Crazy! A mind-blowing modification of a gaming laptop: A single resistor allows the 4090 to defeat the 5090.

If someone tells you that you can make the performance of the RTX 4090 in a gaming laptop catch up with that of the RTX 5090 with just one resistor, what would you think? I guess many people's first thought would be: "Dude, are you out of your mind? What kind of nonsense are you talking about?"

However, someone has actually done it, and even succeeded. Moreover, the hardware modification is really as simple as "adding" one resistor. Then, the measured data not only approaches that of the RTX 5090, but even shows a slight lead in some tests.

Image source: reddit

Considering the cost of the resistor and the price difference between laptops with the RTX 4090 and RTX 5090, I guess everyone has a question: "How is this possible?" The answer actually lies in "power consumption".

Power consumption directly determines the performance of laptops

If you've ever bought a gaming laptop, you must have noticed that there's often a large section on the promotional page dedicated to "total system power consumption". Generally speaking, high - end gaming laptops often feature a total system power consumption exceeding 200W or 225W. Some extremely high - end models can even achieve a power output of up to 260W.

Image source: MSI

The power consumption here generally refers to the total power consumption of the CPU + GPU. This seemingly simple data actually directly reflects various indicators of the laptop, such as the materials used and performance. Firstly, high power consumption means high heat generation, which requires the laptop to have a powerful cooling system. Secondly, it also places higher requirements on the power supply module of the motherboard, which means the materials and design of the motherboard must be stronger.

You can understand that power consumption represents performance in laptops. For the same CPU + GPU combination, the performance at a total power consumption of 140W will be more than 20% lower than that at 200W. In previous generations of NVIDIA's mobile graphics cards, you could even see some versions with the Max - Q suffix. In fact, these are the so - called "low - power" versions, and their performance is significantly different from the normal versions.

Although NVIDIA no longer uses the Max - Q suffix, the specific upper limit of the graphics card's power consumption still depends on the manufacturer's settings. Simply put, it gives more freedom. So, if you look at the introduction pages of some thin and light gaming laptops now, you'll find that even though their prices are almost twice that of ordinary gaming laptops, their power consumption is often only 125 - 145W, and the graphics card's power consumption is often 60% - 70% of the full - blooded version.

Seems like a bad deal? Then what if I tell you that a gaming laptop equipped with an Ultra 9 285H + RTX 5080 is only 1.49cm thick and weighs only 1.95KG? Just looking at the thickness, this high - performance gaming laptop is thinner than most so - called "thin and light laptops". In terms of weight, it's only 200 - 300g heavier than a regular thin and light laptop, which is still easily acceptable for adults.

Image source: ROG

In contrast, an ordinary gaming laptop with the same hardware specifications is often more than 2cm thick and weighs over 2.5KG. The experience when carrying it around is completely different. In short, this is designed for those who need to carry high - performance laptops around frequently, but it also directly limits the performance of the graphics card, preventing it from reaching its full potential.

Can you make the 4090 beat the 5090 with just one resistor?

A Reddit user, "thatavidreadertrue", recently shared his experience of modifying the ROG Flow 16. Since he often travels on business and needs a high - performance graphics card for work, he bought the ROG Flow 16. However, to ensure the laptop's user experience (such as cooling noise and battery life), ROG limited its power consumption to 145W, which made the graphics card's performance unable to meet thatavidreadertrue's needs.

As a digital enthusiast, thatavidreadertrue then chose a rather unusual solution: he stacked a 1 - ohm resistor on the original resistor circuit. After combining it with the 5 - ohm resistor on the motherboard, the circuit resistance was directly reduced to only 0.83m ohms.

At this time, even if the power consumption of the graphics card chip is as high as 240W, the power consumption control software will still show only "45W". The software will think that the graphics card's power consumption is far from reaching the upper limit, so it won't impose any restrictions. As a result, the RTX 4090, originally limited to a maximum of 125W, directly gets nearly twice the power supply support, even higher than that of a pure gaming laptop.

With 240W of power supply support, the user's Flow 16 defeated laptops equipped with the RTX 5090 in actual tests. Except for a 0.4% lag in the Steel Nomad project, it was basically leading in the other 3DMark test projects, with the highest lead of 9.6% in the SpeedWay project.

Image source: reddit

Compared with the pre - modification results of the Flow 16, the performance generally increased by more than 20%. The result of the Solar Bay Extreme project even skyrocketed by more than 35%. This shows that when the cooling pressure is not a bottleneck, the RTX 4090 chip can unleash even more powerful performance.

To tame the RTX 4090 in its high - performance state, thatavidreadertrue also optimized the cooling system. For example, he used liquid metal and PTM7950 phase - change thermal grease with higher cooling efficiency for the CPU and GPU. At the same time, he also upgraded the thermal pad of the voltage regulation module to the UX Pro Ultra produced by Upisren, with a nominal thermal conductivity of about 16.8 W/m·K.

Then, by manually maximizing the performance of the cooling system, he finally managed to make the Flow 16 run successfully at nearly twice the power consumption. To be honest, this alone is quite surprising. After all, few laptops are designed with twice the redundancy. It can be said that the high price of the ROG Flow 16 is justified, as its hardware is really powerful, and the power supply module is designed with a large margin.

It's precisely because of the powerful hardware foundation of the Flow 16 that this modification was possible, and thatavidreadertrue was able to gain almost free performance improvement. However, Xiaolei here wants to remind everyone not to easily try to modify your computer. This will not only void your computer's warranty but also pose a great safety risk. If you're not very good at hands - on work, you might directly damage a computer worth tens of thousands of yuan.

However, since increasing power consumption can bring such a significant improvement, and the existing technology seems to be sufficient to support the cooling needs of two or three hundred watts, why are manufacturers so conservative? Why do users have to modify their computers themselves?

NVIDIA is the one who sets the power consumption standards

By now, you might think that laptop manufacturers deliberately lower the power consumption to prevent low - end products from competing with high - end ones. That's wrong. In mainstream gaming laptops that focus on performance, manufacturers have always provided sufficient power consumption design. They can basically provide enough power supply for the graphics card's power consumption limit. Some models, such as the HP Omen 11, can even be slightly overclocked.

Do you sense something is wrong? Since the power consumption limit is fixed, why can manufacturers like HP obtain higher performance through "overclocking"? The problem actually lies here. The power consumption is set by NVIDIA, not the manufacturers. If the manufacturers were willing, they could easily provide a 250W power supply, but unfortunately, they can't.

Once, a domestic PC brand did just that. By some design, they removed the power consumption limit of NVIDIA's mobile graphics cards. As a result, their gaming laptops had high power consumption but also really strong performance. With water - cooling, they dominated the market.

Then they were warned by NVIDIA. If they didn't restore the limit, their supply qualification would be suspended. Naturally, they later silently turned off the overclocking and returned to normal power consumption. The water - cooling system originally set up for overclocking became a burden. As a result, that batch of products had to be cleared at a discounted price. Later, even the flagship water - cooled gaming laptops stopped being updated because without the possibility of overclocking, water - cooling became useless.

Image source: notebookcheck

To some extent, it can be said that NVIDIA limits the performance of graphics cards to ensure the performance gap between different models. This limitation is more obvious in higher - end models, which is why the RTX 4090 can approach the performance of the RTX 5090 when fully unleashed.

Of course, from a practical usage scenario, it's basically unrealistic to cool a 240W graphics card using conventional methods. Currently, the only system that can provide a single - chip heat dissipation limit of over 200W in a gaming laptop's form factor is water - cooling, and water - cooling systems are difficult to carry around. So, forget about using it on the go.

In other words, even if NVIDIA doesn't limit the graphics card's power, it's hard to guarantee how long a gaming laptop can run normally at a power consumption close to 300W. It's probably normal for it to overheat and throttle after ten or twenty minutes. However, NVIDIA's approach is really not fair. Many laptop manufacturers are quite dissatisfied. So, there are rumors that NVIDIA plans to lift the power consumption limit on the next - generation graphics cards and allow high - end models to unlock more power.

For laptop manufacturers, they need to unlock high power consumption to attract hardcore gamers. They want these gamers to no longer be satisfied with mainstream mid - to high - end gaming laptops but to pursue high - end laptops that can provide a 20% or even 30% performance overclock.

Actually, this is a win - win situation for NVIDIA and laptop manufacturers. NVIDIA can sell these products at a higher price under the pretext of "specially selected overclocked chips", and laptop manufacturers can also sell their products at a high price. Some manufacturers with strong R & D capabilities can even use this to widen the performance gap with second - and third - tier manufacturers.

As for modifying your computer to unlock power consumption, Xiaolei doesn't recommend it. Not to mention the risks during modification, whether the computer can run normally for a long time after modification is also a problem. Unless you have extremely strong hands - on ability and can manually modify the laptop with a water - cooling system.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Value Research Institute" (ID: jiazhiyanjiusuo), author: TSknight.