AMD Radeon 780M iGPU analysis - AMD's new RDNA-3 GPU takes on its competitors

[Relax]

The laptop is bottlenecked by DDR5 memory. The review even mentions the lackluster memory configuration. The reason the 680M laptops are matching the performance is that they aren't as memory starved. They use faster LPDDR5 memory (6400 MT/s). This 780M laptop is running a measly 4800 MT/s.
However even if you put 7000+ MT/s memory in this thing, you'd probably still be memory starved. Apple also uses LPDDR5 and achieves considerable bandwidth and latency advantages.

So basically: wait for laptops with LPDDR5 memory to make useful comparisons.

When that's done, we can start talking about power and OEMs power starving the GPU resulting in bad performance in games.

[Neenyah]

AMD Zen 4 is the first X86 with AI ahead of Intel and will be useful for Future Windows 12, Office, and the new AI-focused Direct XII APIs.

Intel is also developing but where is the rush when there is no usage (and W12 is still not available). AMD being the first doesn't mean that everyone else stops immediately.

RDNA 3 + FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0 with which you go from 60 fps to 120 FPS and can play AAA Games never achieved by Intel and Apple

Perhaps because neither one is trying to target gamers with their (i)GPUs? While AMD iGPUs are certainly far superior in games they get smoked in anything related to productivity AKA actually working and making money.

[NikoB]

AMD needs 6-8GB of Stacked 3D HBM3(512Gbytes/s) onboard memory to make the igpu run very fast. There are still no options with 512-bit DDR5 and never will be.

And of course, the L3 cache in the processor must be at least 256MB at a speed of 1.5Tbytes/s.

[MTL ADM]

@NikoB:

Any thoughts about just giving up on AMD completely for laptops? Just too much incompetence all around. Been 3 years and still blaming pandemic for delays.

I can tell you this, Meteor lake is coming. It's gonna be released on time and will be widely available / in stock. And it's gonna be slightly faster than the 12 CU Radeon 780M but with a massive L4 Adamantine super cache, which should help quite a bit in higher resolution gaming.

[scubadash]

What a hackjob, the CPU stack is wildy inconsistent. The underpowered 6800u being used as a reference for 680m performance is a mistake and the ram handicap makes the whole bench run pretty redundant. Better luck next time and maybe choose your parts more carefully.

[MTL ADM]

AMD has kind of never cared about laptops, if we think about it. The first major break through in laptop igpu's was intel added eDRAM on the iris pro 5200. The second major break through was intel payed AMD (since AMD wasn't gonna do anything by themselves) to add vega/polaris graphics on their kaby-lake g platform with HBM. To this day, after 5 years we're just equaling that level of graphics performance with phoenix. That's sad.


What has AMD done? Sell their best APU's exclusively to consoles for the last 10 years.

[chris do]

this is nonsense. just watch new eta prime hands-on review of gpd winmax 2 with 7840u and 32GB lpddr5x-7500. 780m gets smoking fast with right spec. that thing crushes AAA games with just 15-25 Watts and with 35W gets 3418 points in timespy(fastest i've ever seen with 780m). as MLID stated about 7735hs minisforum miniPC, by upgrading from 16G to 32 he gets great boost in fps because of allocating 8G to IGP instead on less than 4. so 32GB of fastest memory available is vital for 780m to stretch its legs.

[algibertt]

I will say the reviewer didn't have enough knowledge to the market. People want to see how 780M stack up with entry GTX 1650 or RTX 2050, not something too weak like MX550 or too strong like 3050. Also, the laptop with 780M are usually the thin-and-light models with no dGPU (except G14) and people would also like to see how it compete with Intel side like IRIS Xe, which is quite common on mid-to-high-end thin and light laptop. Last but least, even though it can beat GTX 1650 or RTX 2050 eventually (I am not sure), the higher MSRP somehow will weaken people's interest so you need to analyze if it's worth the price premium, not just giving us a tons of useless comparison

[Neenyah]

What Everyone wants is

With all due respect - talk for yourself. And stop copy/pasting the same thing under almost every article.

With RDNA 3 + FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0 you can play AAA Games and render 3D and videos, no need for graphics that consume and reduce performance.

Intel with QuickSync is still going to be faster, it's about codecs and hardware optimization too.

[Hotz]

AMD has kind of never cared about laptops, if we think about it.

What has AMD done? Sell their best APU's exclusively to consoles for the last 10 years.

Any thoughts about just giving up on AMD completely for laptops? Just too much incompetence all around. Been 3 years and still blaming pandemic for delays.

I can tell you this, Meteor lake is coming. It's gonna be released on time and will be widely available / in stock. And it's gonna be slightly faster than the 12 CU Radeon 780M but with a massive L4 Adamantine super cache, which should help quite a bit in higher resolution gaming.

I've been following AMD very closely since last year and see this confirmed. They mostly only care about the console market.

I don't think they give up laptops completely - at least not officially (but maybe inofficially). It's like the laptop market only gets the "remains" of what's left of iGPUs from console sales. That's why probably only few samples with 780m iGPUs will reach the laptop market. The priorities are undeniable since they have such a huge advantage in iGPUs compared to Intel, but don't use it to gain laptop market share.

Frankly, I don't like what AMD does. But I'm also glad they created an impressive 780m iGPU, and therefore put Intel under pressure to also create a better iGPU. When Meteor Lake comes, and is roughly equal to a 780m, and widely available, we "all" will eventually get decent consumer devices - decent all-purpose laptops and Mini-PCs for everyone (and not limited to gaming only).

Since this realisation I also see it like this:
The world of AMD is the world of consoles (stationary consoles or handhelds). 
The world of Intel is the world of serious business and universal, all-purpose devices.

As a consequence Intel represents more of what I expect from computer developments than AMD, and thus will most likely be my preference - even if their upcoming iGPU will not be as fast as a 780m.

[Hubwood]

Hey Andreas, I'm soon going to publish a long video with 50 games tested on a780m in an AMD A15 and my results are much higher than what you've experienced. I also used 2x16GB of 5600 Mhz ram which was a 10-20 boost from 2x8gb 4800mhz actually.
It is just as fast as an rtx 3050 35w or the 1650 mobile in a lot of games!

Cheers, hubwood