RTX 4090 laptop benchmarks — an exclusive look into Nvidia's new powerhouse

(Image credit: Alienware)

CES 2023 has been dominated by gaming laptops packing the RTX 40 Series and 13th Gen Intel power, but outside of some unreliable leaks, nobody has seen benchmarks. That is until today.

Thanks to an anonymous source, we’ve seen some early Geekbench, Cinebench, and 3DMark Time Spy benchmarks on what you would call a flagship gaming laptop — packing an RTX 4090 laptop GPU, an Intel Core i9-13900HX CPU and DDR5 RAM.

What were the results?

When benchmarked in Overdrive mode, the results are pretty staggering. Let’s start with the Geekbench 5 scores — a combined CPU + GPU test. We’ve redacted a lot of this image to keep our source anonymous, because Nvidia are extremely strict about keeping tight-lipped about results at the moment.

RTX 4090 benchmarks — (Image credit: Future)

And then, Cinebench and 3DMark Time Spy.

What else can you say about these numbers, besides “holy crap!” Let’s break down the real terms gains you’ll find here. When compared to an equivalent spec of previous generation gaming laptop in the MSI Titan GT77, which our sister site Tom’s hardware reviewed, we’re seeing a 9% increase in single core performance and a huge 31% jump in multi-core.

And the differences are far more stark across other tests. In Cinebench land when compared to the 12900HX, there’s a 7.5% increase in single core performance and a dramatic 30% leap in multi-core.

Meanwhile the Time Spy stress test shows a sustained TGP of 174 watts with efficient thermal management from the signs of that temperature.

Outlook

Bear in mind that this isn’t a straight scientific comparison. This anonymous brand did set up their laptop to pump out the best possible results with a turbo boost-esque mode. But from these early numbers, it’s fair to say that there is plenty to be excited about in these latest systems.

While we haven’t been able to recreate the lofty promises from Nvidia and Intel, the performance gains and optimal thermal management for sustained power is quite the significant jump up from last year’s models.

But do these numbers fill you with confidence to invest in a new ultra-powerful gaming laptop? Tweet at us and share your thoughts!

Jason brought a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a writer at Laptop Mag, and he is now the Managing Editor of Computing at Tom's Guide. He takes a particular interest in writing articles and creating videos about laptops, headphones and games. He has previously written for Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you'll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn't already.