RDNA 2 Hits Laptops: AMD Unveils Radeon RX 6000M Series Graphics for Gaming Notebooks

AMD led off its presentation about its newest laptop graphics processors, the Radeon RX 6000M series, with a stat from IDC about the growth in the worldwidegaming laptopmarket: It's up 27% from 2019 to 2020, from about 19 million units shipped to 24 million. (Hint: That's a很多.) The lion's share of those are units based on Intel CPUs and Nvidia GeForce GPUs. AMD is aiming to make a dent in that.

With the much-anticipated Radeon RX 6000M chips, debuting today at Computex, the CPU and GPU underdog is showing remarkable bite, bringing its latest graphics architecture, RDNA 2, to laptops. RDNA 2 also underpins the company's latest desktop graphics-card efforts, including theRadeon RX 6800 XT,RX 6800, andRX 6700 XT, as well as Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’sXbox系列Xgame consoles. All three of the Radeon cards mentioned are decidedly high-end products much in demand in 2021, given the tight supply of rival GeForce RTX 30-Series cards, exacerbated by the cryptocurrency crush and legions of scalpers inflating GPU prices. The new mobile GPUs unveiled today, however, come in different levels, without exact 1:1 equivalencies to their desktop counterparts. They are the Radeon RX 6800M, the Radeon RX 6700M, and the Radeon RX 6600M.

Meet the New Radeon RX Mobile Trio

AMD bills the Radeon RX 6000M GPUs as high-efficiency graphics solutions, thanks to the inclusion of the RDNA 2 architecture. With their debut, the company is also launching a new certification program, dubbed AMD Advantage Design Framework. Under it, PC gamers shopping for a gaming laptop can be sure that an AMD-based model they are looking at meets certain usability, performance, and feature prerequisites mandated by AMD, a little likeIntel's Evo programdoes the same for thin-and-light laptops built around the company's latest CPUs.

Here is how the three new mobile GPUs fall out in terms of specs...

AMD posits that its RDNA 2-based mobile GPUs can deliver performance up to 1.5 times that of equivalent RDNA (Radeon RX 5000M series) mobile GPUs. Looked at another way, the company says, it can deliver the same performance as RDNA-based solutions while using up to 43% less power. That has wide implications for possible laptop designs, including the need for lesser cooling at a given target performance level.

The Radeon RX 6800M and 6700M: Chart Toppers for 1440p

As for how the three GPUs are targeted, let's start at the top. The company says that the Radeon RX 6800M should be a good fit for 120-frame-per-second (fps) gaming at up to 1440p. If true, that could make this top-end chip a good match for the emerging class of gaming laptops with QHD (2,560-by-1,440-pixel) panels with gamer-serving 144Hz and faster refresh rates.

AMD shared a sample chart with selected games pitting the RX 6800M against 8GB versions of the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080...

As you can see, slim margin wins for AMD, across these five titles. (Of course, performance varies greatly game to game, and other factors such as the CPU come into play, so you'll want to look at independent testing with different sets of titles when available.)

The Radeon RX 6700M, meanwhile, the company targets at the same peak native resolution as the 6800M, but for 100fps rates. Below is the highlights-at-a-glance slide for the RX 6700M...

The Radeon RX 6600M: More of a 1080p Master

The Radeon RX 6600M, meanwhile, is the lowest-end of the bunch. It is intended for high-refresh play at 1080p (1,920 by 1,080 pixels) at up to 100fps. AMD expects to see this GPU deployed more often in thin-design machines.

Warning: Another chart flurry incoming! This one shows some AMD-selected games at 1080p and peak settings, with tough AAA titles at the left and low-impact esports games at the right...

As you can see, some plenty-playable frame rates there, with the center and right portions well able to take advantage of the swift refresh rates of 120Hz, 144Hz, and faster panels now common in new gaming laptops.

And then, some selective 1080p numbers against the mobile version of the GeForce RTX 3060...

AMD showing the two GPUs basically trading blows here suggests that these two chips will be closely matched.

Plus, a Game-Performance Helper: FidelityFX Super Resolution Hits in Late June

也是一个nnounced today: Helping enhance performance and visuals, especially with the lower-end GPUs, AMD is rolling out its anticipated FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) feature later in the month, on June 22. FSR will work with Radeon GPUs and Ryzen CPUs—as well as GeForce GTX 10 Series (from the GTX 1060 forward) and newer GPUs!—and allow you to allocate performance versus visual quality.

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The feature will enable a choice of four FSR modes, letting you make the nuanced trade-offs desired and gain performance on FSR-compliant games while enjoying highly demanding visual effects such as ray tracing. The FSR feature, according to AMD, can allow for up to 2.5 times better frame rates in its Performance mode versus rendering at native resolution. Again, this will require an FSR-supporting title, and there is a major your-mileage-may-vary element to all this depending on the game. Examples include the popular RPG Godfall, which AMD demoed in a limited fashion (notably, on a GeForce GTX 1060)...

FSR has commitments from more than 10 developers to work with AMD on integrating FSR support into leading titles. AMD notes that the feature is designed to demand minimal overhead on developers' part to integrate into games. AMD is also opening up a "request list" atwww.amd.com/fsr(Opens in a new window)for end users to suggest games they would like to see get FSR support first.

The Design Framework, Detailed

As for the AMD Advantage Design Framework program mentioned earlier, the underpinnings are the presence of Radeon RX 6000M GPUs and Ryzen 5000 mobile CPUs, combined with AMD FreeSync-compatible displays for smooth game rendering, though there's more to it.

The "more" includes high-speed storage, based on PCI Express NVMe bus tech and compliant drives. The expectation is that Advantage-compliant laptops will deliver 10-plus hours of battery life on pure video playback. (Note: Not gaming off the plug! Nothing will deliver that.) The laptop should have a screen that has at least a 144Hz refresh rate and a 300-nit minimum brightness level.

The first compliant laptop is expected to be the Asus ROG Strix G15 "AMD Advantage Edition" model, expected to hit Best Buy and other retailers in early June. The ROG Strix machine will feature Radeon RX 6800M GPUs and the stack-topping Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU.

An HP AMD Advantage-compliant model, the Omen 16, should pack the same CPU and the Radeon RX 6600M, showing up soon after the Asus. Lenovo and MSI are expected to bring out AMD Advantage models later in 2021, as well.

Keep a browser tab open toour Computex news pagefor more from the virtual show as it progresses all through the month of June.