This is your weekly reminder that you can bag an RTX 4080 gaming laptop for less than $1,600 and still get it before Christmas

pcgamer.com:

MSI Vector | RTX 4080 | Intel Core i9 12900HX | 16GB DDR5-4800 | 1TB SSD | 16-inch | 1200p | 144Hz | $2,099$1,599 at Newegg (save $500)
This is the most affordable RTX 4080-based gaming laptop I've found, possibly at any time this year. It's not some hobbled GPU implementation either, using a 175W design of the graphics card to give you the full gaming performance. It's certainly not the most beautiful laptop you will see, nor the slimmest (though that helps keep it cool), and I'd rather a higher refresh rate panel and a bit more RAM, but it's a great price for an otherwise high-spec gaming machine.

Price check: Amazon $2,091.05

Part of my job is to get out there, elbow deep into the various online retailers and see what goodies they have lurking in the recesses of their warehouses to bring you the best gaming laptop deals. And for the past few months, every time I do I'm kinda stunned that the RTX 4080-powered MSI Vector is still on sale for $1,600 at Newegg.

It's hands-down the cheapest RTX 4080 gaming laptop you'll find that isn't open-box or isn't hobbled in some catastrophically performance-castrating kind of way. And I keep looking for the catch, the one thing that can justify why it's still on sale with $500 off the initial listing price.

I don't think it's anything to do with potential refreshes happening in the new year, with the RTX 40-series Super lineup only expected to be hitting the desktop in the first few months of the year, not filter down into laptops. And you're still looking at a full 175W version of Nvidia's mobile version of the RTX 4080 (which is actually closer to the RTX 4070 Ti of desktop fame).

That's important because lower down the stack, MSI's budget laptop range has a habit of absolutely