So far, Intel has been at the forefront of laptop processors. This may change with the Ryzen 4000 presented at CES. Because AMD packs up to eight Zen 2 cores and a Radeon Vega graphics in a 15-watt CPU.
AMD Renoir Processors
For desktop PCs and servers, Intel faces massive competition from the Zen 2 processors Ryzen 3000, Ryzen Threadripper Gen3 and Epyc Gen2. For notebook processors alone, Intel was still ahead so far. AMD only had Zen 1 processors with a maximum of four cores in its portfolio. At the CES in Las Vegas, the manufacturer now presents the Zen 2-based Ryzen 4000 processors with up to eight cores and 16 threads. In addition, a Radeon Vega graphics unit is integrated into the 7-nanometer CPUs, codenamed Renoir.
Ryzen 4000U and 4000H
AMD launches two lines of Ryzen 4000 processors. The U models with a nominal TDP of 15 watts (Thermal Design Power) for thin and convertible laptops and the H models with a TDP of up to 45 watts for high-performance devices such as gaming laptops or mobile workstations. Manufacturers have some leeway with both lines: U processors can be designed with up to 25 watts of TDP to keep the clock turbo longer, for example, while H processors start at 35 watts to create thinner gaming laptops.
The top model in the U Series is the Ryzen 7 4800U with eight cores, 16 threads, 12 MB cache and eight GPU cores with a 1750 MHz graphics clock. These include the eight-core Ryzen 7 4700U without simultaneous multi-threading (SMT), the two six-core Ryzen 5 4600U with and 4500U without SMT, and the four-core Ryzen 3 4300U with four-threading as the input model. The integrated VEGA-GPU is also more powerful in the higher-range models, as there are more active graphics cores. In return, the basic clock speed of the individual cores is lower.
The Ryzen 4000H series with up to 45 watts TDP currently consists of only two models: The Octacore Ryzen 7 4800H processor and the Ryzen 5 4600H six-core processor. Both support SMT as well as their U-shaped counterparts. The difference with the 15-watt models is the higher base clock. The maximum frequency of the turbo is identical for both model series. In addition, the integrated GPU in the 4800H only corresponds to that of the Ryzen 7 4700H with seven graphics cores and a 1500 MHz graphics clock. However, H processors should be used almost exclusively in a computer with additional discrete graphics units.
For the Ryzen 7 4800H, AMD promises a slightly higher single-threaded performance than the Intel Core i7-1065G7. Therefore, the performance of the multi-threading is also supposed to be 90 percent higher than that of the Ice Lake quad-core processor with 10-nanometer technology. The graphics performance of AMD’s CPU is assumed to be 28 percent better than Intel’s processor with Iris Plus GPUs. The Ryzen 7 4800H is said to achieve 25-30 percent more performance compared to Intel’s top model, the Core i7-9750H, of the 14-nanometer six-core Comet-Lake family.
AMD processors support up to 64 GB LPDDR4X as the main memory. In terms of battery life, AMD only claims that the Ryzen 4000’s performance per watt is double that of its predecessor, the Ryzen 3000 Mobile. Compared to the other Zen 2 processors, the Ryzen 4000 models only support PCI Express 3.0, and the lack of PCIe 4.0 driver is probably due to power consumption.
Monolithic Mobile Processor Design
Unlike desktop and server processors with chip design, the Ryzen 4000 mobile processors consist of a single 7-nanometer die. Although it is more expensive to manufacture and cost flexible, it offers the advantages of a smaller chip surface and, above all, significantly lower power consumption. AMD has also halved the Layer 3 cache size in the mobile processors compared to the Ryzen 3000 desktop processors. In addition, the monolithic design allows you to operate with lower latency. For the integrated graphics unit, AMD continues to use the Vega architecture instead of the new navigation architecture. Here, the economy probably takes precedence over performance.
First Ryzen 4000 laptops at CES
Some manufacturers are already showing AMD Ryzen 4000 laptops at CES, with Acer offering the lightweight Swift 5 with 14-inch Ryzen 4000U and Lenovo the lightweight Yoga Slim 7 with 1.4kg Ryzen 7 4800U is a super slim case and 14-inch Freesync screen.