AMD has unveiled the Radeon RX 6000M series — its next generation of GPUs for gaming laptops. The performance looks to be just as good as some desktop PC rigs, with AMD touting the cards as being able to take gaming “to new levels.”
For almost a year now, the PC gaming space has found itself in a rough situation. Due to ongoing chip shortages, scalpers, and crypto miners, buying various PC components has proven to be a chore. It’s made the act of building or upgrading a PC virtually impossible at times, forcing many gamers to buy pre-made desktops or gaming laptops. While it’s far from ideal, the good news is that the gaming laptop space has been booming in 2021. Last month, Nvidia announced its RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti laptop GPUs that deliver 1080p/60fps gaming for titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Minecraft RTX.
Now, it’s AMD’s turn to make the gaming laptop space even more interesting. The company announced its Radeon RX 6000M series on June 1, with the lineup consisting of the RX 6600M, RX 6700M, and RX 6800M. All three GPUs are built on AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture. Compared to chips using the original RDNA design, they deliver up to 1.5x better performance 0r up to 43 percent lower power consumption when at “the same performance level” as their predecessors. Taking a look at specs, the three chips offer a nice variety of performance. When it comes to total compute units, AMD delivers 28, 36, and 40, respectively, for the 6600M, 6700M, and 6800M. In that same order, gamers can also look forward to clock speeds of 2177MHz, 2300MHz, and 2300MHz. There’s 8GB, 10GB, and 12GB on the memory side of things, all of which use GDDR6 technology.
What To Expect From AMD Radeon RX 6000M Laptops
Specifications are one thing, but how can gamers expect these new AMD GPUs to perform in the real world? According to AMD’s own testing, the baseline RX 6600M can deliver 1080p/100fps “for lightweight laptops.” That makes it a really interesting competitor for the RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti cards mentioned above, with AMD potentially giving Nvidia a run for its money. Stepping up to the RX 6700M, AMD promises 1440p/100fps. And for the the RX 6800M, gamers are treated to 1440/120fps. AMD thinks the RX 6800M should be able to match or best the mobile RTX 3080 in just about every situation, all while offering better endurance at the same time.
Assuming AMD’s claims hold true, this is excellent news for laptop gaming fans. Nvidia’s laptop GPUs continue to be at the top of their game, but relying on one company to deliver excellent mobile graphics isn’t necessarily ideal. Now, folks will have the choice of getting top-tier graphics performance from either Nvidia or AMD laptops. That’ll make the market more competitive, push Nvidia to step up its game even more, and (hopefully) allow for plenty of laptops to remain in stock and available for gamers to buy at MSRP.
