The thing with laptops is that they need to be compact, stay cool, offer a good battery backup, and be portable at the same time. All that calls for some major sacrifices, which generally include comparatively less capable hardware than desktop counterparts. Take the Nvidia RTX 4090, for example.

While both the desktop and laptop variants have the same name, they do not deliver comparable performance. In our synthetic benchmarks, the Nvidia RTX 4090 laptopgot a 39% lower score than the desktop RTX 4090. As for the gaming benchmarks, depending on the game, the desktop variant can deliver over two times better performance. The story is pretty much similar for processors.

Fed up with such performance differences between laptop and desktop hardware, a YouTuber that goes by Socket Science decided to build a custom DIY laptop that features only desktop components. The project wasn't easy, as it took 14 months to complete, but in the end, the YouTuber did end up with one of the most powerful gaming laptops (maxed-out 2024 Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 curr. $2,999.99 on Best Buy).

Regarding hardware, the YouTuber chose a desktop AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU and paired it with a desktop-class Radeon RX 6600 GPU. They sit on an ITX motherboard with low-profile RAM sticks. All these components are powered by a small PSU. To house them, Socket Science 3D-printed a custom case and added a thin keyboard, a portable gaming monitor, and a touchpad.

As mentioned earlier, cooling concerns are among the reasons why gaming laptops don't feature desktop hardware. To overcome this, Socket Science had to utilize a series of heat pipes to divert the heat away from the CPU and the GPU. There are a couple of fans for active cooling and heat sinks for passive cooling.

Another thing that's important to mention is that this DIY gaming laptop project doesn't involve a battery. One of the main reasons is that the components inside are power-hungry, so without a high-capacity battery, the runtime wouldn't be reliable. So, it's basically a very portable desktop in a laptop form factor. Check out Socket Science's video below to learn more.