AMD takes on Nvidia with new laptop graphics cards

AMD has announced a new line-up of laptop graphics cards which it claims outperforms Nvidia’s RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 laptop GPUs, at a more affordable price.

Speaking at the company’s keynote address at Computex on Monday, AMD vice president and general manager Scott Herkelman introduced the new GPUs as the RX 6000M series, following on from their previous generation of RX 5000M series cards.

The RX 5000M series cards delivered underwhelming performance compared to the rival Nvidia RTX 20 series cards, and most manufacturers and consumers opted for the Nvidia cards.

With the RX 6000M series cards, AMD is looking to flip the script.

The chart below shows the results of AMD’s own tests of the performance of its top-of-the-line RX 6800M card with 12GB video memory (VRAM) compared to Nvidia’s RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 cards.

All three cards were paired with AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900HX processor for the purposes of the test.

AMD RX 6800M vs Nvidia RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 (Click to enlarge)

According to AMD’s benchmarks, the flagship card’s performance is comfortably beyond the RTX 3070 and at the very least on par with Nvidia’s flagship RTX 3080.

Independent reviewers will have the final say, however.

In addition, it does not imply that Nvidia is no longer at the top of the proverbial food chain, as its graphics cards might still have better video encoding and decoding — an advantage for filmmakers — as well as better ray tracing support.

The pricing of the new range is sure to be an advantage for AMD.

The RX 6800M will feature in the upcoming Asus ROG Strix G15 gaming laptop, which will be released within the next month, and will cost $1,650 (R22,700 excl. shipping, VAT, and import taxes).

In comparison, the RTX 3080 in the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 with the same Ryzen 9 5900HX processor sells for $2,699 (R37,145) on the Asus website.

The slightly inferior Ryzen 7 5800H version with the RTX 3080 sells on Amazon for $2,784, or R39,452, excluding shipping and import fees to South Africa.

For machines that provide similar performance levels, this price disparity is leaning strongly in favour of AMD’s new flagship.

Below is a list of all the results provided by AMD from their own benchmarks with the RX 6800M, showing the FPS in various popular titles at 1440p resolution and with settings maxed out.

AMD RX 6800M benchmark results (Click to enlarge)

Beyond the RX 6800M 12GB aimed at 120 FPS in 1440p gaming at ultra settings, AMD also unveiled the RX 6700M with 10GB of VRAM targeting 100 FPS at 1440p, as well as the “budget” RX 6600M with 8GB VRAM for 100 FPS in 1080p gaming.

AMD also announced that the RX 6600M will ship in the new HP Omen 16 within the next month.

Below is a table showing the specs of the new RX 6000M series cards as well as the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 laptop GPUs from Nvidia.

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