Most PC gamers might prefer to spend their money on a desktop gaming machine rather than a high-end laptop, because not only are gaming notebooks still considerably more expensive but they also struggle to achieve the same performance benchmarks as their towered siblings. Continued improvements in mobile CPUs are seeing that trend start to change as laptop and desktop performance get closer to each other.
Following the launch of new processors from Intel, comes news from AMD about its new Radeon RX 6000M series of mobile GPUs, based on its RDNA2 architecture. These new mobile processors have been hyped up by the company and the next evolution in mobile gaming, allowing laptops to deliver incredible 1080p and 1440p resolutions while offering exception gaming performance. An incredible boost for mobile devices if the chips deliver what the company say they can.
The series will consist of three new chips: the RX 6800M (configurable at 145W and above), the RX 6700M (up to 135W), and the RX 6600M (up to 100W). The top-of-the-line 6800M they claim can run modern AAA games at frame rates that are comparable to or better than those of Nvidia’s mobile RTX 3080 chips – and this includes gaming on a battery.
Below are the performance specs for the new Radeon 6000M series, as reported by The Verge, though these specs fail to reveal the prices of these new chips which are bound to be far more expensive than many gamers can afford:
RADEON RX 6000M SERIES
| GPU | Power target | Compute units / ray accelerators | Game clock (MHz) | Memory (GDDR6) | Infinity cache |
| Radeon RX 6800M | 145W and above | 40 | 2300 | 12GB | 96MB |
| Radeon RX 6700M | Up to 135W | 36 | 2300 | 10GB | 80MB |
| Radeon RX 6600M | Up to 100W | 28 | 2177 | 8GB | 32MB |
However just creating a faster processor doesn’t guarantee that manufactures will use them, which is why AMD has also announced a new AMD Advantage – a new “design framework initiative” meant to encourage OEMs to include certain features on their AMD-powered systems, similar to Intel’s EVO program. In order for laptops to be considered part of the program, they need to include the following:
- AMD Ryzen 5000 mobile processors, Radeon 6000 graphics and Radeon software
- Support for AMD’s Smart Access Memory and Smart Shift technology
- A display that reaches at least 300 nits of brightness, covers either 100 percent of the sRGB gamut or 72 percent of the NTSC gamut, has at least a 144Hz refresh rate and low latency, and supports AMD Freesync
- At least one NVME PCIE Express Gen 3 SSD
- The ability to maintain a surface temperature under 40 degrees Celsius on the WASD keys
- Over 10 hours of video playback on battery
Those are some pretty tough standards to meet – especially considering the expected power output, maintain low temperatures and still providing exceptional battery life – but if manufactures can do so, they will get this new AMD Advantage accreditation which the company is intending to market as the ideal platform on which to game on. It will be interesting to see if this new accreditation can convince both customers to demand these sorts of products and for manufacturers to meet them. Before gamers baulk at the price and choose not to buy them anyway.
Last Updated: June 2, 2021
