AMD Radeon 780M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU

AMD Radeon 780M

The AMD Radeon 780M is an integrated GPU in the Ryzen 7040 series for laptops (Phoenix, e.g. Ryzen 9 7940HS). The iGPU is based on the new RDNA3 architecture and has 12 CUs (= 768 shaders) clocked at up to 3 GHz (depending on the CPU model). As the predecessor Radeon 680M, the 780M supports hardware raytracing, although the performance is too slow to use it in current games.

Thanks to the new architecture and higher clock speeds, the Radeon 780M should be clearly faster then the old Radeon 680M. This means most demanding games should be playable in minimum graphics settings (like Cyberpunk 2077) and less demanding games like Fifa 23 can be played in higher settings and resolutions (1080p). In early 2023, the Radeon 780M is the fastest iGPU on the market.

Thanks to the modern 4nm process and clever power-saving features, the power consumption is comparatively low (according to AMD). The whole chip of the first two models can be configured between 15 - 54 Watt TDP.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU (codename GN21-X2) is a mid-range laptop GPU. It is based on the AD107 chip and uses the Ada Lovelace architecture. The RTX 4050 Laptop offers 2560 shaders and uses 6 GB GDDR6 dedicated graphics memory with a clock speed of 16 Gbps (effective) and a 96 Bit memory bus. The TGP (Total Graphics Power) can be configured between 35 and 115 Watt (+ 10-25 Watt Dynamic Boost from the CPU) leading to different performance levels. The boost clock depends on the TGP settings and ranges from 1605 MHz (35 Watt) to 2370 MHz (115 Watt). The performance therefore is also highly depending on the laptop and TDP settings.

In our benchmarks, the RTX 4050 stays slightly behind the older mobile RTX 3060 but is clearly faster than the mobile RTX 3050 Ti. Therefore, it is best suited for 1920x1080 gaming at high to ultra settings depending on the game (see benchmarks below).

The RTX 4050 offers 80 tensor cores and therefore supports DLSS 3 including frame generation that can have a big impact in supported games. The raytracing cores however will see less usage, as the RTX 4050 does not offer enough performance for high detail settings and raytracing in demanding games.

The AD107 chip is manufactured on 5nm at TSMC (4N process).