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AMD Radeon RX 6800S

AMD Radeon RX 6800S: A Hybrid of Power and Mobility. Full Review in 2025

Introduction

Since its release in 2022, the AMD Radeon RX 6800S has established itself in the gaming laptop niche as a worthy option for those seeking a balance between performance and mobility. By 2025, while this model may have been outpaced by new generations, it remains relevant thanks to driver optimizations and an attractive price point. In this review, we'll explore who the RX 6800S is suitable for today and what nuances to pay attention to.

1. Architecture and Key Features

RDNA 2: The Foundation of Efficiency

The RX 6800S is built on the RDNA 2 architecture, which marked a breakthrough in AMD's energy efficiency. The card is manufactured using a 7nm TSMC process and includes 28 compute units (CUs), providing 1792 stream processors.

Unique Features

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 3.0: The support for this technology has become even wider by 2025. FSR 3.0 with Fluid Motion Frames mode can increase FPS by 50-70% in games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Starfield.

- Ray Accelerators: Hardware ray tracing is supported, but performance in ray tracing modes is 20-30% lower than that of the NVIDIA RTX 4060.

- Smart Access Memory (SAM): Optimizes the interaction between the CPU and GPU, providing a 5-10% FPS boost when paired with Ryzen 5000/7000 processors.

2. Memory: Speed and Capacity

GDDR6 and Bandwidth

The RX 6800S is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, featuring a 128-bit bus and a bandwidth of 256 GB/s. This is sufficient for gaming at 1080p and 1440p, but in 4K or when working with heavy textures (for example, in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024), there may be stutter issues.

Performance Impact

- At 1440p, the card demonstrates stable 60+ FPS in most games without ray tracing.

- When ray tracing is enabled, memory does not become a bottleneck, but the 128-bit bus limitations are felt in high-detail scenes.

3. Gaming Performance

FPS Examples (2024-2025)

- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (1440p, Ultra, FSR 3.0 Quality): 58-62 FPS. With Ultra RT — 34 FPS.

- Starfield (1440p, High): 72 FPS. With RT global illumination — 48 FPS.

- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (1080p, Ultra): 144 FPS.

Resolution Support

- 1080p: Ideal for esports disciplines (Valorant, CS2 — 200+ FPS).

- 1440p: Optimal choice for AAA games.

- 4K: Only with FSR 3.0 Performance (for example, Forza Horizon 6 — 45-50 FPS).

Ray Tracing: Is It Worth It?

RT effects on the RX 6800S are functional, but require compromises. In Alan Wake 2 with RT Medium and FSR 3.0, you can achieve 40 FPS at 1440p, but shadow settings will be lower.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing and Rendering

- DaVinci Resolve: Accelerates H.264/H.265 encoding via AMD VCE. Rendering a 4K video is 15% faster than with the RTX 4060.

- Blender: Supports HIP (the equivalent of CUDA). The BMW Render scene takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds compared to 6 minutes on the RTX 4060.

Scientific Calculations

- OpenCL: Suitable for entry-level machine learning tasks (TensorFlow/PyTorch). However, ROCm (AMD platform) still lags behind CUDA in terms of convenience.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP and Recommendations

- The TDP of the RX 6800S is 100W, with peak consumption reaching up to 120W. A cooling system with 3-4 heat pipes and two fans is required for a laptop with this card.

- Ideal chassis: Models with enhanced ventilation (like the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 2024) or laptops that are at least 20mm thick.

Temperature Regulation

Under load, the GPU heats up to 78-85°C, which is typical for mobile solutions. Regular cleaning of fans and replacing thermal paste every 1.5 years is recommended.

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 7700S

The younger model from 2024 (RDNA 3, 6nm) offers comparable gaming performance but struggles more with ray tracing. Price: $900 compared to $750 for the RX 6800S.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile

- NVIDIA Advantages: DLSS 3.5, better RT performance (+35%), support for Frame Generation.

- Disadvantages: 8 GB GDDR6, starting price of $1000.

Intel Arc A770M

The Intel card is cheaper ($700) but falls short in driver stability and optimization for older games.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply

A laptop with the RX 6800S requires a PSU with a minimum output of 180W. For hybrid systems (CPU + dGPU) — from 230W.

Compatibility

- Best pairing: Ryzen 7 7800H or Intel Core i7-13700H processors.

- Update drivers through AMD Adrenalin Edition: Optimizations for GTA VI and Avowed were released in 2025.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros

- Excellent performance at 1440p.

- Support for FSR 3.0 and Fluid Motion Frames.

- Energy efficiency for its class.

Cons

- Weak ray tracing mode.

- Only 8 GB of memory.

- Limited availability in new laptops (by 2025).

9. Final Verdict: Who is the RX 6800S Suitable For?

This graphics card is an ideal choice for:

- Gamers who value mobility and play at 1440p without ultra ray tracing settings.

- Creative professionals who work on video editing and 3D projects on the go.

- Budget users looking for a laptop priced between $1200 and $1500 with a lifespan of 2-3 years.

In 2025, the RX 6800S represents a compromise that is warranted if you're willing to tolerate ray tracing limitations for an affordable price and proven reliability.

If you find a laptop with the RX 6800S priced below $1300, go for it. For more demanding tasks (4K, streaming with ray tracing), it's better to consider the new generations of RDNA 4 or Ada Lovelace.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

January 2022

Model Name

Radeon RX 6800S

Generation

Mobility Radeon

Base Clock

1800MHz

Boost Clock

2100MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x8

Transistors

11,060 million

RT Cores

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

128

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

7 nm

Architecture

RDNA 2.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

8GB

Memory Type

GDDR6

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

128bit

Memory Clock

2000MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

256.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

134.4 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

268.8 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

17.20 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

537.6 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

8.774 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

2048

L1 Cache

128 KB per Array

L2 Cache

2MB

TDP

100W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.3

OpenCL Version

2.1

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 Ultimate (12_2)

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

6.5

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.