This Nvidia RTX laptop mod unlocks amazing performance. Don’t do it!

Geeks love to draw a little more power from their hardware by digging deep into its guts, literally or with software. A little soft overclocking is generally safe, and in fact it is provided to some extent by manufacturers. But an unorthodox method for laptops with discreet NVIDIA RTX graphics cards is extremely powerful … and especially dangerous.

This is called a “shunt mod”, and it is essentially a way to obtain a graphics card to be executed at the power entrance path Beyond what is evaluated. Modding shunt is a complex physical process that requires active welding on the GPU itself, but if it is done correctly, it can increase power in the map by a huge margin. For some of the most powerful RTX laptop cards, this may increase the supply input of a maximum specifications of 150-175 Watts to 250 Watts, with a similar delta in terms of performance.

How and why is it possible? It’s complicated. Some of the laptops with RTX 4090, 5080 and 5080 discreet GPU perform the same physical graphic chips as those seen on desktop cards, which are assessed for much higher power inputs. Due to the “binning” process when these chips are manufactured, the most perfectly produced chips enter the most powerful office cards, while those that have not quite won the “silicon lottery” could be used for laptops. In short, the fleas should – should – Be able to manage much more Watt entry than they generally get from a more restrictive and economical laptop configuration.

Gizmosliptech, an expert in minimums of desktop and laptop GPUs, has aggregated certain professional and passionate user data that tried this complex process to stimulate energy in RTX 5080 and 5090 laptops (via Videocardz.com). The results are impressive. A test of a RTX 5090 laptop showed a 41% increase in the NOMAD 3DMARK steel reference when the card has been changed to operate at 250 Watts. The results in play are less dramatic, but more than 20% Cyberpunk 2077 is nothing to sneeze.

But before you reach a screwdriver, you may want to take a second to think about it. We are talking about fairly deep material changes here, the kind of thing that should not be tempted by anyone without fairly impressive electronic projects at the basis of their assets. This goes far beyond the assembly of basic office or even the competences of repairing laptops. Cracking your laptop to access the discreet graphics card can cancel the warranty in itself, but the complete process requires taking a welding iron with capacitors, then modifying the firmware to make it warmer.

In short, it could melt your game laptop. And if this is the case, you can kiss any type of goodbye warranty warranty. In fact, even if something completely unrelated to your GPU should fail, I imagine that any technician who identifies this modification instantly declares the laptop outside the warranty due to the change in the user.

And these are some of the most powerful and most expensive laptops of games available at the moment. The realization of a shunt mod is mainly games with thousands of dollars in equipment for an increase in performance. A good boost, but in my opinion, which is not worth the risk even if you have the technical skills to achieve it.

However, the fact that this modification is possible – and apparently gains in popularity among the most courageous users – indicates that these discrete laptop cards could have much more available power than they currently use. In fact, some manufacturers of laptops discreetly carried out mods similar to their game models without saying it to anyone (and then had to make a patch to cancel it). GizmoslipTech recommends that Nvidia increase power limits to certain laptops, using the latest thermal management technology, to offer more performance.