(Image credit: AMD)
The initial benchmarks for AMD's newest laptop APU's graphics performance have leaked. The chip's RDNA graphics core, code-named Phoenix and marketed as the Ryzen 7040 series, is 25% faster than the previous 680M graphics in the Ryzen 6000 APU and almost twice as fast as the AMD graphics in the Steam Deck.
The data is specifically from the vintage 3DMark Time Spy. The 780M GPU scores roughly 3,000 points, according to a post on the Chinese forum Bilibili (via Tom's Hardware). Comparatively, the original 680M scored over 2,400 points, and the Steam Deck scored around 1,700 points.
To put those scores in even more perspective, a desktop Nvidia GTX 1060 scores around 4,200, while a laptop RTX 2050 scores around 3,200. Meanwhile, an RTX 3060 scores almost 9,000 points, and an RTX 4080 scores 14,835 points.
The Steam deck's APU provides the most intriguing comparison in a lot of ways. That is also an AMD product, but its Radeon 780M chip and the new Phoenix chip are far more potent. The new APU speeds up to 2.9GHz boost, features 32 render outputs, 768 RDNA 3-spec shader cores, and an 8.9TFLOPS maximum processing rate. The Steam Deck's GPU, on the other hand, is rated at 3.3TFLOPS and features 512 RDNA 2-spec shader cores and 16 render outputs.
The small hitch is that RDNA 3's tricky doubled-pumped shader architecture is what allows the 780M's 8.9TFLOPS to happen. It doesn't always result in twice the performance in real life. You may contend that the 780M is best understood as having raw shader performance closer to 4.5 TFLOPS, which is more in line with the Time Spy test results.
Naturally, the 1,280 by 800-pixel display on the Steam Deck makes its relatively modest graphics power sufficient for a satisfying gaming experience. Approximately one million pixels result from that.
A 1080p monitor, on the other hand, contains two million pixels. You're looking at an APU that is as well matched to a 1080p screen as the Steam Deck's CPU is to its own display if the new 780M graphics are actually twice as fast as a Steam Deck. That isn't that bad, does it?
All of this points to AMD's newest APU perhaps providing a passable gaming experience. Even so, it's unlikely that you would go out and get a laptop with a 780M solely for gaming. You wouldn't mind if it turned out to be half decent at gaming if you ended up having one, possibly as a work machine.
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