A Chinese tweaker has almost managed to break records on the notebook 3DMark scoreboard by modifying an RTX 3080 equipped ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 to run at 155W instead of the GPU’s default TDP of 130W.
The mod was made by transferring the VBIOS from another RTX 3080 equipped laptop, the MSI GE76 to the Zephyrus Duo 15. Since the GE76’s RTX 3080 comes with a 155W power limit, this change will get transferred to the Zephyrus Duo 15 when you swap VBIOSes.
The Chinese overclocker managed a 3DMark TimeSpy graphics score of 13,691 points and an overall score of 13,174. Compared to the desktop sector, this modified RTX 3080 managed to beat the best RTX 3060 Ti TimeSpy Graphics score by roughly 100 points. But it loses in the overall score by around 700 points due to the CPU differences. Overall, this means the RTX 3080 mobile is 1% faster than the desktop RTX 3060 Ti.
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Compared to other RTX 3080 laptops, the modified Zephyrus Duo 15 is in 2nd place at the time of this writing, and has an average graphics lead of 200-300 points over other 3080 mobile chips. Most RTX 3080 laptops score an average of 13,200 points with some hitting the 13,400 mark. This means the modified RTX 3080 mobile is 1.2% faster than other RTX 3080s.
Unfortunately, we don’t know if the modified RTX 3080 was overclocked or not. The author mentions nothing in terms of a core or memory overclock, so we believe his score was from the increased power limit alone. If true, the modified RTX 3080 has more potential headroom for an even higher score through conventional overclocking.
While the performance results from this mod are quite impressive, keep in mind that doing this yourself is very risky. Increasing the power limit on your GPU will put more strain on your cooling system and, more seriously, your power delivery system (which can destroy your laptop if overloaded). So make sure you know the risks if you want to attempt the same mod on your notebook.
However, it is cool to see what a mobile RTX 3080 can do with some extra power headroom. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll see laptops with these crazy high power limits in the future.