Forget Nvidia RTX 3080 — killer AMD Radeon RX 6800M gaming laptop just leaked

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By Roland Moore-Colyer
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Powerful all-AMD gaming laptops could be on the horizon

Asus ROG Strix G15
(Image credit: Asus)

Can’t find Nvidia RTX 3080 restock or RTX 30-series laptops? Same goes for a lot of people. The good news is that an all-AMD gaming laptop could be on the way with a powerful Radeon RX 6800M GPU inside.

That’s going by a tweet from regular gaming hardware leaker @TUM_APISAK, who claims that the popular Asus ROG Strix G15 could come with an all-AMD configuration. That means a powerful Ryzen 9 5900HX processor paired with the as-yet-unannounced Radeon RX 6800M. 

Previously, the ROG Strix laptops mixed Ryzen mobile chips with Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 30-series laptop graphics cards. So machines with AMD hardware across the board would be a first for that line of laptops. 

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While they are currently very difficult to buy, thanks to semiconductor shortages, the combination of AMD Ryzen processors and the latest Nvidia graphics has proved to be a resounding success in a suite of gaming laptops. However, it’s still worth getting excited about fully AMD-based gaming laptops. 

Mobile versions of the GeForce RTX 30-series tend to be quite a bit less powerful than their desktop equivalents, given there's a notable gap in the amount of power a laptop GPU can draw in compared to a full-fat desktop graphics card. But that doesn't look like it’ll be the case with mobile Radeon 6000 GPUs. 

As our colleagues over at TechRadar flagged, the rumored Radeon RX 6800M will have 40 commute units giving it the same amount as a fully-fledged desktop RX 6800. Comparatively, a mobile Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 will perform somewhere in the ballpark of the desktop version of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070. 

Given it’s very hard to find where to buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, as well as most other RTX 30-series cards, gaming laptops with such GPUs have flown off the shelves. too. So the addition of gaming laptops with the latest Ryzen and Radeon hardware could offer an alternative to AMD + Nvidia laptops. 

Still, if all-AMD gaming laptops deliver killer performance in demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077, then we could also see them get snapped up by eager gamers fed up with desktop hardware shortages. But these will still inject more competition into the mobile graphics arena and hopefully see both AMD and Nvidia come up with enhanced versions of their laptop-grade GPUs. 

If you can't wait for such machines to arrive then check out our roundup of the best gaming laptops. Or you could even have a go at getting a full Nvidia or AMD graphics fix by checking out our selection of the best gaming PCs. 

Roland Moore-Colyer
Roland Moore-Colyer

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face.