So who makes the best laptop GPU? Should you get Nvidia’s RTX 3080 or
AMD’s RX 6800M? I’ve compared both in 18 games at 1440p and 1080p resolutions to find out!
These are the differences in specs between these two top end laptop GPUs. The RTX 3080
can have either more or less GDDR6 memory as it’s available in 8 or 16 gig options, while the
6800M has 12 gigs. The 6800M has a higher memory speed, while the 3080 has more memory bandwidth
and a larger memory interface. CUDA cores and stream processors aren’t directly comparable,
so it doesn’t mean much that the 3080 has more, though the 3080 has a higher maximum power limit.
To do this testing I’m using the Neo 15 from XMG in Europe for the RTX 3080,
also known as the Mech-15 G3 from Eluktronics in the US market, and the Strix G15 Advantage Edition
from ASUS for the RX 6800M. Both laptops have the same Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, and both were also tested
with the same kit of memory with an external screen attached to bypass the integrated graphics.
As far as I’m aware, this is the only RX 6800M laptop currently available and I believe it’s
the full wattage option as AMD lists it as 145 plus watts on the spec sheet and I found
it would run at around 145 to 150 watts in a GPU only stress test. But specific power levels will
of course vary depending on the workload as AMD’s smartshift moves power between the CPU and GPU.
My RTX 3080 is also full powered with a 150 watt power limit, plus an extra 15 watts with
Nvidia’s dynamic boost, which works on a similar principle, so up to 165 watts.
Along with being full powered, my 3080 also has 16 gigs of VRAM rather than 8,
so it represents a best possible case.
Alright so let’s start out by comparing both laptops in 18 games at 2 different resolutions,
then afterwards we’ll compare things like pricing,
cost per frame, content creator workloads and power draw.
Let’s start out with Far Cry 6, which was tested with the game’s benchmark.
I’ve got the 1080p results down the bottom and the 1440p results at the top,
with the RTX 3080 results above the RX 6800M results. At 1080p the 6800M was reaching an
11% higher average frame rate when compared to the 3080, though this is an AMD sponsored title
so that’s not too surprising, and the difference was far smaller at the higher 1440p resolution.
This game launched with AMD’s FSR support, and this can be used to boost performance
for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. With FSR set to quality mode both get a larger boost to
performance at 1440p compared to 1080p, and this also gave the 6800M more of a lead.
As Far Cry 6 is an AMD sponsored title, to keep things balanced let’s do Control
next as an Nvidia sponsored title. At 1080p the 3080 was reaching an 8% higher average frame rate,
however there was a larger 21% boost seen in the 1% low, so less dips in performance
on the 3080. This game has DLSS support, and unlike FSR this is only available for Nvidia
graphics. The performance boost on offer is kind of crazy, at 1080p the 3080 is now reaching a 60%
higher average frame rate, compared to the 8% we saw before turning on this single setting.
Even the 1% lows from the 3080 are ahead of the average frame rates coming from the 6800M.
This game supports ray tracing, and while I could have also combined DLSS on the 3080 to boost it
even further, I just wanted to compare pure RT performance here. At 1080p the 3080 was reaching
a 32% higher average frame rate, so much better than AMD in terms of ray tracing performance.
Cyberpunk 2077 was like three frames higher on the 3080 laptop on average, however interestingly the
6800M was reaching a higher 1% low at the lower 1080p resolution. This wasn’t the case at 1440p,
but both are quite close together there now. This is another game with DLSS support,
so it’s possible for the 3080 laptop to see some big gains. At 1080p now the 1% lows are
about the same, but the 3080 was now reaching a 32% higher average frame rate in the same test.
Even the 3080’s 1% low at 1440p was ahead of the 6800M’s average frame rate with DLSS in use.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark,
and the 6800M was in the lead here, though as we saw in my recent 3070 vs 3080 video,
for some reason the 3080 was actually a little behind the 3070 in this game at 1080p,
so other 3080s may close the gap. Anyway it’s not as if the 3080 is unusable or anything, near
80 FPS at high settings 1440p is still a great result. This game also has DLSS support, though
with quality mode enabled it’s not boosting the frame rates as much as in previous games, so the
6800M still maintains a reasonable lead even with the 3080 taking advantage of this speed boost.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge. This was another
where the average FPS was ahead on the 3080, but at 1080p the 6800M had a higher 1% low,
granted the difference was only minor here. At 1080p the 3080 was just 3% ahead
in terms of average FPS, with a larger 9% lead at the higher 1440p resolution.
Watch Dogs Legion was tested with the game's benchmark. This test usually complains that 8
gigs of VRAM at the highest ultra setting preset is barely enough, so perhaps results would be a
little different with the 8 gig version of the 3080, but with what I’m testing with
VRAM constraints aren’t really a concern. The 3080 was just 5% ahead of the 6800M at 1080p
and almost 10% ahead at 1440p, that is until DLSS comes out. With DLSS enabled the 1080p
result only increases by 1 frame, while there’s a larger 13 FPS boost at 1440p,
where even the 3080’s 1% low is ahead of the 6800M’s average frame rate.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was also tested with the game’s benchmark,
and this one had some of the smallest differences out of all 18 games tested.
The 3080 was slightly ahead, but yeah we’re talking less than a 2 FPS difference at 1080p,
with a slightly larger 4 FPS lead at 1440p, and it’s not as if above 60 FPS at very high
settings at this higher resolution is going to be unusable or anything.
Call of Duty Warzone was ahead on the 6800M. At 1080p it’s got a 5% higher average frame
rate compared to the 3080, but a larger 17% lead in terms of 1% lows, so more stable on
the all AMD laptop. The 6800M was still in the lead at 1440p, but the gap is much smaller now,
at least until we enable DLSS. With DLSS enabled the 3080 was now ahead at both resolutions,
though the 6800M still had a slight edge in 1% lows at the lower 1080p resolution.
Fortnite is another eSports title, and one that generally favors Nvidia hardware,
which is why at either resolution this game had the second largest improvement
out of all 18 games tested on the 3080, and that’s even before factoring in DLSS,
because once we turn that on the 3080 is able to gain a significant boost. At 1080p we’re now
talking about a 36% boost to average FPS and a 55% boost at the higher 1440p resolution.
F1 2021 was tested with the highest setting preset which enables some ray tracing effects by default,
as denoted at the top of the graph, which may in part be why the 3080 has an above average lead
when compared to the other games covered, but yeah the 6800M is still running the game fine.
Instead of talking through the rest of the 8 games individually in depth,
I’ll just blast through them so we can get into the average differences
as that’s more interesting, even if all of this testing did take many hours to complete.
A larger selection of games is important to help get a better rounded average.
Feel free to pause the video if you want a closer look at any of these additional games.
On average over all 18 games tested at the lower 1080p resolution, Nvidia’s RTX
3080 with 16 gigs of VRAM and max power limit was just 0.4% ahead of AMD’s Radeon RX 6800M,
so basically equivalent on average. Clearly we can see that some games really seem
to favor either AMD or Nvidia, so it can depend on the specific title quite a bit,
but yeah once we average out a bunch of games it hardly seems to matter.
If we step up to the higher 1440p resolution where we’re more GPU bound now, things shift more in
favor of Nvidia, with the 3080 now averaging a 5 and a half percent higher average frame rate
in our 18 game selection. Only a small number of games preferenced the 6800M at this resolution,
but as we saw even with higher settings the frame rates from both were still excellent.
Many games that are showing as doing better on the 6800M here like Red Dead Redemption 2, Shadow of
the Tomb Raider and Call of Duty Warzone all have DLSS support which would of course change things.
These are the differences in the games that have either DLSS or FSR support.
As DLSS is only available for Nvidia graphics, the DLSS results are compared with the 6800M at stock,
while the Far Cry FSR results are with FSR enabled on both Nvidia and AMD.
Anyway for the most part we can see that DLSS is giving the 3080 some pretty big boosts. The fact
is DLSS has just been around for longer so has more widespread adoption for now.
Despite generally performing better, the 3080 costs quite a lot more money - at least when
comparing the specific laptops that I’ve used in this video. In many cases the 6800M performance
wasn’t too different and in a number of games it was even ahead, all while costing
about $1150 USD less, so of course it’s going to win when it comes to cost per frame value,
but things would of course change with a cheaper 3080 laptop, which do certainly exist,
granted they’re also more likely to have 8 gigs of VRAM or lower power limits.
The RX 6800M laptop was drawing a little more power from the wall in Control,
and if you recall in this particular game the 3080 was performing better.
It’s worth noting though the 3080 laptop is paired with a 230 watt power brick,
so it’s basically maxed out, while the 6800M has a larger 280 watt brick.
Content creator workloads could go either way.
For the most part the 3080 was ahead in more of these tests, as per the green bars,
while the 6800M in the red bars wasn’t far behind in many and was also winning in three of them.
I also want to note that I had no problems with driver stability on either laptop. All 18 games
worked perfectly fine at both resolutions. Unfortunately I haven’t compared things like
thermals and battery life because the laptop chassis are just too different to do that
fairly. It is also worth keeping in mind that I compared both laptops with the same memory.
Unfortunately I don’t have the G15 anymore because I had to send it back
a few weeks ago after testing, but yeah, my G15 came with slower x16 memory by default,
so while I did technically upgrade the memory in order to do this comparison fairly,
if you did actually go and buy it, it might have slower memory. Plus it also doesn’t have
a MUX switch like the 3080 machine, so that would also hurt performance.
That said, even with these benefits this 3080 machine is significantly more expensive than the
6800M laptop. If you really want Nvidia and the better ray tracing performance
and DLSS then you could definitely get a cheaper 3080 option for probably closer to $2000.
Again as mentioned those cheaper options just might have the lower 8 gigs of VRAM
which I still think is probably plenty for most people but also possibly a lower power limit,
which will result in less performance compared to what I’ve shown here.
You can check out the difference between Nvidia’s and AMD’s mobile graphics options in these videos
next. I’ve compared the RTX 3070 against the RX 6700M and the RTX 3060 against the RX 6600M, and
that one’s particularly interesting because they were both tested in the same laptop chassis, so I
could also fairly compare things like thermals and battery life - I’ll see you in that next.