AMD looks set to compete with Nvidia in the laptop GPU space - Team Red claims Ryzen AI Max 395+'s iGPU outperforms RTX 4070 laptop GPU

AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (Image credit: AMD)

AMD's new Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU reportedly outperforms Nvidia's RTX 4070 laptop GPU
This is thanks to the Radeon 8060S iGPU, with 40 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores
It stems from AMD's marketing, while we await tests from users

While Nvidia is set to dominate the desktop GPU space against AMD and Intel with its new RTX 5000 series GPUs, new claims from Team Red hint at the perpetual underdog potentially putting up a bigger fight in the laptop GPU arena.

As highlighted by Notebookcheck, AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor will reportedly surpass Nvidia's RTX 4070 laptop GPU, thanks to the Radeon 8060S iGPU offering up to 68.1% better performance in games - at least, according to AMD. This chip will utilize 40 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores, and Team Red's marketing materials (pictured below) showcase its performance boosts over the ROG Flow Z13 in several games using the RTX 4070 laptop GPU at native 1080p.

Considering the consistent domination from Team Green over the last few years in both the desktop and laptop GPU regions, this could be significant for AMD if it proves to be legitimate - one of the most notable performance leaps is present in Cyberpunk 2077 (which just received an update for DLSS 4 support), but without using any upscaling. If we want a real idea of how well this new laptop chip will perform against Nvidia’s discrete GPUs, we’ll need to wait for performance results when both DLSS and FSR are active for the respective GPUs.

Since Team Red's new Max+ 395 processor uses RDNA 3.5 architecture rather than RDNA 4, FSR 4 likely won’t be available on laptops that use the APU. As of now, that new upscaling method is exclusive to RDNA 4 GPUs, but that could change as time goes on.

Image of AMD's Radeon 8060S iGPU performance results — (Image credit: AMD)

What does this mean for the future of gaming laptops, or even handhelds?

Since the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU is built primarily for laptops, any discussion of it finding its way to handheld gaming PCs is void for now - what this does mean, however, is that AMD may now finally compete with Nvidia within the gaming laptop space.

With games like Borderlands 3 potentially having a 44 fps difference and Hitman 3 maintaining a 62 fps difference over Team Green's midrange laptop GPU at native 1080p, we could be in for a major performance surprise. As previously mentioned, upscaling tools such as DLSS will play a huge factor in real-world performance differences, especially if the Max+ 395 doesn't have access to FSR 4, while all RTX GPUs will have access to DLSS 4 and the RTX 4070 notably also has access to Nvidia’s Frame Generation tech, which AMD presumably didn’t deign to use for this comparison... no surprises there.

Regardless, it's great for consumers. Even if the RTX 5000 series desktop GPU lineup blows AMD's new RDNA 4 GPUs out of the water - which they probably will - Team Red could have a secret weapon in the form of the Ryzen AI Max+ 395, especially given the sky-high pricing of Nvidia’s new cards. But laptops using AMD's new high-end APU certainly won't be cheap either…