The maximum power limit for NVIDIA’s laptop GPUs for several generations has remained at 175W, but one AI-assisted mod has seemingly managed to break through that wattage barrier, allowing a notebook RTX 5090 to operate at 250W. A YouTuber manages to successfully run on the mod on his 2025 XMG Neo 16, and with a little help from the Oasis Water Cooler, it’s able to keep its temperatures in check, too.
Without a water cooler, the RTX 5090 could have reached thermal throttling, not to mention the extreme risk and stress caused to the gaming laptop’s other components
There’s no link to the mod mentioned by YouTuber GizmoSlipTech, only that it was created by PREMO through vibe-coding to unlock NVIDIA’s 175W power limits placed on the RTX 5090. While we’ll try our best to do a little digging around on how to unlock these limitations, but first, let us discuss the level of performance you can get by enabling the GPU to operate at 250W. The short is quite a bit.
In 3DMark Steel Nomad, the modded RTX 5090 can reach a 41.6 percent higher score compared to the 175W variant while also delivering substantial gains in gaming performance. For instance, the incredibly intensive titles like Black Myth: Wukong running at Cinematic settings achieved a 23.33 percent higher framerate, whereas Cyberpunk 2077 obtained a 23.89 percent gain at Ultra settings, with Ray Tracing set to Ultra too.
As for the Witcher 3, the laptop RTX 5090 achieved a 29.73 percent FPS gain when running at Ultra settings with Ray Tracing set to Ultra. The only outlier from these tests was Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which managed a measly 3.86 percent, despite being an older title. In the video, GizmoSlipTech notes that when the GPU requires more voltage, it straight up rejects the performance boost and reduces its clock speeds, so perhaps that’s what was going on in this title.
The overall framerate gain with the RTX 5090 modded to operate at 250W was 18.16 percent without counting Shadow of the Tomb Raider. We’d like to remind readers that the additional cooling provided by the XMG Neo 16’s Oasis Water Cooler helped to keep temperatures low, because gaming laptop manufacturers will stick to coolers within the power limit specifications.
However, even if these coolers were overkill for gaming laptops, we’re forgetting one crucial element that could prove catastrophic for these machines; internal circuitry. Even if the thermals are in check, the extra wattage might not necessarily be tolerated by the GPU’s VRMs, chokes, and power rails, or the laptop’s charger, causing one of these parts to excessively overheat and blow out.
We’ve discussed these pitfalls in a previous report, where one Redditor successfully managed to tweak a laptop RTX 5070 Ti to operate at 140W using a VBIOS tweak. Unless the gaming laptop is a premium model and is loaded to the gills with an excessive amount of internal circuitry designed to handle higher wattage output, we certainly don’t want you to risk your warranty.
About the author: Omar Sohail is a reporter and analyst for Wccftech’s mobile section, specializing in the technology and business of the mobile industry. His expertise lies in the intricate hardware supply chain, covering developments in semiconductor manufacturing, chip lithography, and camera sensor technology.
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