all the better for avoiding latency-induced nasties and keeping the upscaling light, while the frame rates remain high.
That being said, you'll often find this GPU in laptops with 1600p+ screens, and that's an awful lot of pixels to push in demanding games, so I wouldn't go abandoning Frame Gen just yet. The RTX 5070 does come with a decently-substantial 12 GB of GDDR7 VRAM, though, so it's better equipped for high resolution gaming than its budget sibling.
And a fair whack more powerful in general, as it happens. It's still important to keep an eye on TGP ratings, but you'll most commonly find the RTX 5070 in 80-140 W configuration. We've been testing several laptops with the popular 115 W TGP version, like the fabulous Razer Blade 14, and found it to be pretty impressive in the benchmarks.
It's also worth noting that while the RTX 5070 Ti also makes for a meaty mid-range GPU, it's not massively far ahead of the RTX 5070 in our gaming figures overall. Like for like, it'd definitely be worth picking up an RTX 5070 Ti gaming laptop for the extra frames, but the standard RTX 5070 often sits in a better sweet spot in terms of bang for your buck.
That being said, we have seen some RTX 5070 machines going for silly money, especially when compared to some of the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 gaming laptops going for similar cash, so read the reviews and shop carefully. Good advice anyway, ey?
Our Nvidia RTX 5070 gaming laptop reviews:
Best high-end graphics card for laptops
✅ You want the fastest mobile GPU: Simply put, this is the most powerful GPU you can stick inside a gaming laptop right now in the right config, and that's reflected in the benchmarks. If you must have the best of everything, then it's the one to pick—although the RTX 5080 is still capable of beating it in slim machines.
✅ You've got the cash to splash: You'll need to be prepared to drop some serious moolah if you want one of these. RTX 5090 gaming laptops are teeth-clenchingly expensive as a general rule, and we've yet to see one go below $3,000, even in the sales.
❌ You're not made of money: While the RTX 5090 mobile is a stonkingly-powerful GPU, the RTX 5080 mobile makes more sense if cash is any sort of concern at all. Depending on cooling, the RTX 5080 is still capable of beating it in certain configs, too.
❌ You're looking for something extremely portable: While the Razer Blade 16 makes a damn good fist of cramming the RTX 5090 into a slim and sleek chassis, it's still constrained compared to bigger, fatter models. The Blade is remarkably powerful regardless, but expect most RTX 5090 gaming laptops to be big, honking, chonking machines in order to cope with its thermal needs.
💻 The Nvidia RTX 5090 is as powerful as mobile GPUs get, although like previous top-end Nvidia chips, its very dependent on how much room it's given to breathe—so don't expect it to outperform RTX 5080-equipped gaming laptops in a slim and sleek chassis. Still, if you're prepared to pay a very significant sum, and you don't mind a choice between constrained performance or a honking great laptop to lug around, it's a seriously powerful GPU.
Well, here we are once more, recommending Nvidia's beefiest laptop GPU as the top high-end graphics card for laptops. Last generation we had to put a heavy caveat on the RTX 4090 mobile, given it could sometimes be beaten out by the RTX 4080 mobile (depending on the config), and this time around, it's somewhat the same.
Still, the 175 W RTX 5090 mobile is capable of beating the RTX 5080 mobile by a decent margin when it's given enough room to breathe (read, a chonky chassis and cooling system). It also has the same massive drawback of the RTX 4090 mobile, and one you might have guessed already—the price.
Yep, expect to pay well north of $3,000 for an RTX 5090-touting gaming laptop, and expect that pricing to stick around for a while. That being said, you do get a frankly silly amount of mobile GPU for your cash, what with its 24 GB of GDDR7, its 10,496 CUDA cores, and its gold-plated ownership certificate.
Okay, I made the last one up. Still, my point stands—this is a stonking amount of graphics hardware, and arguably too much for many. The RTX 5080 mobile usually makes for a much more sensible buy when you factor in cost to performance ratios, but if you're the sort of person that must have the best of everything, money no object, then the RTX 5090 mobile may be for you.
We first tested this mega GPU in our current favourite gaming laptop, the Razer Blade 16, and found its performance to be excellent, even in a thermally-constrained ultra-thin chassis. It still chucks out a fair bit of heat and sucks power down like a good 'un, though, and the RTX 5080 in the chonkier Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 still beats it. However, we've also had a good going over of the Alienware 18 Area-51 with another 175 W RTX 5090 in a more spacious chassis, and the big Nvidia chip scythed its way to the top of our benchmark tables, proving its worth in the performance stakes.
Worth, though, is the operative term. If cash is no concern, then the RTX 5090 mobile makes for the meanest portable graphics chip on the market in the right config. For the rest of us? We can look and dream, then buy something more sensible instead.
Our Nvidia RTX 5090 gaming laptop reviews:
Best integrated graphics
✅ You want an office laptop that can also game: The Radeon 890M iGPU is incredibly capable and makes any Ryzen 9 AI HX 300-series laptop almost a proper gaming device.
✅ You want to take your gaming laptop out on the road: Parking the discrete GPU of a gaming laptop and switching to the integrated 890M instead will massively improve your gaming battery life and still deliver a great gaming experience.
❌ All you want is the highest quality and frame rate: Integrated GPUs are still a fair way behind their discrete brethren, and you will still get higher performance with even something like a low-end RTX 4050. Though you will pay for it in terms of power draw.
💻 When it comes to integrated graphics, there's nothing yet that can compare with the AMD Radeon 890M iGPU for its price point and variety. Intel's Lunar Lake chips are certainly impressive and Strix Halo is mighty, if very costly, but for now, the genuine 1080p gaming performance of the RDNA 3.5 chip will give you playable frame rates from thin and light laptops.
Finally, there's an AMD GPU in the list. Sorry, AMD fans, when it comes to graphics cards for laptops, there is such a heavy weighting towards Nvidia's discrete mobile GPUs that Radeon chips barely get a look-in. That's shared at the manufacturer level where you will find precious few AMD graphics cards being used in laptops you can actually buy.
The counter to that is with regard to integrated graphics. If you want a mobile machine without a dedicated graphics card, but still with actually decent gaming performance, then right now you either buy a device with an AMD APU inside it or you go with Intel's Lunar Lake, which has had a bit of a splash with the MSI Claw 8 AI+ but hasn't quite won out over the laptop market.
It's a pretty big upgrade from the Radeon 780M, which you'll find in all the latest handhelds, offering 16 RDNA 3.5 compute units (CUs) compared with the previous top chip's 12 CUs, or the eight CUs you'll find in the Steam Deck OLED's Sephiroth APU. In terms of shader count, that's a 33% uplift on the previous gen.
The main takeaway here, though, is that with AMD's latest iGPUs, you're getting genuine 1080p gaming performance, even if you do have to be a little more studious about how you manage your graphics settings. High settings can still be achieved, but medium and low settings are more likely to give you a better experience. AMD's Fluid Motion Frames 2 feature (AFMF2) is functioning on the new mobile chips, and that gives you universal frame generation on any DX11 or DX12 game, and that can deliver great performance gains for integrated graphics.
The benefits of AMD's iGPUs are obvious for standard office-style laptops—you can do some light gaming on your down time or while travelling—but it's also a boon for gaming laptops, too. They have traditionally poor gaming battery life, meaning that truly mobile gaming is often not doable on them for more than 60 minutes at best. Switch over to your iGPU, however, and you can carry on playing away from the plug socket for a hell of a lot longer when your dedicated GPU is lying dormant and not sucking up all the juice.
Where to buy
US
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- Amazon: Regular deals on gaming laptops featuring every GPU on this page
- Best Buy: Some of the biggest discounts on gaming laptops from all the major brands
- Asus: Deals on Asus gaming laptops of all types @ Newegg
- MSI: Some of the cheapest MSI deals @ Best Buy
- Gigabyte: Discounts on some of our favorite budget laptops @ Best Buy
- Lenovo: Regular discounts on high-spec RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 machines @ B&H Photo
- Walmart: HP gaming laptops and much more
- Target: Manufacturer refurbs from Acer for low prices
- Razer: Regular savings on RTX 40-series Blades
- Newegg: Gaming laptops from all the major brands, often with major price reductions
- Dell: A large range of Alienware and regular Dell gaming laptops, often on discount
UK
- Amazon: Gaming laptops from all the major brands, often on discount
- Laptops Direct: RTX 5060 to RTX 5090 machines with regular price drops
- Overclockers: A wide selection of gaming machines
- Razer UK: Regular discounts on RTX 50-series Blade laptops
- Scan: Asus gaming laptops and many more
- PC Specialist: Configurable RTX 50-series laptops
- Cyberpower: MSI and Asus laptops galore
- Currys: Surprisingly good prices on laptops from many of the major brands
FAQ
Can I put any graphics card in my laptop?
Generally speaking, not really. The Framework 16 and Framework 13 come with modular GPUs you can remove at will, but they're the exception to the rule. In general, if you buy a gaming laptop, expect the GPU to be firmly soldered to the board.
Do I need a dedicated graphics card in my laptop?
If you want the absolute best gaming performance out of your laptop, then, yes, you do need a dedicated GPU in your notebook. BUT we are getting to the point where AMD's integrated graphics cards, such as the Radeon 890M, are delivering genuine 1080p gaming performance without a dedicated GPU. Intel's Lunar Lake chips are also pretty punchy when it comes to iGPU performance, too.
Should I worry about what the CPU in a gaming laptop is?
That really depends on what you want to do with your laptop. An 8-core, 16-thread AMD Ryzen chip will allow you to do a whole load of productivity on the road, but honestly, it will have little benefit in gaming. As long as the CPU has at least six cores and 12 threads (and it's clocked high enough), it will likely be more than enough to deliver excellent gaming performance when paired with something like the RTX 5070.
What screen size is best for a gaming laptop?
This will arguably have the most immediate impact on your choice of the build. Picking the size of your screen basically dictates the size of your laptop. A 14-inch machine will be a thin-and-light ultrabook, while an 18-inch panel should be treated as a desktop replacement in most cases. At 15-16 inches, you're looking at the most common size of gaming laptop screens.
Are high refresh rate panels worth it for laptops?
We love high refresh rate screens here, and while you cannot guarantee your RTX 5060 will deliver 240 fps in the latest games, you'll still see a benefit in the general look and feel of running a 240 Hz display for day-to-day usage.
Should I get a 4K screen in my laptop?
Probably not. 4K gaming laptops are still generally regarded as overkill; they're fine for video editing if you're dealing with 4K content, but it's not the optimal choice for games in a mobile machine. The standard 1080p resolution means that the generally slower mobile GPUs are all but guaranteed high frame rates, while 1440p to 1600p panels are now very common—but you'll need a mobile RTX 5070 or higher to push that screen at native res.
A 1440p screen offers the perfect compromise between high resolution and decent gaming performance. At the same time, a 4K notebook will likely overstress your GPU and tax your eyeballs as you squint at your 16-inch display.
