I have an ASUS ROG Strix 16 with a 16GB RTX 5080. When the laptop is plugged in and set to Turbo mode, the GPU reaches 100% usage in games but its power draw never goes above roughly 80 watts. This happens even in older games such as Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and in Red Dead Redemption 2 at maximum settings. Is the GPU being power-limited, and is this behavior normal for this laptop?
2 Answers
Laptop versions of the same graphics card can have very different power limits. An RTX 5080 in a notebook is not guaranteed to run at the desktop card's wattage, and an 80W limit may be the configured TGP for this particular model. Check the exact GPU power limit in the laptop specifications, ASUS Armoury Crate, or GPU-Z/HWiNFO. If the listed maximum is around 80W, the behavior is normal rather than a fault. Do not overclock it unless you have confirmed the cooling system and power limits can handle it.
Make sure the game is actually rendering on the NVIDIA GPU rather than the integrated graphics, and verify that the laptop is plugged in with the original power adapter and running in Turbo or Performance mode. You can confirm the active GPU and its power draw with the NVIDIA performance overlay or GPU-Z. Also, 100% GPU utilization does not automatically mean the card should use its maximum wattage; if the game is limited by its power profile, frame rate, voltage, or temperature, usage can be high while wattage stays near the configured cap.
What is the easiest way to check whether my laptop has a reduced-power version of the RTX 5080?