Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 Radeon 880M underperforms by up to 25 percent

AMD threw a slight curve ball last year with the launch of the RDNA 3.5 series of integrated GPUs. Instead of launching the Radeon 880M as the flagship option, the 880M is now the mid-range option while the newly introduced Radeon 890M takes the flagship crown. The 880M can still bring decent performance benefits over the RDNA 3-based Radeon 780M, but a small handful of models might underperform.

Our chart below compares several laptops with the Radeon 880M to the average performance of a Radeon 780M in our database. Certain systems with the 880M like the Lenovo ThinkBook 16 G7+ can offer up to 25 percent faster graphics than the average 780M, but others with the same GPU like the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 can fall behind to be as slow as the average 780M.

There are a few potential reasons for the underperformance. Firstly, the small 14-inch form factor of the ThinkPad T14s likely impacts the overall performance of the system. Secondly, it's the first Radeon 880M system in our database with the Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 whereas all other tested 880M systems come with the Ryzen AI 9 365. The slower processor and reduced Turbo performance from the smaller size are a double whammy putting the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 iGPU at a noticeable deficit in all tested scenarios.

The ThinkPad T14s isn't primarily for gaming, of course, and so its underperforming graphics shouldn't deter the target audience of office users and light editors. It is nonetheless a bit disappointing to see it performing at essentially the same level as an average Radeon 780M instead of most other Radeon 880M machines.