AMD Radeon RX 7800M benchmarked: up to 28% faster using OCulink than USB4

AMD's mobile-focused Radeon RX 7800M has been tested over USB4 and OCulink, with up to 28% more performance using OCulink versus USB4.

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The Radeon RX 7800M is a Navi 32-based GPU with 3840 Stream Processors, which is the full configuration of the Navi 32 GPU for the desktop. The big change there is that it doesn't feature the full memory bandwidth, limited to a 192-bit memory bus and just 12GB of GDDR6 memory.

Our friends over at HotHardware tested the Radeon RX 7800M over both USB4 and OCulink, as the 7800M supports both of those connectivity standards. USB4 is limited to Thunderbolt 4/3 speeds at 40Gbps, while OCulink pumps at the full PCIe 4.0 x4 bandwidth of 64Gbps... so how does that additional bandwidth help the 7800M? Pretty decently, actually.

The OneXGPU 2 was used housing the Radeon RX 7800M, tested at 1440p in 3DMark TimeSpy, Port Royal, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 5, Gears Tactics, The Division 2, and Borderlands 3. Across the board, we have a 20% to 28% leap in performance using OCulink over USB4, impressive to see what the full 64Gbps can do.

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USB4 vs OCulink has been an interesting fight to see, with 40Gbps versus 64Gbps of bandwidth it makes me wonder what Thunderbolt 5 can do with its 80Gbps up to 120Gbps bandwidth. The world of external graphics cards could get really interesting, but the Thunderbolt 5 standard isn't anywhere near as widespread on desktops and laptops outside of a few guest appearances in laptops like the Razer Blade 18, which features a model with Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.