Ryzen (Zen)

The rumors of Asus launching a new, 16-inch version of its ROG Zephyrus Duo laptop have gained further momentum with new claims of Ryzen 6000 power for the alleged dual-screen gaming machine. The processor may partner with RTX 3000-series graphics to drive a heightened refresh rate in this apparently upcoming PC, now slated to run Windows 11 out of the box.

When AMD's midrange Ryzen 5 can handily outperform Intel's fastest Core i7 U-series lineup in the most important multi-thread workloads, then it becomes that much easier to recommend AMD over Intel in the budget to midrange laptop tiers.

The Asus VivoBook 15 KM513 impresses in more ways than one with its excellent OLED HDR panel and very good AMD Ryzen 5 5500U performance — a combination that is not often seen in the mid-range. However, given that this is a VivoBook device, several weak spots still remain. We evaluate all these aspects in our review.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 is the first ThinkPad laptop with AMD CPUs and a 16:10 monitor. This makes it one of the most interesting business ThinkPads of this year.

For just $600, the IdeaPad 5 Pro 16 has one of the best displays and fastest processors in its price range. Unfortunately, the limited RAM is a huge wrench on what could have been a really good deal.

The 15.6-inch HP is a bargain for performance hunters due to its 6-core Ryzen 5 5500U CPU. Daring users bothered by its measly 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB SSD can try to pry open the bottom of the laptop and install higher capacity modules.

Apparent revisions of some of AMD’s Zen 3 Vermeer chips have appeared on the controversial UserBenchmark site, with the potential for a serious upset in the works. The B2 stepping SKU of the Ryzen 9 5900X raced through the core tests to produce an average bench that would break into the Intel-dominated top 10 rankings if more samples had been benched.

The three leaked models appear to be part of the Barcelo family that is launching in early 2022. Barcelo is believed to be only Cezanne refresh that is still produced on the 7 nm nodes and features the same 15 W TDP, along with the same core counts, L3 cache memory and Vega iGPUs from the current Cezanne models.

Following an Igor's Lab report about changes to the LGA 1700 socket design, WCCFTech tested out multiple previous-gen AIO coolers that are theoretically compatible, discovering that many made inadequate contact with the Alder Lake IHS, meaning higher temps and lower boost clocks.

The Intel Core i7-12700 has become the latest Alder Lake processor to break from cover, and it has been spotted on Geekbench performing quite admirably considering it’s likely going to be priced at a mid-range level. The 12-core, 20-thread i7-12700’s single-core and multi-core results placed it in the same ballpark as the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X.

An Alder Lake-P processor in the form of the Intel Core i7-12800H has made a promising appearance on Geekbench inside a Gigabyte AORUS 15 YE4 laptop. While the multi-core score for the i7-12800H appears to be lower than what can be expected, the single-core score places it way beyond the predecessor i7-11800H and rival Ryzen 9 5900HX.

New information pertaining to AMD Ryzen 7000 mobile APUs indicates Phoenix-H parts will offer up to eight 5 nm Zen 4 cores at up to 40 W while Raphael-H will go up to 16 cores and 32 threads above 45 W TDP. The mainstream desktop Ryzen 8000 series will come in two flavors — an all 3 nm Zen 5-based Granite Ridge CPU and a Zen 5 + Zen 4D-based Strix Point APU.

With a Ryzen 3 APU, 8 GB of working memory in dual-channel mode, and an NVMe SSD, Acer's 2-in-1 device is equipped for office and Internet operation. The touchscreen can not only be operated with the fingers but also with an active input pen.

Due to issues with the supply chain network, Valve has announced that the Steam Deck will be postponed until February 2022. The Steam Deck is Valve's newest device to entice gamers who desire PC gaming in a handheld form factor. However, lucky gamers who reserved the device will have to wait longer as the company grapples with logistic challenges due to the pandemic.

The Ryzen 9 5900HX APU and the GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU bring almost every computer game smoothly onto the matte 4K screen. The latter scores points with very good color reproduction (Pantone-certified) and high brightness. This is complemented by good battery life.

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X processor has hit a sub-US$300 price tag at one retailer, hot on the heels of Alder Lake’s release. Micro Center has listed the 8-core Zen 3 chip for US$299.99, which is a huge reduction from the MSRP of US$449.99. Other popular Vermeer SKUs like the Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 9 5950X have also been discounted.

Support for the upcoming Zen 3 3D V-Cache processors (tentatively called Ryzen 6000) is available in 1usmus's new overclocking utility called Project Hydra, which is expected to be available in late November. It offers advanced features like automatic detection of Curve Optimizer values, dynamic profile creation and undervolting.

MINISFORUM is now accepting pre-orders for the CR50 mini PC, a piece of hardware that brings together the octa-core AMD 4700S processor and the AMD Radeon RX550 graphics accelerator. The discounted prices start at US$679 (16 GB RAM, no storage) and go up to US$759 (16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD).

Valve has announced a Steamworks Virtual Conference set for next week. It will give developers a closer look at the company’s eagerly awaited Steam Deck handheld console and how to leverage the AMD Van Gogh APU powering it.

Alder Lake chips now occupy the top three positions in the UserBenchmark charts, with the Intel Core i9-12900K, i5-12600K, and i7-12700K being the current 12th Gen entries. Intel’s grip over this particular benchmark is so tight that the highest-ranked AMD chip, the Ryzen 9 5900X, is stuck in lowly 17th place.

The Intel Core i9-12900K has been spotted on CPU-Z Validator once again. This time around, the Alder Lake hybrid processor amassed an amazing single-thread score that even surpassed recent efforts by the same SKU. The P-cores in the i9-12900K were measured reaching up to 6,300 MHz. The multithread score paid the price for such single-thread magnificence.

A couple of CPU-Z benchmarks have surfaced showing the Intel Core i9-12900K achieving astonishing single-thread results. The new Alder Lake hybrid processor smashed its way past anything by an AMD Ryzen 9 chip and also demolished the i9-11900K. However, it seems more than likely that such single-thread supremacy comes at a high power cost.

Tipster @Greymon55 claimed that AMD's upcoming Ryzen refreshes with 3D V-Cache will enter mass production by November. This is in line with AMD's announcement that 3D V-Cache Ryzen CPUs will hit the market by Q1 2022, likely as a stopgap against Alder Like while Zen 4 is finalized for a Q3 2022 release.

Tipster @TUM_APISAK recently shared what appear to be leaked CPU-Z benchmarks for the Alder Lake i5-12600K. The 10-core CPU delivers better performance in the benchmarks than the previous-gen flagship i9-11900K, and nearly doubles the score of the Ryzen 5 5600X.

Nvidia has dominated the laptop high-end segment for a long time. With the Radeon RX 6700M and the Radeon RX 6800M, AMD has finally introduced worthy competitors to the market. We were able to examine the MSI Delta 15 as one of the first laptops to feature the RX 6700M.

AMD may introduce some of the upcoming Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 Raphael desktop offerings with RDNA 2 graphics under Raphael-H mobile with up to 16 cores and even higher performance than Zen 4 Phoenix-H. While not confirmed, if true, this move could be seen as AMD's counter to Intel's plans of pushing higher performance mobile CPUs above 55 W TDP with Alder Lake-S mobile and the ensuing Raptor Lake mobile parts.

The Ryzen 7 APU and GeForce RTX 3050 Ti laptop GPU allow playing all the current games smoothly on the matte FHD display of the G15. The laptop offers space for two NVMe SSDs and also has an excellent battery life. Only the display won't win any prizes.

The Cypress lineup is Simply NUC's first with 4x4-inch motherboards supporting the Ryzen Embedded V2000 processors with Vega 7 iGPU. Processor options include the Ryzen V2516 / V2546 / V2748 APUs and users can configure these models with up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM and up to 10 TB SSD storage. By default, there is support for quad-4K video outputs through 2x HDMI 2.1 and 2x USB-C 3.2 DP 1.4 ports.

AMD and Microsoft have finally acknowledged poor L3 cache performance in Windows 11, and a fix for the same is on the way in the form of a Windows update later this month. AMD also notes that CPPC2 may not schedule threads properly on preferred cores in Windows 11 and is investigating a fix.

Tipster @momomo_us spotted a listing on HP’s website for 24 and 27-inch AIO systems which seem to offer the AMD “Ryzen 7000” series as a CPU option.

The Intel Core i9-12900K has been discovered being tested on Windows 11 where it produced up to double-digit performance gains over the same tests on Windows 10. However, despite the exclusive boost from Microsoft, the 16-core Alder Lake chip still lagged behind an older rival in the form of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X.

New Linux graphics kernel patches with USB4 DisplayPort Tunneling are now available from AMD. The tunneling feature allows the USB, DisplayPort and PCIe transfer protocols to operate simultaneously by sharing the available bandwidth. For now, only the DisplayPort 1.4 specs are supported with AMD's tunneling drivers. Hopefully, DisplayPort 2.0 specs could be added by the time AMD introduces its next gen embedded and laptop solutions in early 2022.

AMD's Ryzen 5000 processors with the new B2 stepping may not offer any improvements in terms of performance, but they could possibly improve the availability and supply of these hard to get gaming CPUs.

The Intel Core i9-12900K has made a few initial runs on the polarizing synthetic benchmark UserBenchmark, where it has produced astonishing results. Even discounting the seemingly unfair weighting against the Ryzen 9 5950X still leaves the Alder Lake chip way beyond its nearest Intel relative, the i9-11900K.

AMD has finally breached the 30% processor usage wall it had been facing on Steam’s Hardware & Software Survey. It is the strongest position AMD has held in the survey for over 16 months and seemingly reverses the trend for Intel's growth. Intel’s ambitions in this particular arena will now mostly lie on the success of Alder Lake.

The new Windows 11 roster includes three Xiaoxin Air 14 Plus SKUs and another three Xiaoxin Pro 14 SKUs with a mix of Intel Tiger Lake and AMD Ryzen 5000 U/H processors, plus a new Yoga 13s model that is powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 5600U APU. All models are under $900, with the most affordable being the Xiaoxin Air 14 Plus Ryzen 5 5600U priced at $680, and the most expensive being the Xiaoxin Air 14 Plus Intel version with Nvidia MX450 dGPU priced at $850.

With the Omen series, HP has been offering visually attractive gaming laptops that are also interesting in terms of their price-performance ratio. Now, the manufacturer introduces a new gaming series to the market with the Victus laptops.

We are still a few months away from the official Steam Deck release, so the dev kit performance could actually be improved in the meantime. Still, demanding games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077 appear to be hitting 30 fps even on high settings thanks to the included LPDDR5-5500 quad channel RAM.

Lenovo has revealed its plans to launch five new laptops for the Chinese market on September 28. The notebooks will operate on Windows 11 and there will be a choice between AMD Ryzen and Intel Core processors for buyers. Four of the laptops are from the Xiaoxin line and there is also one SKU from the Yoga range.