NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 (Laptop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (Laptop)

The Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 for laptops is a professional high-end graphics card for big and powerful laptops and mobile workstations. It is based on the same TU104 chip as the consumer GeForce RTX 2080 (mobile) but offers less shaders (2,560) and is therefore positioned between the GeForce RTX 2080 (2,944) and 2070 (2,304). Compared to the desktop RTX 4000, the mobile variant offers lower clock speeds.

The Quadro GPUs offer certified drivers, which are optimized for stability and performance in professional applications (CAD, DCC, medical, prospection, and visualizing applications). The performance in these areas is therefore much better compared to corresponding consumer GPUs.

Features

NVIDIA manufacturers the TU104 chip on a 12 nm FinFET process and includes features like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and Real-Time Ray Tracing (RTRT), which should combine to create more realistic lighting effects than older GPUs based on the company's Pascal architecture (if the games support it). The Quadro RTX 5000 is also DisplayPort 1.4 ready, while there is also support for HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) and H.265 video en/decoding (PlayReady 3.0).

Performance

For professional applications, the Quadro RTX 4000 should slot right in between the RTX 5000 and RTX 3000 cards. In games, the RTX 4000 is between the RTX 2080 and 2070. This means the GPU is located in the high end tier for all applications.

The high power consumption of the RTX4000 makes the card most suited for big and heavy laptops. The slower Max-Q variant is intended for thinner laptops.