 While graphics card names really aren't what they used to be, Rage, TNT, Monster, Spitfire, Rarr, that kind of good stuff, at least the drivers are much improved, and instead of having, like, you know, the good video cards and then the, like, kneecapped video cards that suck, you're getting really great performance at pretty much every price point these days. But the big question still remains. Well, two big questions, really. First, are you stoked to see part two of Personal Rig Update 2015 with a 3D model of the custom case that I'll be making? Drop a like if you are. And second, is a laptop video card good enough for serious gaming, or do you need desktop-grade graphics? Let's find out. [♪ music playing. Clicking sound effect. [♪ music playing. The MasterCase 5 by Cooler Master gives you the freedom to truly make your mid-tower PC case your own with a variety of modular parts and accessories. Click the link in the video description to learn more. So this video was inspired by a piece of content that we did recently on the changes in performance of a graphics card over time as drivers mature. You can check that out up there. And by a brainstorm that I had the other day when we were working on our inventory and I saw the Sega NP-9773, a laptop with a Core i7-4790K in it. And I went, light bulb? Yeah. The rationale last time we checked out the GTX 980M, which we did about ten months ago when it was released, of, well, you know, the CPU doesn't seem to be much of a system bottleneck in gaming these days, probably fine that one system is using a desktop chip and the other is using, well, a laptop one, was probably fine. But real scientists only change the variable that they want to compare, at least when they want halfway decent results. So I decided to revisit the testing that was inspired by this slide from Nvidia, where I wanted to see what the gap really is between the desktop and the laptop gaming experience with the same class of GPU. So this will be a head-to-head battle between the GTX 980 and the 980M, but this time it'll be a fairer fight. Instead of hamstringing the 980M with a mobile CPU, I took advantage of the fully turboed up, we're talking 4.4 GHz Devil's Canyon, Core i7-4790K in it. That means both systems are set up identically, with 16 GB of RAM Windows 8.1 with all the latest updates, a 1080p screen resolution, and solid-state storage, with the only difference being the graphics cards. And the results may shock you. We saw a 30 to 40% performance delta across the board, just like last time, okay. So yes, the results aren't very shocking at all, but at least now we know for certain just how far behind the desktop roadmap the mobile one is lagging, which leads us to the next comparison, price. While the mobile GTX 980M performs worse than a desktop GTX 980, its pricing puts it above the desktop part, at least if eBay is to be believed. It's hard to actually find these things on a retail shelf, and when you combine that with the generally higher costs associated with most of the rest of the components of a laptop, I mean, the cost of developing an individual motherboard for every custom-made chassis compared to standardized desktop parts is very, very high. It means that laptop gamers are going to be paying more for less. So it makes our apples-to-apples comparison quite difficult because what is an Apple, really? Is it the same branded class of hardware against the same branded class of hardware, or do we have to look at it from a performance-per-dollar perspective? And then how do you account for things that have a value but would seem ridiculous to try to quantify on a graph, like being able to transport your gaming experience around with you very easily? So the answer is, for now, not so different from what it's always been. While performance is no longer several generations behind, the cost, I mean, our similarly kitted out desktop costs hundreds of dollars less than our laptop, even when you don't factor in the ability to reuse your previous monitor, something that many desktop owners will do, makes gaming laptops the weapon of choice really only for folks who lack the space for two discrete machines, a desktop and a notebook, and who are able to afford the convenience tax of mushing them into one. But with some of the product rumors circulating now, both unsubstantiated, like that Nvidia may be releasing a desktop GTX 980, like not M-class mobile GPU, and substantiated, like all the new products that are coming with Intel Skylake processors inside, it appears as though the future, maybe even the near future, is going to be very interesting. I mean, to be clear, I don't think that the pricing gap is going away, but for gamers, it looks like the performance gap will continue to shrink. And while I can hear some of you groaning about Skylake mobile CPUs saying there's nothing special about them from a performance standpoint compared to Broadwell or even Haswell, consider this, Intel is bringing more power savings with Skylake. Can you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just stop performance? But maybe it is. That's power that can be used for, you guessed it, better graphics cores in those laptops. So maybe there's just a shifting of the available resources happening to bring us better mobile gaming. But whatever way that goes, we'll be covering it for sure. And in the meantime, I hope you guys enjoyed our look at just how much there is separating desktop and notebook graphics today. And on that subject, or more accurately, not on that subject at all, I guess, Massdrop.com. Massdrop.com is the site where basically the community decides like, hey guys, let's all get together and like buy this thing. And then Massdrop's all like, okay, let's find, you know, a legitimate non-counterfeit source, either direct from the manufacturer or from a reputable distributor. Let's get a bunch of those things for you guys. And then let's make sure that it's cheaper because a whole bunch of you have committed to buy it at once. So the way it works is once something goes up on the Massdrop site, the more people commit to buy, the better the price gets until it reaches a defined limit. And the, oh, this is a good one. The feature deal today is the LG 34UM95C-P. Yes, my friends, that is a flat, ultra-wide, 3440 by 1440 IPS monitor. Very, very similar to the one that I reviewed here declaring 4K to be dead to me. And that's to be my new favorite monitor. Super awesome, super worth checking out. Head over to draw.ps-slash-linus-tech-tips to learn more about it today. And if you're not signed up for Massdrop, you're probably going to get dropped on a landing page. Get signed up for Massdrop because they got all kinds of other cool stuff as well. Thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon. Instructions up there by buying a cool t-shirt like this one that I'm wearing or with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum. Now that you're done doing all of that, you guys are probably wondering what to watch next. So maybe click on that little button at the top again where you can check out our video on channel Superfun where we have a Nerf battle in our sweet new warehouse.