AMD is changing its strategy: a more powerful laptop CPU than ever before may arrive this year – PCW

Readers familiar with the world of hardware have certainly started counting down the days until Computex trade show in Taiwan, there are many signs that AMD and Intel are preparing to announce new generations of processors. Regarding the first manufacturer, we can report ready-made facts, the motherboard manufacturers have started to announce their BIOS versions supporting the Ryzen 9000 series, the only question is performance and pricing.

Intel will certainly have a word or two about the novelties that are turning the world of desktop PCs upside down with the development codenamed Arrow Lake, but fans of the notebook categories can expect an even bigger battle. Based on the leaked data, it is difficult to imagine what Intel can do against AMD, as the mobile versions of the new generation Ryzens will include a top model that can transform the gaming laptop market by itself.

We ran too far ahead, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the speed capable of 4K gaming experience was in the first place among the highlighted features, this can be assumed from the data of the Ryzen APU coming under the code name Strix Halo. Too good to be true? Well, the 16-core processor part arranged in two CCDs does not cause too many surprises, the use of chiplet design at the same time seems fresh in the notebook line. It is somewhat of a necessary solution, since this way the size of the chip can be reduced (compared to a monolithic design) and a larger area is left for the units belonging to the SoC part, such as the integrated graphics.

According to the leaked presentation slide, AMD’s engineers expect huge progress in this area, with the development based on RDNA 3.5 architecture containing up to 40 CU units, it would be the most powerful graphics unit integrated into the most powerful CPU (more precisely, APU). By way of comparison, the Radeon 780M in the Ryzen 7 8700G works with 12 CU units and 768 shader processors, and the available 3D frame rate can be counted on 3.5 times, if the data on the slide is true.

Based on the manufacturer’s promise, Zen5 can bring a 5-10% increase in computing power, it can do even more when running multi-threaded programs, and the beefed-up Radeon competes with an updated architecture; a 4K gaming experience is not impossible with some FSR help. Thanks to the TSMC N4X and N4P production technologies, the entire area requirement of the chips can be fully assumed, the targeted consumption framework is usual for gaming laptops, and moreover, the IGP receives LPDDR5X memory modules arranged around the APU.

Based on the preliminary performance data, the integrated Radeon can perform between the RTX 4060M and 4070M, which is an important comparison in terms of energy efficiency, since AMD’s 140 W consumption limit applies to the entire APU, while today’s gaming notebooks only require the dedicated controller that much. It really is too good to be true, but something similar is being prepared for the PS5 Pro (true, only with Zen2 cores), the manufacturer has experience, and this time the production technology is not an obstacle to the implementation of bold plans.