AMD has announced its most powerful mobile GPU yet with the Radeon RX 7900M. Can the new chip compete against Nvidia’s alternatives?
While Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 4090 is considered the undisputed leader in the desktop sector, AMD at least wants to shake its supremacy in the mobile sector.
This is supposed to succeed with a new high-end mobile chip: The Radeon RX 7900M is supposed to be the fastest AMD laptop GPU
  ever developed and thus be able to deliver desktop gaming on the go
as the manufacturer explains in the (related press release)
For this, the Radeon RX 7900M relies on a trimmed variant of the Navi-31 chip. Trimmed because there are only 4,608 stream processors here – in comparison, the two desktop variants in the form of the RX 7900 XT (5,376 SM) and RX 7900 XTX (6,144 SM) can fall back on a bit more.
The mobile version of the Radeon RX 7900 is also somewhat weaker in the other specifications. AMD has installed 16 GBytes of GDDR6 video memory here, which is accessed via a 256-bit memory interface.
The chip’s regular clock is supposed to be 1,825 MHz, which is supposed to increase up to 2,090 MHz in boost mode. Meanwhile, the Infinity Cache is specified with 64 MB. AMD provides for a maximum power consumption of up to 180 watts.
As the manufacturer further states, the Radeon RX 7900M is supposed to outshine the laptop version of the Geforce RTX 4080 in particular.
A look at the comparison table leaves this statement on shaky ground, at least in theory.
Radeon RX 7900M vs. Geforce RTX 4080 laptop: specs comparison
| AMD Radeon RX 7900M | Nvidia Geforce RTX 4080 Laptop | |
| chip architecture | RDNA 3 (Navi 31) | Ada Lovelace (AD104) |
| Cores | 4.608 SP | 7.424 CUDA |
| base clock | 1.825 MHz | 1.860 MHz |
| Boost clock | 2.090 MHz | 2.280 MHz |
| Memory | 16 GByte GDDR6 256-bit |
12 GByte GDDR6X 192-bit |
| TDP | Up to 180 watts | Up to 150 watts |
As AMD explains in hand-picked benchmarks, because they were selected by the manufacturer, the RX 7900M should be able to outperform the laptop RTX-4080 by about seven percent on average.
Among other things, the higher video memory with better connectivity is decisive for this. Interestingly, there are only a few games in the list that have entered a direct partnership with AMD – Starfield, for example, was probably not even tested here.
With the benchmarks, AMD also admits to a certain extent that the RX 7900M can only conditionally keep up with the competition in terms of ray-tracing games: A minus of ten percent compared to the Nvidia card is partly stated here.
When ray tracing is deactivated, however, the tide seems to clearly turn in favor of AMD’s mobile GPU. A performance increase of more than 20 percent is partly said to be measurable here.
However, as always, a critical eye should be kept on the table until independent benchmarks for the Radeon RX 7900M appear.
A first laptop has the RX 7900M already
Simultaneously with the release of the Radeon RX 7900M, the first gaming notebook with the new mobile graphics card is also in the starting blocks
This is the Dell Alienware m18, which incidentally also has AMD’s current top CPU in the mobile sector.
The configuration with Ryzen 9 7945HX and 16 GByte DDR5 RAM costs Dell quite a bit: Depending on the other specifications, you’ll have to pay at least 2,800 US dollars; prices in Euros are still pending.
Editor’s opinion: AMD doesn’t want to mess with the RTX 4090 in the mobile sector, either
The best mobile GPU AMD has ever produced? Maybe so, but the Radeon RX 7900M is one thing above all else: way too late
Both the laptop version of the RTX 4080 to compete with and the RTX 4090 have been available since the beginning of the year. So, anyone who has been toying with the idea of getting a current gaming laptop will probably have stocked up on a corresponding notebook by now.
Apart from that, the same picture is seen in the desktop segment. Those who want the absolute top class will still reach for Nvidia. As always, AMD’s gateway into more market share is thus the price, but if the debut laptop of the RX 7900M is any indication, nothing customer-friendly will be planned here, either.
In the meantime, it remains to be said: AMD does not want to or cannot compete with the RTX 4090 in the mobile sector; and the price arguments are probably missing as a better RTX 4080 alternative. Too bad.
Now it’s your turn: Do you use a gaming laptop? Does the Radeon RX 7900M make sense for you or do you prefer another mobile GPU? Leave us your opinion in the comments!
