AMD Radeon RX 7900M Laptop GPU Benchmark Leak Puts RTX 4090 In A Vulkan Grip
For every action, there is a an opposite action that is expected. Why do we bring this up? AMD has been competing fiercely with NVIDIA in the desktop discreet graphics card market this generation. With impressive performance-to-price ratio GPUs such as the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and the mid-range Radeon RX 7800 XT, NVIDIA is not the only game in town. With newly leaked Geekbench 6 productivity benchmarks, AMD's mobile Radeon RX 7900M is continuing the pressure.
When a smattering of new generation gaming laptops came out earlier this year with NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs, AMD was well aware it needed to act. While it appears we won't be getting any new NVIDIA GPUs for laptops anytime soon, AMD has something up its sleeve with its mobile Radeon RX 7900M.
When a smattering of new generation gaming laptops came out earlier this year with NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs, AMD was well aware it needed to act. While it appears we won't be getting any new NVIDIA GPUs for laptops anytime soon, AMD has something up its sleeve with its mobile Radeon RX 7900M.
Keeping in mind that Geekbench 6.2.1 is a productivity benchmark and doesn't necessarily indicate gaming prowess, the numbers are still impressive. Beating the GeForce RTX 4090 mobile score of circa 157,000, AMD is able to score 171,430 with its Radeon RX 7900M. This AMD offering is perfectly matched for Vulkan, if particular workflows are tuned for it.
One important note to keep in mind is that laptop GPUs are not comparable to their desktop versions. For example, the desktop GeForce RTX 4090 has 24GB of VRAM and incredible power. Its laptop sibling packs 16GB of VRAM, and performance closer to the level of a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti desktop card. Similarly, the AMD Radeon RX 7900M will have 16GB and less of everything, compared to the desktop Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
One important note to keep in mind is that laptop GPUs are not comparable to their desktop versions. For example, the desktop GeForce RTX 4090 has 24GB of VRAM and incredible power. Its laptop sibling packs 16GB of VRAM, and performance closer to the level of a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti desktop card. Similarly, the AMD Radeon RX 7900M will have 16GB and less of everything, compared to the desktop Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
To be fair, in the Geekbench 6.2.1 OpenCL benchmark, NVIDIA returns the favor. With the Radeon RX 7900M scoring 144,611, it falls short of NVIDIA's feat of over 181,000. Whether OpenCL or Vulkan scores will appeal to users will depend on their particular use case. While NVIDIA certainly has a lead in overall productivity performance, we're happy to see AMD offer some competitive performance.
Gaming performance is still up in the air, but we can expect a few things to hold true if history is any indication. The Radeon RX 7900M may be priced slightly less than its comparable NVIDIA counterpart, but with a few caveats. Ray and path tracing performance will likely mimic the desktop GPUs in the advantage that NVIDIA has there, along with DLSS 3. The AMD Radeon GPU should do well in rasterized performance in many titles, such as the Call of Duty series.
Gaming performance is still up in the air, but we can expect a few things to hold true if history is any indication. The Radeon RX 7900M may be priced slightly less than its comparable NVIDIA counterpart, but with a few caveats. Ray and path tracing performance will likely mimic the desktop GPUs in the advantage that NVIDIA has there, along with DLSS 3. The AMD Radeon GPU should do well in rasterized performance in many titles, such as the Call of Duty series.
