Higher spec laptop performs worse in games

[TheNerdyCanadian]

So as the title says, my new higher spec laptop performs worse than my previous one.  I bought an Acer Nitro 5 with an i5 7300HQ, a 4GB 1050Ti, and 256GB Intel NVME drive and was able to play Forza Horizon 4 at 1080p 60fps on low/medium settings, however a week later i got an email from best buy saying the higher spec model with an i5 8300H and 1060 and 144Hz display was on sale so i returned that one a picked up the new one (everything except for the CPU and GPU and higher refresh rate display are the same).  Now the issue i'm having is the better spec laptop is actually performing worse with the same settings, even though Forza thinks the laptop can run at high settings.

 Attached are screenshots from the in game benchmark at Low, Medium, and High settings. The one thing they don't show is how often the game stutters during actual gameplay, especially going through the menus like when modding a car.

[genexis_x]

Download MSI Afterburner+Rivatuner and monitor CPU+GPU temps, clock speeds and usage while in game

 

Does it have 8GB RAM and SSD? Have you tried clean Windows install?

[PorkishPig]

Are you on battery or AC power? Nvidia's Control Panel will always prefer battery life over performance by default. Also, if you have Geforce Experience installed on your laptop, uninstall it, as it also has a track record of limiting your performance when on battery.

[TheNerdyCanadian]

On 1/2/2019 at 1:47 AM, Homeless Pineapple said:

Are you on battery or AC power? Nvidia's Control Panel will always prefer battery life over performance by default. Also, if you have Geforce Experience installed on your laptop, uninstall it, as it also has a track record of limiting your performance when on battery.

sorry for the delay, i was on wall power when running the game, i know it cuts performance on power. i ended up returning the laptop after contacting Acer and them confirming it was a defective unit.