Comparison of Graphics Cards for Laptops and Desktops
Laptop graphics cards are a little misleading in their names. You might think the GTX 980M is comparable to the desktop GTX 980, but in reality the performance is very different.
How is it different? Well, NVIDIA claims that the last few generations have “closed the gap” between the mobile and desktop versions of this GPU, but Linus Tech Tips decided to see what the real difference in performance is on the latest cards. The results are not entirely surprising, but they are good to know: the GTX 980 for desktop offers 30-40% more performance than its laptop counterpart, which is in line with NVIDIA’s statement. The real lesson here is not to ignore the M – the 980M and 980 differ greatly in performance.
Of course, since it’s part of a laptop, this lower performance also comes with a higher price tag, so unless you’re playing a lot of gaming on the go, we recommend getting a non-gaming laptop and purchasing a dedicated gaming desktop instead. In fact, it is often cheaper even if you buy two computers instead of one.
Watch the video above for full results.
GTX 980 and GTX 980M Comparison of apples and apples | Linus’ technical advice