180 W Radeon RX 7900M is now real and set to debut on the Alienware m18 in just a few weeks

AMD may be killing it when it comes to Zen-based processors and integrated Radeon graphics, but their discrete GPU game has been lacking as of late to the point where the GeForce RTX series can feel uncontested. The chipmaker is set to change that this season with the launch of the Radeon RX 7900M to better compete against the mobile GeForce RTX 4080.

When compared to the current Radeon RX 7600 XT, the upcoming Radeon RX 7900M offers twice the memory bandwidth (128-bit to 256-bit), twice the VRAM (8 GB to 16 GB GDDR6), twice the integrated Infinity Cache (32 MB to 64 MB), and over twice the compute units (32 CUs to 72 CUs). RT and AI accelerator cores have also been improved which were previously weak spots of the Radeon series when compared to alternatives from Nvidia. The 16 GB of VRAM is notable as the mobile RTX 4080 is limited to just 12 GB in comparison.

Average performance should be 7 percent faster than the RTX 4080 across 30 tested games according to the manufacturer. Improvements can be as high as 30 to 40 percent in games like Borderlands 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 while some titles like Spiderman and Forza Horizon 5 will still favor Nvidia by 10 to 15 percent. Of course, such manufacturer-provided numbers should always be taken with a grain of salt until we can test the games on our own.

Speaking of testing, the first laptop to sport the Radeon RX 7900M will be the Dell Alienware m18 set to launch this November. The model will pair the new GPU with the Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU to be one of the fastest all-AMD gaming laptops available.

While the Radeon RX 7900M should be a significant boost over the 7600 XT, it's still an RDNA 3 GPU at heart meaning performance-per-watt will still be nowhere near as impressive as the Nvidia Ada Lovelace series. The AMD GPU will target a TGP of 180 W just to be neck-to-neck with the mobile GeForce RTX 4080 which hovers between 150 W and 175 W at the very high end. Thus, AMD will have to undercut Nvidia in price for better performance-per-dollar if it can't beat them in performance-per-watt. The Alienware laptop is set to start at $2800 USD for only the 7600 XT configuration.

Expect our full review on the all-AMD Alienware m18 in the weeks ahead.