It’s an exciting time for laptop enthusiasts as we haven’t seen year-over-year performance improvements as we did in the past 12-24 months. At CES 2022, AMD just released new laptop processors, including the Ryzen 6980HX that features eight cores (16 threads) and a maximum frequency of 5Ghz.
The Ryzen 6000 family has an H-Series for high-performance and a U-Series for ultra-mobility.
AMD can reach these frequencies thanks to the TSCM 6nm semiconductor process. The updated Zen 3+ architecture allows AMD to increase performance and competitiveness with Intel’s latest 12th gen Core CPUs. I can’t wait to see comparative numbers.
Note: the amount of cache memory varies between models with the same core count
According to AMD, the new CPUs offer 11% and 28% in single and multithreaded performance, respectively. When it comes to integrated graphics speed, it’s simply up to 2X higher than the Ryzen 5000 series, thanks to AMD’s newer RDNA 2 graphics architecture.
The new Ryzen 6000 series also has power-saving features that adapt the chip’s power usage to match the task at hand. For example, video-conferencing could use up to 30% less energy. The overall platform is so efficient that a full day of video playback is possible on some laptop implementation.
The Ryzen 6000 platform also brings significant system improvements such as USB 4, PCIe 4, and Wi-Fi 6E. USB 4 is one of the most important aspects, especially for Creative users who want to connect a lot of external devices.
While the peak bandwidth may not be as high as Thunderbolt 4 (an Intel technology), USB 4 contributes to closing the gap to a much more tolerable level as USB 3.2.
It seems like AMD’s momentum will continue, and the chipmaker is working hard to woo OEMs to adopt its platform. AMD recently worked with Lenovo on the new ThinkPad Z Series by building a specific CPU SKU for that laptop. Ryzen-powered products are expected to arrive in February.
Watch the AMD CES 2022 event: