I’ve tested 16 different laptop GPUs in 14 different games to help you decide which
graphics to get in your next gaming laptop!
Here’s a list of all laptops that have been tested for this video.
While I tried to use the same kit of memory where possible, there are plenty of other
differences like CPUs, power limits, and even stuff like optimus as lower end laptops generally
don’t have a MUX switch.
For the most part though, we’re comparing GPUs with maximum power limits, so best case
results.
As you’ll see, the performance difference can vary quite a bit depending on the specific
game, which is why we’re looking at 14 of them, so let’s get straight into the benchmarks
then afterwards we’ll compare prices.
Let’s start out with Cyberpunk 2077, which was tested in the same part of the game on
all 16 laptops for comparable results.
All of the Nvidia options are shown in green, while all the AMD options are shown in red.
Starting from the bottom the 1650 Ti is only slightly ahead of the 1650.
The GTX 1060 was a little ahead, not bad given it’s 5 years old, and AMD’s RX 5500M was
very close.
The 3050 and 3050 Ti from this year’s current generation offer a boost, however the GTX
1660 Ti from a couple of years ago had higher 1% lows than even the average FPS from the
3050 Ti, but I’ve already compared those two in depth in another video.
AMD’s RX 5600M was a little ahead of that, and strangely my RTX 2060 was a little ahead
of the RTX 2070, though this was the only game this happened, so it seems to be an outlier
which could be a result of the CPU differences.
AMD’s current gen RX 6600M and 6700M are able to offer big boosts and finally get us
above 60 FPS in this game at high settings, however Nvidia’s RTX 3060 and 3070 were
ahead.
AMD’s top end RX 6800M is only a couple of FPS behind Nvidia’s top end RTX 3080,
though the 6800M’s 1% lows are higher despite both of those laptops having the same CPU
and memory.
Things change a bit in Call of Duty Warzone, now AMD’s graphics seem to be doing better
than Nvidia in many cases, well at least the new RDNA 2 stuff.
The 6800M is dominating the top of the graph, both average FPS and 1% lows are ahead of
the 3080, and the 6700M is only 1 FPS behind the RTX 3070, granted the 6700M’s 1% lows
are closer to the 3080 than the 3070.
Generally the 3060 beats the 6600M, but not in this game, granted the difference isn’t
too big.
The older RX 5600M was right next to the RTX 2070 and 2060 graphics, a good result given
it’s usually in between the 2060 and 1660 Ti, granted the 1660 Ti isn’t too far behind
here, and it’s still ahead of this year’s newer 3050 Ti.
As is the case with the 1650 series, the Ti hardly offers much of a gain here, and the
5 year old 1060 machine is still able to hit 60 FPS at max settings in this game.
Watch Dogs Legion at ultra settings suggests having 8 gigs of VRAM for optimal performance,
so I’ve included this one to see how VRAM capacity affects performance.
Interestingly the 4 gig RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti were still ahead of the 6 gig GTX 1660
Ti and GTX 1060 options, I was kind of expecting the opposite.
The 3050 Ti ends up being less than 3 FPS behind the 2060 in this test, not bad at all,
however this year’s 3060 offers a fairly big improvement over the 2060.
That said, the older 2070 still has some gas in the tank and is doing better than the newer
3060, perhaps as the 2070 has 8 gigs of VRAM compared to the 6 gigs available to the 3060.
AMD’s new RX 6600M with newer CPU was very close to the 2070, so depending on the price
difference, which we’ll check soon, the last gen 2070 with higher VRAM could offer
good value.
Otherwise Nvidia’s 3080 tops the graph this time over AMD’s 6800M, though it’s only
a 4 FPS difference.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is an AMD sponsored title and was tested with the game’s benchmark,
so it’s not too surprising to see the red lines closer to the top of the graph.
Sure, Nvidia’s RTX 3080 is still at the top, but the RX 6600M, 6700M and 6800M are
ahead of all of Nvidia’s other GPUs that I’ve tested.
Interestingly the 6600M was actually ahead of the 6700M here.
This happened in some games as the 6700M is in the thinner MSI Delta 15, so CPU power
and thermals are a bit more limited there in some games, but it’s the only laptop
that currently exists with that GPU, so it is what it is.
In any case, it was still able to beat Nvidia’s 3070, which is a great result for the much
cheaper 6700M.
AMD’s last gen 5600M was in between the 2060 and 2070 in this one, another great result
for it as generally it’s closer to GTX 1660 Ti performance in most games.
The 5 year old 1060 still beats AMD’s 5500M, and you might have noticed the 3050 and 3050
Ti at the bottom of the graph.
I tested these two a few months ago so they’re my oldest data points.
This game was updated after that earlier testing and it seems to have improved things for GPUs
with lower amounts of VRAM.
So when I originally tested the 3050 and 3050 Ti the 4 gigs of VRAM was a limit, but this
seems to be less of a restriction now as I retested the 1650 much more recently and it’s
far ahead, so basically expect better from the 3050 series in this one to what I’ve
shown here.
Now Valhalla was an AMD sponsored title, so to keep things balanced let’s look at Control
next which is Nvidia sponsored.
The RTX 3070 is ahead of the 6800M, well, the average FPS is basically the same, but
the 1% lows from the 3070 are far ahead.
Even the 3060’s 1% lows are similar to the 6800M’s.
Even the older RTX 2070 is about the same as the 6600M, and the 6600M is meant to be
competition for the newer RTX 3060, so just goes to show how much variance there can be
based on the game being played.
The older 1660 Ti still beats the newer 3050 Ti, but the 3050 is at least offering a decent
improvement over the older 16 and 10 series GPUs, the 1060 didn’t do so well here.
It’s worth noting that this game also has DLSS support, so Nvidia RTX GPUs including
the 3050s would be able to get a speed boost in this game that’s not possible on AMD
or even Nvidia’s own GTX hardware.
Red Dead Redemption 2 seems to favor AMD with the game’s benchmark, as evidenced by the
top three results all being Radeon GPUs.
This was a bit of a weird one, because even the RTX 3070 was beating my RTX 3080, which
I suspect is due to a CPU power limit difference that I covered in a dedicated comparison between
those two GPUs.
Even the 5600M was a fair bit higher than the RTX 2060, which is saying something as
the 5600M is closer to the 1660 Ti in most games.
I found it interesting that the 3050 Ti was close to the 2060 here, because again, generally
I find the 3050 Ti to be closer to the 1660 Ti in most cases.
Now while the 10 and 16 series GPUs are sitting between 30 to 40 FPS at the bottom, it’s
important to note I did this testing with high settings, you could of course get much
better performance with lower tier settings on laptops that use these if they better fit
your budget.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge.
Nvidia seems to be ahead in this one, generally speaking.
The 3080 beats the 6800M, the 3070 and 3060 beat the 6700M and 6600M, and the 2070 and
2060 beat the 5600M.
Based on these results there’s a rather large gap between the 3050 Ti and the 3060,
so many of those older generation GPUs might be a good move if you want something better
than 3050 series graphics if you can’t get or afford a 3060.
Even the 5500M is close to the 3050 in this one, both have 4 gigs of VRAM and are ahead
of the 1660 TI and 1060 with 6 gigs, so I don’t think this is a VRAM capacity issue.
Let’s use Fortnite for an esports title next.
This game is known to favor Nvidia hardware, which is probably why the GTX 1660 Ti is ahead
of the 5600M.
Even the older RTX 2060 isn’t far behind the newer RX 6600M.
Now the 3050 and 3050 Ti appear to be doing super well, but like I mentioned in Valhalla,
unfortunately they’re the oldest data points out of all GPUs tested, and with more recent
Fortnite updates the game seems to have lowered in FPS in the area I test, so if I still had
those today I’d expect them to lower a little compared to what I’ve shown here.
I’d even say the 3070 is beating the 6800M here, sure the average FPS is about the same,
but in a fast paced game like this the higher 1% lows from the 3070 are going to be more
noticeable and stable with fewer dips.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the game’s benchmark and doesn’t seem to be doing the
best for AMD either, the RX 5500M is down the bottom now, but that said it is still
above 100 FPS at the highest ultra setting preset, so definitely not unplayable or anything
for casual players.
The 5600M offers a nice lead over Nvidia’s 1650 and 1060 options, while the 1660 Ti sits
in between the 3050 and 3050 Ti.
The 6600M isn’t quite as good as the 3060, however it’s beating the 2060 and 2070 from
last gen which I think is quite good compared to the 5600M performance they had just last
year.
Not to mention AMD also has the higher tier 6700M and 6800M now, so definitely much more
competitive against Nvidia than ever before in the laptop space, even if not always performing
the absolute best.
Competition keeps prices good for us.
Metro Exodus was also tested with the game’s benchmark.
The top half of the graph has a nice pattern of red and green, but apart from that things
are mostly where I expected them with the 3080 ahead of the 6800M, 3070 ahead of the
6700M, 3060 ahead of the 6600M, 5600M close to the 2060 and 3050 Ti close to the 1660
Ti.
It would have been great to include results with RTX 2080 or even the super series, but
unfortunately I just don’t have those available.
Death Stranding reached the highest frame rate with the 6800M, while the 3080 and 3070
were quite close together in this one.
In an 18 game average generally I found the 3080 only 15% better than the 3070, so often
diminishing returns at play at the top of Nvidia’s product stack.
That said, the 3060 was beating the 6600M in this one, granted the 1% lows were quite
close, while the 1% lows from the 6700M were ahead of both the 3070 and 3080.
The older AMD stuff didn’t fare too well here, as the 5600M was below the 1660 Ti,
and even the newer 3050 was ahead of it.
Even at max setting preset though, the GTX 1650 Ti was still able to surpass 60 FPS.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a bit of an older game these days and seems to do better on
AMD, as even the RX 6700M was ahead of the RTX 3080 in this one.
That said though, the 6600M wasn’t seeing a similar boost as it was still behind the
3060, which was the case in many games tested.
I was expecting the 6600M to be higher than the 3060 based on how good the 6700M and 6800M
were doing.
These AMD gains only seem to apply to those higher end RDNA2 GPUs, because the 5600M being
behind the 1660 Ti is a below average result for it, it’s scoring the same as the 3050
though, and the 5500M was better than both the 1060 and 1650 series.
I’ll replace Battlefield V with the newer 2042 going forward, but unfortunately the
newer version wasn’t available while I had most of these laptops for testing.
This game seems to benefit from more VRAM or something, as both the 3050 and 3050 Ti
are down near the 1650 and 5500M graphics.
There are also some strange differences between Nvidia and AMD in the newer GPUs at the top
of the graph.
Not only is this another game where the 6600M actually outperforms the thinner 6700M laptop,
but the 1% lows from the Radeon GPUs are quite a bit higher compared to Nvidia, despite Nvidia
doing better in terms of average FPS.
These AMD gains don’t seem to translate to the older AMD graphics, as the 5600M is
behind the GTX 1660 Ti, while also having far worse 1% lows compared to Nvidia.
Last old game.
The Witcher 3 did the best on the Radeon RX 6800M and the 6600M was ahead of the 3060,
so generally speaking it seems that the RDNA 2 GPUs had a benefit in this one too.
Otherwise even the 5 year old GTX 1060 was maintaining 60 FPS at max settings here.
Here are the average frame rates for all 16 GPUs in all 14 of the games tested.
Once everything is averaged out, the RTX 3080 and RX 6800M are basically equivalent in this
selection of games.
The 3080 was about 9 and a half percent higher than the 3070, while the 3070 had a similar
lead over the RX 6700M.
The 6700M was about 6% ahead of the 3060, but the 3060 was only 3% ahead of the 6600M,
so those were fairly equivalent on average.
The 2070 is about 16% ahead of the 2060, and although the 5600M was in between the 1660
Ti and 2060, it’s much closer to the 1660 Ti, at least on average, because as we saw
in some games the 5600M could actually beat the 2070.
The 3050 Ti and 5600M were basically equivalent, the 3050 Ti was just a couple of FPS ahead
of the 1660 Ti despite the 1660 ti having more VRAM, and the 3050 Ti was only offering
an 8% boost over the non Ti version.
Speaking of Ti not helping much, the 1650 and 1650 Ti are essentially the same on average,
only a really small difference you’re not likely to notice.
The RX 5500M is tied with the classic 1060 on average, despite having less VRAM, though
it is also newer, while generally the 3050 does offer a decent boost over the 10 and
16 series options.
Things look a bit different once we factor in prices.
Many of the older GPUs in this list are only available as refurbished or otherwise in different
laptops, as you just can’t buy many of the laptops I tested anymore.
Basically I just searched Newegg and sorted by lowest prices and used those results here.
For current gen laptops such as Nvidia 30 series or Radeon 60 series I’ve used current
prices for the same laptops that I’ve actually tested.
It’s also worth noting that while say my RTX 3080 laptop was $2600, there are absolutely
cheaper 3080 laptops out there, however they probably also have less VRAM and lower power
limits and maybe no MUX switch, so performance would be lower along with the lower price.
Anyway the 6700M is currently offering the best value because on sale at Bestbuy right
now the MSI Delta 15 is $1300, but at the full price of $1600 it would be closer to
$14 per frame.
The 3060 offers the next best value, but the higher tier 6800M and 6600M are very close.
Yeah the 6800M costs $350 more, but it also performs better, so as far as value goes it’s
still extremely good.
Older laptops with GTX 1060, 1650, 1650 Ti or RX 5500M look good based on the lower prices,
but relative to the actual performance they offer they’re bad value, so I think it’s
definitely worth saving extra money if you can.
The 3080 laptop I tested was the most expensive, but the performance boost wasn’t super high,
so from a cost per frame perspective that offers the worst value out of all 16 GPUs
I’ve tested, despite technically being the best performance.
Not to mention that the Nvidia RTX GPUs also have DLSS support, which does boost performance
in a number of these games and others, and this is something that both Nvidia’s lower
tier GTX hardware and AMD graphics can’t benefit from.
AMD did recently introduce FSR which works on a similar principle, and it works with
either AMD or Nvidia graphics.
It’s just that DLSS has been around for longer, so as a result it’s available in
way more games right now.
But this might change in the future.
Based on that, it might be worth considering an RTX option from Nvidia if you want to take
advantage of DLSS.
If you don’t care so much about it, well the GTX 1660 Ti can still offer a pretty good
experience in most games.
Even the 5 year old GTX 1060 could still do decent in some, but then I guess in others
not so well.
Again it depends on the game, but given the price of a 1060 laptop isn’t too much lower
compared to others, it’s probably worth saving the money for something else that gives
you better cost per frame value.
Now the GTX 1650 is alright as an entry level option at around $600 to say maybe $700.
Just be prepared to run games at low or medium settings.
I tested with higher graphical settings in this video because those are generally more
GPU bound, and this was a GPU comparison after all, so that makes sense, but you can absolutely
get higher FPS simply by lowering the settings with many of those lower tier options.
You definitely don’t need to go out and spend money than you need to.
Now while I kind of get 4 gigs of VRAM on an entry level product like the 1650, it kind
of makes less sense for me for the RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti.
Again while fine in many games at low and medium settings, even high settings in some
titles depending on the game, I’m already seeing the 4 gigs of VRAM with the RTX 3050
series be a bit of a limitation in some games at higher setting levels.
So I guess what I’m concerned about is if we can already see the 3050 and 3050 Ti hitting
limits in some games today, what’s it going to be like one, two, three years from now?
It’s hard to predict, but yeah based on that if you can I think I would save for something
with a bit more memory.
Speaking of more VRAM, that’s generally something that we’re seeing with AMD compared
to Nvidia.
For example on one side the RTX 3060 and 6600M compete and the 3060 has 6 gigs of VRAM while
the 6600M has 8, and then if we go a step higher the 3070 has 8 gigs of VRAM while the
6700M has 10.
That said, as far as VRAM goes, personally I haven’t really had that many problems
in most games with 6 gigs in the 3060.
More is clearly better and will probably last you longer, but I wouldn’t be too worried
about getting a 3060 based on that.
An area where you might want to consider Nvidia would be ray tracing performance.
I didn’t do any tests in this video, but I have shown in my other GPU comparisons that
generally Nvidia outperforms AMD when it comes to ray tracing, and if those games with ray
tracing support also support DLSS then Nvidia is just going to flatten AMD there.
If ray tracing is actually something that you care about, personally I’d suggest looking
at RTX 3060 or above.
I haven’t really found the first gen ray tracing hardware like the 2060 or 2070 to
do that well.
Honestly all things considered, I think the best sweet spots for most people are either
the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 6600M, if I had to pick one from each company.
Both can handle pretty much any modern game even at higher settings and offer good frame
rates, and for the most part on average the performance was quite comparable, and the
price difference usually isn’t too big either.
I’ve seen the 3060 and 6600M for about $1300 USD in say the Lenovo Legion 5, though generally
the AMD option can be cheaper.
Now if both were the same price, personally I’d probably just go for the Nvidia RTX
3060, because generally it does perform a little better than the 6600M, you get DLSS
support, and you’ve got ray tracing if you want it.
The only way the 6600M really has an advantage is the extra 2 gigs of VRAM, so depends what
your priority is.
As mentioned, I’ve got no problems playing games with 6 gigs for the foreseeable future,
so I think the 3060 is alright.
It would have been nice if it had 8 gigs, but this is where we are.
Now once you go higher than these two GPU options you really start seeing diminishing
returns.
Just for example, it costs a few hundred dollars to go from RTX 3050 Ti to RTX 3060, but the
performance boost is more than 50% in average FPS.
But then if you want to go from an RTX 3060 to and RTX 3070 you get a 15% performance
boost while still having to pay hundreds of dollars extra, and then similar deal when
you go from 3070 to 3080.
So yeah, once we factor in things like pricing & availability, features on offer and what
you get paying more or less money, I think the 3060 is probably the best option for most
people - or as mentioned the 6600M if you either want AMD or more VRAM.
Of course there’s way more to picking a new gaming laptop than just the GPU that’s
inside.
Check out this video next where I’ve ranked and compared all 34 gaming laptops that I’ve
tested this year.
I’ve sorted them all from best to worst to help you decide which ones you should look
at, so I’ll see you over in that video next.
Otherwise if you’re new to the channel then make sure you get subscribed for future gaming
laptop videos like this one.