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One detail catches buyers out constantly: the laptop RTX 4080 and the desktop card of the same name are different chips. The mobile part is built on the smaller AD104 die with 12GB of memory, while the desktop version used a larger die and 16GB. Benchmarks and settings advice written for the desktop card do not transfer, so look for laptop-specific figures whenever you compare.
After that, the variables are power and cooling. The same GPU set to 145W in a slim body and 175W in a thick one differs by a noticeable margin in sustained play, and that gap widens the longer a session runs. Chassis thickness, fan count, adapter wattage and whether the design uses a vapour chamber all feed into where a particular laptop lands.