The AMD Radeon RX 7900M is here to challenge Nvidia’s laptop GPU dominance

AMD announced its latest mobile GPU today, the AMD Radeon RX 7900M, the first-ever mobile GPU with a multi-chiplet module design.

The new GPU, based on AMD RDNA 3 graphics architecture, is aiming for the best gaming laptop for 1440p gaming and promises high-frame rates at QHD. Powered by 72 compute units, a boost clock of 2090MHz, 16GB GDDR6 VRAM, and up to 180W TGP, this is nothing short of a beastly laptop GPU.

For comparison, the Nvidia RTX 4090 mobile has 76 streaming multiprocessors (Nvidia’s version of compute units), and the same amount of VRAM, as well as the same memory bus width of 256 bits. The two GPUs have the same effective memory clock (18 Gbps), and while the RTX 4090 mobile’s boost clock is lower (as is its TDP), the two GPUs should be fairly evenly matched, unless you’re itching for ray tracing, in which case Nvidia will almost certainly hold the edge.

Against the Nvidia RTX 4080 mobile, however, it may be a different story, and AMD claims that the RX 7900M is 7% faster than the RTX 4080 mobile on average, with an average 104 fps on average at 1440p at maximum settings. According to a slide presentation shared with TechRadar, that average includes some titles like Far Cry 6 and Doom Eternal running with ray tracing turned on as well.

Here, the RTX 4080 outperformed the RX 7900M by as much as 15% (in Forza Horizon 5), but the 7900M was still able to hit 79 fps in AMD’s internal testing. In Starfield at 1440p on Ultra settings and FSR2 on (though what setting isn’t clear), the RX 7900M hit an average of 62 fps, which is 27% faster than the RTX 4080 according to AMD’s testing.

We haven’t been able to get our hands on the GPU ourselves yet and can’t verify these numbers, so best to take things with a grain of salt until we can. In the meantime, here are the specs for the RX 7900M that AMD announced today compared to the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 mobile.

AMD Radeon RX 7900M debuting in the Alienware m18 AMD Advantage Edition

The AMD Radeon RX 7900M is slated to ship exclusively with the new Alienware m18 AMD Advantage laptop, which can be paired with an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX processor.

Whether the GPU will ever ship on other devices remains to be seen, but the Alienware m18 AMD Advantage Edition laptop is available today at Dell.com, as well as at a limited number of Best Buy locations in the United States.

It’s also unclear whether the Alienware m18 AMD Advantage Edition will be available elsewhere, but as the holiday season heats up and Black Friday gaming laptop deals start rolling out, there’s sure to be pressure from other laptop makers to release a similar device, but with Black Friday just over six weeks away, we will probably have to wait until after CES 2024 to see more manufacturers get in on the action.

Can AMD contest Nvidia’s gaming laptop monopoly?

Given that laptops are becoming the default computing platform for many people, it naturally incentivizes companies to push into the laptop market even if they’ve been historically shut out by industry monoliths Intel and Nvidia.

It’s encouraging then that AMD hasn’t given up the ghost just yet, since the laptop market is only going to get bigger and component monopolies are terrible for the consumer in general, but especially for high-end tech like the best gaming laptops and best graphics cards.

While I’m generally not in the habit of cheering on one multinational multi-billion-dollar tech company against the another, AMD’s generally lower-priced hardware can only put downward pressure on high-end gaming laptops, forcing Nvidia to at least respond. Even if you’re looking for the best cheap gaming laptop come Thanksgiving and don’t have plans on splurging on AMD’s new hardware, a low enough price for a premium laptop will make the midrange slightly more affordable this holiday season, which is something gamers everywhere can celebrate.

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