Laptops running Nvidia’s super speedy RTX 4090 graphics are so expensive it makes us sad. But what’s this? An RTX 4090 laptop for well under $3,000? Not exactly chump change, but far more affordable than the $4,000 to over $5,000 we’ve seen so far.
There is, inevitably, a catch. If you want a vaguely affordable laptop with Nvidia’s finest RTX 40-series GPU, it’ll be a generic whitebook system rather than something custom-engineered from one of the big brands.
That said, you can have an RTX 4080-powered laptop from both Asus and Lenovo for sensible money. Hold that thought. First, let’s square away the cheapo RTX 4090 portable.
The machine in question is the CyberPower Tracer VII Edge. Fitted out with an Intel Core i9 13900HX CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, you’re looking at $2,851, or not far off half the price of the MSI beast Dave has just reviewed.
OK, you don’t get a mini-LED backlight. But the 17-inch screen still clips along at 240Hz. It’s all built into a Clevo clone style chassis that’s available from several laptop retailers. But when most big brand RTX 4090 laptops are over $4,000, it’s hard to argue with the value proposition here.
Speaking of big brands, Asus RoG Zephyrus laptops are among our absolute favourites. So, it’s nice to see the RoG Zephyrus 16 with a QHD 240Hz Nebula HDR display and an RTX 4080 pop up on Best Buy for $2,699.
For a whisker more, there’s also the Lenovo Pro 7i Gen 8. It’s pretty much a dead ringer for the Asus ROG Zephyrus 16, what with its 16-inch 240Hz display and the same Intel Core i9 13900HX processor and the aforementioned RTX 4080 mobile graphics, all for $2,749.
Not cheap enough? How about the MSI Katana 15.6-inch 144Hz laptop with an Intel Core i7 12650H CPU, 16GB, a 1TB Samsung SSD (from when those used to be a good thing…) and RTX 4070 graphics, all for $1,565 from AVAdirect?
It’ll certainly be interesting to see exactly how all these new mobile GPUs from Nvidia stack up. We already know the RTX 4090 is an absolute beast. But even though $2,851 is way cheaper than we’ve seen previously, it’s still a lump of cash. So, laptops built around the likes of the RTX 4070 or even RTX 4060 mobile GPUs are going to be more relevant, more of the time.