This Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 gaming laptop mod boosted performance by 41%

In the pursuit of more gaming power, a YouTuber has modded their Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 laptop GPU, putting Nvidia's mobile flagship through its paces and scoring a huge performance boost in the process. While it isn't a mod we'd recommend trying yourself, it does show that Nvidia's mobile GPUs aren't always being pushed to their maximum potential.

RTX 5090 laptops have been trickling out over the last few months, and they're certainly powerful, as our Razer Blade 16 review shows. That Razer model is now the top choice in our best gaming laptop guide, but comparing it to an RTX 5090-powered PC might be unfair. The RTX 5090 mobile GPU just isn't as powerful as its desktop counterpart, with just over half the CUDA cores compared to the RTX 5090 desktop GPU, along with serious voltage and clock speed limitations.

That's where this YouTuber's mod comes in. In a recent video, GizmoSlipTech shared how they shunt modded the RTX 5090 mobile GPU inside a Eluktronics Hydroc 16 G2, a water-cooled gaming laptop fitted with an Intel Ultra Core 9 275HX CPU and 48GB of DDR5 RAM.

The all-important RTX 5090 in this laptop normally has a total graphics power (TGP) limit of 175W, which is 400W less than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 on desktop. In fact, in our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 review, we measured a ludicrous 682W being pulled from the mains by our whole test system.

To get round its normal limit, the shunt mod involves soldering an additional resistor to the GPU's surrounding circuitry to trick the GPU into drawing more power than its design limits. As a result of the mod, GizmoSlipTech was able to achieve a 250W TGP, making for a 75W increase over the RTX 5090 mobile's 175W base limit. The YouTuber also optimized the performance by undervolting the GPU, helping to offset the increased power draw and keep temperatures stable, as he also explains in a detailed Reddit post.

The results speak for themselves. Using the 3DMark benchmark suite, the modifications allowed for a massive 41% performance boost in a Steel Nomad test run. In-game testing proved equally as impressive, with a 14.2% boost to frame rates in Hogwarts Legacy, 21.7% in Cyberpunk 2077, 23% in Black Myth Wukong, and 29% in The Witcher 3. Overall, the average improvement was 18.16% - not bad for a free mod.

Ultimately, there is good reason for Nvidia to generally play it safe with its laptop GPUs. In the vast majority of situations, laptops don't have the thermal dissipation capacity to deal with GPUs running at 250W or more. After all, this modded laptop uses a water cooler for its GPU, which is a technique only used by a tiny handful of extreme gaming laptops.

Nonetheless, what this mod does show is that, with the right setup, top-end laptop GPUs, like the RTX 5090, can be overclocked to provide huge boosts in frame rate. We just wouldn't recommend it, as there's a significant risk of destroying your whole laptop.

If your laptop's power doesn't leave you satisfied, you could always have a go at building your own desktop rig with a more powerful graphics card instead. Our how to build a gaming PC guide will run you through all the steps, while our best gaming GPU guide will help you to choose between Nvidia and AMD's best options across a range of budgets.

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