It looks like laptop gamers could seriously benefit from having the latest Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 gaming GPUs over last-gen models if you want the best frame rate. A benchmark demo, shown off by Nvidia at GDC 2025, shows a huge performance boost for the laptop RTX 5090 over the RTX 4090. However, with Nvidia DLSS 4 upscaling improvements and multi-frame generation seemingly responsible, the picture isn’t as clear cut as Nvidia might want us to believe, given that technology that isn’t available in every game.
This interesting comparison does show just how big of an uplift the Nvidia tech has on performance between two Razer Blade laptops, among the best gaming laptops you can buy, using current and last-gen GPUs. While the desktop RTX 5090 hasn’t seen the biggest leap in raw performance, this data shows that Nvidia’s work on improving the software side could see bigger dividends on laptops over the long term, which have tighter constraints on power consumption than their desktop counterparts.
Nvidia’s demo at GDC 2025, as reported by Notebookcheck, showed two Razer Blade 16 laptops, side-by-side, with the 2024 model with an RTX 4090 competing against a brand-new Razer Blade 16 with an RTX 5090. Running Cyberpunk 2077, the 2025 Blade 16 achieved 186fps, while the 2024 RTX 4090 model only managed 88fps.
There are a few factors likely to be at play here. Notebookcheck says that both systems were running the game at maxed-out graphics settings, but that Nvidia DLSS 4 was running in Performance mode on the new model. However, the RTX 4090 can run DLSS 4 upscaling using Nvidia’s new transformer model as well, so it’s more likely that the main factor at play here is Nvidia’s multi frame gen tech.
This new gaming AI system enables an RTX 5000 GPU to insert up to three AI-generated frames between the ones rendered by the GPU, compared to just one more AI-generated frame on the RTX 4000 GPUs. It can have a dramatic impact on frame rates, as we found in our RTX 5090 review.
While DLSS 4 multi-frame generation will offer a significant boost to in-game frame rates, as long as your starting point is decent in the first place, Nvidia’s technology isn’t universally supported. It’s had a strong launch, with 100 games now supporting DLSS 4, but there are still plenty of games that can’t run multi frame gen yet, and in these titles, the gap between RTX 40 and 50-series laptop GPUs is likely to be much smaller. That said, this demo does show that seriously demanding games can see a big performance boost on laptops if they support Nvidia’s tech.
While the Razer Blade 16 2025 isn’t yet on sale, we’ll be testing it (and the RTX 5090) out for ourselves once it reaches the market. Until then, check out our Razer Blade 16 2024 review to see what we thought about the last-gen model used here, which we praised for its slim build quality and gorgeous OLED display.
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