AMD RDNA 3.5 “Radeon 890M & Radeon 880M” GPU Gaming Performance & Power Scaling Detailed, Major Leap For iGPUs

AMD's Radeon 890M & Radeon 880M GPUs based on the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture become the new standard for iGPUs, setting new performance records, and have been thoroughly detailed by Golden Pig Upgrade.

Yesterday, AMD launched its brand new Ryzen AI 300 "Strix" APUs which carry three brand new cores. The CPU side is configured with Zen 5 cores, the NPU side is configured with XDNA 2 cores, and the GPU side is configured with RDNA 3.5 cores. All three architectures are a major addition to the laptop family but one component that stands out is the RDNA 3.5 architecture which shows big performance improvements over its RDNA 3 predecessor.

Despite being a refresh/optimization of the RDNA 3 core and not a proper architectural change like the next-gen RDNA 4 GPUs, the RDNA 3.5 architecture shows that AMD can still achieve some great results by tuning its existing designs. The first two iGPUs that are based on the new RDNA 3.5 GPU architecture are the Radeon 890M (featured on Ryzen AI 9 HX 370) and the Radeon 880M (featured on Ryzen AI 9 365).

Hardware insider and tester, Golden Pig Upgrade, did a thorough testing of both Radeon 800M GPUs and the results speak for themselves. But before we get to those, let's quickly give you a rundown of the specs of each iGPU. The Radeon 890M is the flagship configuration offering 16 Compute Units or 1024 cores clocked up to 2900 MHz and the Radeon 880M features 12 Compute Units or 768 cores clocked at the same peak clocks of up to 2900 MHz. The flagship houses 33% more cores than the previous RDNA 3 flagship, the Radeon 780M which matches the Radeon 880M.

The testing comparisons include the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 at 60W/70W (PL1/SPL), Ryzen AI 9 365 at 60W/54W (PL1/SPL), Ryzen 7 8845HS at 60W/60W (PL1/SPL) and Core Ultra 9 185H at 56W/55W (PL1/SPL). The Ryzen AI 300 APUs were running LPDDR5X memory at 7500 MT/s, the Core Ultra 9 185H was running LPDDR5-7467 memory while the Hawk Point APU was running LPDDR5-6400 memory. All three chips were tested with the latest graphics drivers in "Best Performance" and "Performance" Mode profiles.

Coming first to 3DMark performance, the Radeon 890M and Arc Xe-LPG iGPUs trade blows while the Radeon 880M mostly sits below the Arc iGPU but stands much ahead of the Radeon 780M GPU. The performance varies from test to test but these are synthetic performance tests and gaming performance paints a wholly different picture.

Starting with the gaming tests, the Radeon 890M and Radeon 880M RDNA 3.5 iGPUs outperform the Hawk Point and Meteor Lake chips by a decent lead which goes up to 18% (890M) and 16% (880M) in standard AAA titles and up to 41% (890M) and 40% (880M) versus the RDNA 3 GPUs in online (eSports) titles. Following are the per title performance increases:

Performance testing with external (Discrete GPUs) was also shared. The GeForce RTX 4060 was used in both PCIe 4.0 x4 and x8 configurations and you can see that the x8 configuration does tend to be a tad bit better at higher resolutions but you can add an external graphics card if you want to get higher gaming performance. This would be useful in cases such as USB4 & Oculink which will be featured on various Mini PCs and handhelds that come with the Radeon 890M and Radeon 880M configurations.

The latest graphics ladder has also been shared which puts the AMD Radeon 890M (RDNA 3.5) iGPU faster than the GeForce GTX 1650 Ti (60W) and the Radeon 880M (RDNA 3.5) iGPU faster than an 85W GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. The RTX 3050 Max-Q still leads the chart but this difference will be further mitigated once we get RDNA 3.5 in desktop options which will be able to offer even faster performance thanks to higher power limits and higher temperature ranges.

These APUs also come with support for the same driver branch as the RDNA 3 GPUs and support all the latest features such as FSR Super Resolution (1/2/3), FSR Frame Generation, HYPR-Tune, Anti-Lag+, AFMF, and more. These make for a great and customized experience for gaming PCs.

Overall, this is a great showcase for the AMD Radeon 800M "RDNA 3.5" graphics series and GPU architecture which has once again propelled the capabilities of iGPUs (Integrated GPUs) to new heights. Intel will soon introduce its Xe2 architecture on Lunar Lake CPUs, offering a 50% bump in performance while AMD will be expanding the capabilities of its RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture with the upcoming Strix Halo series offering up to 40 compute units. We can't wait to see what those platforms can offer as these mean great things forward for the Mini PC and handheld gaming segment.

News Source: Golden Pig Upgrade