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  • - AMD.

  • That's what this is, just AMD.

  • Okay, sure, ASUS put it together,

  • so they get to put their logo on the lid.

  • But under the hood,

  • it's got an AMD Ryzen 5900 HX 8-core processor

  • an AMD Chipset and an AMD Radeon RX 6800M GPU

  • with an AMD chosen FreeSync premium panel

  • running at up to 300 Hertz.

  • Also it's got AMD smart access memory technology

  • allowing the CPU to access all of the GPU's memory

  • and AMD SmartShift technology

  • which dynamically allocates power between the CPU and GPU

  • depending on the load.

  • That's a lot of AMD.

  • But how does it all come together?

  • And can they truly make team red

  • a viable option for gamers on the go?

  • Like go to school or have divorced parents,

  • or need to carry their computer around with them

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  • (upbeat music)

  • - AMD's big message today is around

  • their AMD advantage design framework initiative.

  • Which is a technical way of saying that

  • while AMD doesn't appear to have

  • a formal certification process,

  • they will collaborate with laptop brands to ensure

  • that their product meets certain guidelines.

  • So a laptop branded this way should have a high-end

  • Zen 3 CPU and RDNA 2 mobile GPU,

  • support for AMD SmartShift

  • and smart access memory enabled by default,

  • A 144 Hertz IPS or OLED display with FreeSync premium

  • and DME storage, and over 10 hours of battery life

  • during video playback.

  • You can think of it kind of like

  • Intel's Ultrabook platform back in the day,

  • except for, it's for Tungus' gaming laptops instead.

  • And the ASUS G513 Advantage Edition

  • is one of the first laptops to roll out of the program.

  • Which is all fine and good,

  • but the big news here is like.. What?

  • A competitive high-end mobile AMD GPU.

  • Yup, this puppy packs a Radeon RX 6800M,

  • which would theoretically make this capable

  • of 4K 60 FPS gaming,

  • if we bought into the marketing.

  • You see, like Nvidia,

  • whose GeForce mobile GPUs are generally beefed-up versions

  • of a tier lower than their model number would suggest,

  • AMD is playing things relatively fast and loose

  • and their specs aren't quite the same

  • as their desktop namesakes.

  • So, on paper at least, the RX 6800M

  • with its 40 compute units is more comparable

  • to a desktop RX 6700 XT than to a desktop 6800.

  • And then, there's the RX 6700M and 6600M

  • with 36 and 28 compute units, respectively.

  • And neither of those look like anything we've seen

  • from AMD to date.

  • Probably because they didn't bother launching

  • the low-end desktop cards that they had planned

  • for those GPU cores because of the ongoing Silicon shortage.

  • Though AMD would neither confirm, nor deny.

  • The 6600M in particular looks a little anemic,

  • but then we've also seen the 6700 XT

  • perform surprisingly well on the desktop,

  • despite its compute unit deficit.

  • So, maybe there's more to the story.

  • And, there almost certainly is.

  • You might recall us mentioning that Nvidia's RTX 30 series

  • mobile GPU's are actually misleading in their own way.

  • The thing is, an RTX 3080

  • can have all the CUDA Cores in the world,

  • but if the clock speeds are limited

  • by a power or thermal constraint,

  • performance is going to suffer.

  • And the sheer number of laptops out there

  • with TDP's that were well below

  • what the 3080 needs to stretch its legs

  • created so much confusion in the marketplace

  • that Nvidia yielded and started amending

  • the rated TDP of the GPU to their laptop spec sheets.

  • So, then AMD might use lower tier chips

  • but they're also making a big deal

  • out of setting firmer power guidelines

  • by explicitly stating that the RX 6800M

  • for instance is 145 Watts and above.

  • Though, with that said,

  • what the heck is this up to nonsense

  • on the 6700M and the 6600M.

  • AMD please.

  • You can't just do better than Nvidia for one skew.

  • You gotta be consistently better.

  • Like, our quality products at ltdstore.com.

  • Got CPU shirts.

  • Now to be fair to AMD,

  • they're relying on implicit support

  • between their Ryzen 5000 series CPU's

  • and Radeon 6000M GPU's for SmartShift,

  • which allows for power and thermal budgets

  • to be dynamically allocated to the CPU or the GPU

  • depending on the load on each.

  • So, in a nutshell, what this could look like

  • is a CPU bound game, favoring the CPU

  • while a GPU bound game will pump more juice into the GPU.

  • So it's the same overall power and thermal output

  • but it gets divvied up wherever it makes

  • the biggest difference.

  • That makes sense.

  • And Nvidia actually has a similar technology

  • except it needs explicit support

  • from laptop manufacturers rather than just being a given.

  • That is a major advantage

  • of AMD being so vertically integrated.

  • Unfortunately though, we only have one

  • all AMD laptop here today

  • and it's equipped with the Radeon RX 6800M.

  • So, we can't dig any deeper into that for now.

  • In order to keep our testing simple,

  • we grabbed the ROG STRIX G733Q,

  • which is equipped with the same CPU

  • but with an RTX 3080 mobile GPU.

  • Now, bear in mind that this isn't a full in-depth review

  • of Radeon 6000M even.

  • We're to cover it in more detail later, so get subscribed.

  • But for now we want to taste the performance

  • and we want to see if AMD's numbers, hold water.

  • Now, Metro Exodus may be an older title now

  • but it just got an enhanced upgrade.

  • So it's a great candidate to test both rasterized

  • and ray traced performance.

  • At 1080P UltraP, the Radeon ends up neck and neck

  • with the RTX 3080.

  • While with ray traced global illumination enabled,

  • we're seeing Nvidia's more mature ray tracing cores

  • work their magic.

  • Still though, we're within about 13%

  • so, it's not like this is a catastrophic loss for team red.

  • It does get a little worse in the enhanced edition

  • but for an exploration heavy game like this,

  • it is still plenty playable,

  • something we couldn't have said about

  • at high-end AMD laptop.. Ever.

  • The faster paced Forza Horizon 4, meanwhile,

  • well, again, it's not a bad experience

  • but we're down as far as 25% slower in minimum FPS

  • versus Nvidia, which isn't really what we were expecting

  • given the strong rasterization performance we saw earlier.

  • As for a much lighter title,

  • CSGO, well, it provides Nvidia with another lead

  • but the difference is in the 10 to 18% range.

  • So, not game-changing, but certainly not terrible.

  • Of course, performance is only one part of the equation

  • and AMD is claiming that they have significantly

  • better performance characteristics

  • on battery than the competition.

  • So we pulled the power adapter

  • and set the laptops to performance mode to see what happens.

  • Again, Metro Exodus gives us pretty much

  • identical performance between AMD and Nvidia

  • in traditional rendering but the performance difference

  • when turning on ray tracings

  • seems to be much smaller than before.

  • As for the enhanced version,

  • which has ray tracing locked on,

  • Nvidia loses frames as expected

  • and AMD loses them harder.

  • Forza gives AMD a slightly better loss

  • than its previous twenty-five percent.

  • And again, it's still quite playable.

  • And the situation in CSGO actually

  • looks a little better for AMD on-battery than not.

  • Meaning that we might be seeing SmartShift

  • doing its thing here.

  • Though, it's still hardly a victory.

  • Now, to be clear we're not calling

  • AMD's performance claims BS,

  • we just have a very limited amount of time

  • to try to find games where they were actually able

  • to pull off an advantage.

  • And honestly, I am excited enough to see a return

  • to competition in this market

  • that it's easy to overlook some boards.

  • Moving on, this may be a gaming oriented laptop

  • with a gaming oriented GPU,

  • but you might sometimes want to do,

  • I don't know, rendering or something like that.

  • And for that, it looks like it's fine, but not amazing.

  • It consistently comes in around 60 to 80%

  • of Nvidia's results in standalone render benchmarks

  • and as for SPECviewperf, well,

  • we saw some hints that it might be a better match

  • than Nvidia for some professional workloads

  • with even performance in 3DS max and wins in medical

  • and Siemens NX.

  • Now, that energy score looks really bad,

  • but realistically you're not doing anything

  • like that on a laptop anyway.

  • Now, because our GeForce equipped STRIX G733Q

  • is a 17 inch laptop compared to a 15 inch,

  • so, presumably it has larger beefier coolers.

  • We're not able to read too much into these numbers

  • but AMD's thermals also seem to be well-controlled.

  • So maybe it's a pretty apples-to-apples comparison.

  • I mean, we didn't see temperatures higher than 77 degrees

  • at full load, which is pretty interesting

  • Given that this is 145 watt TDP GPU,

  • but that only drew 116 watts at peak.

  • Meanwhile, the RTX 3080 mobile variant

  • that it was up against was a 130 watt card,

  • but that drew over 140 watts peak.

  • This is likely down to Nvidia's opportunistic boost behavior

  • and explains why the thermal output was roughly the same.

  • Interestingly though,

  • AMD's core clocks were solid throughout.

  • So, it doesn't seem like it was limited in any way.

  • So, in conclusion, while power consumption looks good,

  • it's a little disappointing

  • that performance wasn't chart topping

  • next to Nvidia's best mobile GPU in our test suite.

  • With that said,

  • I don't think it's the real story here anyway.

  • The real story is that there is finally another contender

  • at the top end, and that means that you are more likely

  • to be able to find a laptop that fits your needs

  • in this seemingly endless chip shortage.

  • So, while past Linus and maybe future Linus

  • for that matter might say, don't bother with this.

  • Just buy GeForce.

  • Present Linus is more likely to say,

  • "Hey, look, they're objectively, not terrible,

  • even if they're not super competitive

  • and depending on the price you find them at

  • they may even be good bang for the buck."

  • So, there you have it.

  • The age of the all AMD gaming laptop is back.

  • Or, here for the first time ever.

  • (chuckles)

  • And I'm ready for it.

  • Just like I'm ready to tell you about our sponsor,

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  • So thanks for watching guys.

  • If you want to watch something else

  • that's disrupting the laptop scene,

  • go check out our video on the Sensel touch pad.

  • That's being integrated into some laptops now.

  • Seriously, that thing is way more of a game changer

  • than you could possibly imagine a touch pad being.

- AMD.

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