Ryzen (Zen)

Leaked schematics of AMD's upcoming Socket AM5 for Zen 4 Raphael desktop processors indicate that AMD will use the same two-piece retention frame as current AM4 sockets in order to ensure cooler compatibility. Also being leaked is a datasheet that confirms Zen 4 will also see higher TDPs such as 120 W and 170 W with at least a 280 mm AIO cooler recommended for the 170 W TDP SKU.

The Legion 5 Pro from Lenovo shows many of the characteristics that make a good gaming laptop. The QHD display in the 16:10 format that is very bright at 522 cd/m² was excellent in our test. The CPU and GPU in the Legion appear to be well matched to the display resolution.

We were expecting to see RDNA iGPUs added to the Ryzen 5000 APUs, but AMD was not able to sync the production schedule for that to happen. Then we saw the leaked future gens with RDNA2 iGPUs, and we thought AMD is probably ditching the RDNA iGPUs altogether, but some recent Linux code uncovered by Phoronix seems to be proving us wrong.

While other manufacturers charge over 3,000 (~$3,561) or even around 4,000 Euros (~$4,748) for an RTX 3080 laptop, the Medion Erazer Beast X25 costs "only" 2,699 Euros (~$3,204) despite its very generous configuration.

The 2nd generation of the ThinkPad L15 is offered by Lenovo with processors from Intel and AMD. There are almost no differences in design and price, which is why it's worth taking a look at the details.

Initially supposed to launch with i7-1165G7 and i7-1185G7 processor options, the GPD Win Max 2021 handheld gaming laptop is now up for pre-order only with a surprising i7-1195G7 upgrade that is offered for the same price as the AMD Ryzen 7 4800U variant. Preordering now can further lower the price to only $999.

Lenovo debuted world-first 16-inch WQXGA (or QHD) laptop displays in its latest Legion 7 gaming machine. Its Ryzen 7 5800H-equipped SKUs are now available on the US market, starting at US$1,800. Its Intel counterpart (the Legion 7i Gen 6) has also now been released to the same OEM website.

Minisforum and Morfine are preparing crowdfunding campaigns for the first mini PC "workstations" powered by AMD's top-of-the-line Ryzen 9 5900HX laptop APU. These will not offer enough room for a dGPU, but the integrated Vega 8 GPU is still a decent solution. The Indiegogo campaigns are expected to start in a few weeks.

Lenovo equips the new ThinkPad E14 G3 with AMD's powerful Ryzen 5000 CPUs and brighter IPS panels. The excellent keyboard did not change and the AMD model also manages long battery runtimes thanks to improved efficiency as well as a larger battery.

With the TUF Gaming A15, Asus offers a powerful and comparatively inexpensive gaming laptop with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H. It offers decent gaming performance and a fast display.

Valve's recently announced handheld gaming PCs have received over 75,000 reservations across all variants within just the first hour of reservation opening in the United States alone. Delivery dates have also started to get pushed out to Q2 2022 for new reservations.

Multiple sources have confirmed that AMD's next-generation Zen 4 processors will limit the core count to 16 on the top model (Ryzen 9 6950X), which has a maximum TDP of 170W. The remaining SKUs are said to be rated at 120W, 105W, 95W and 65W.

Tipster @KOMACHI_ENSAKA spotted an Intel filing on the SATA-IO website highlighting PCH compliance for both Alder Lake and 13th-gen Raptor Lake parts. This is one of the earliest appearances of Intel’s post-Alder Lake platform, and likely the first alongside Alder Lake.

AMD has now confirmed that the 4700S Desktop Kit will be coming to 80+ designs in the coming days. The AMD 4700S is an SoC that is pretty much similar to the one found in the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S but comes with the RDNA 2 iGPU disabled. AMD is pitched the 4700S Desktop Kit primarily for productivity and light 3D workflows.

@BenchLeaks recently spotted a Geekbench 4 entry for a purported Intel Sapphire Rapids dual-socket part with 40 cores in total. The possible engineering sample scored roughly 30,000 on Geekbench 4, a ways off, even from weaker commercial parts like the Ryzen 9 5800X.

The budget Dell laptop is now even more affordable with CPU and GPU performance levels that rival most pricier Intel Ultrabooks. The performance-per-dollar here is very high without needing to pay more for discrete Nvidia graphics.

Compared to the previous AMD-based mini PC barebones, the new DesktopMini Max from ASRock is considerably larger and allows users to install liquid coolers and larger dGPUs. The included AM4 motherboard supports AMD Ryzen 5000 all the way down to Ryzen 2000 processors that can be coupled with up to 128 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM.

Lenovo expands its AMD portfolio with two additional ThinkPad laptops: ThinkPad L13 Gen 2 and L13 Yoga Gen 2 are from the affordable ThinkPad L series. The Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga G2 is also the first ThinkPad Yoga convertible with AMD Ryzen 5000.

The Atari VCS hybrid console-PC is finally available to purchase some 3 years after originally being launched. The device features classic retro Atari looks and can play classic Atari games and also function as a desktop PC.

The Legion 7 16ACHg6 brings all the latest computer games smoothly onto the matte 16-inch screen (2560x1600 pixels, 165 Hz, IPS) in the 16:10 format. Furthermore, its equipment is good: The Ryzen 9 5900HX APU, the GeForce RTX 3080 laptop GPU, 32 GB of RAM, and 2x 1 TB NVMe SSDs.

AYA has just proven all the naysayers wrong by shipping its first batch of NEO units earlier this month to initial backers. A second round of shipments is expected early July with an official online storefront to come at a later date.

The manufacturer is likely clearing room for the eventual ThinkBook 15 G3 model with AMD Ryzen 5000U series options later this year. If you want a prosumer laptop for a budget price, then this deal will check a lot of boxes.

Games could see up to 28% fps improvements with faster RAM kits, but the average is around 10% at 1080p max settings or 15% for 1080p low settings. The absence of a MUX switch raises the performance gap to 33% in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, so we might want to wait for the more expensive versions that allow us to disable the iGPU.

The Intel Core i7-1195G7 has been spotted on Geekbench recording incredible results for a laptop chip. The Tiger Lake-U part nipped at 5 GHz during testing and pulled out a single-core performance score that would leave it in the realm of Rocket Lake and Ryzen 5000 desktop processors in the chart if it was an average result.

According to reports, the Radeon RX 6000 series will be around for a while yet. In fact, RDNA 3 GPUs will supposedly not arrive until when Zen 4 CPUs do. While no GPUs are slated to fill the void, AMD reputedly plans to release Zen 3 XT CPUs in early 2022.

AMD's Zen 4-based future processors are currently thought to have the code-name Raphael. It is also rumored to move on to a new LGA-based socket called AM5. Now, a new leak purports to show what one of them will look like from the other side, strange indented integrated heat spreader and all.

The slower RAM gimps the gaming performance by up to 20% on the Asus model, while the missing MUX switch is further limiting the potential that should match models equipped with RTX 3080 mobile dGPUs. Similar RAM problems can also be encountered on the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro. However, the Lenovo Legion 7 AMD features faster RAM, so this is not really just another conspiracy against AMD.

AMD's upcoming Rembrandt Yellow Carp APUs for laptops will feature Navi 2x RDNA 2 iGPUs without Infinity Cache similar to what we've known for Van Gogh. Rembrandt will bring LPDDR5/DDR5, PCIe Gen 4, USB4 support on a 6 nm Zen 3+ architecture. It's RDNA 2 iGPU will use an upgraded DCN 3.1 engine with added low-power clock states and 2 MB L2 cache per shader array with six CUs.

Though this price range is typical for a GeForce RTX 3060 laptop, the CPU and display offered here are definitely faster and better than pretty much any other 15.6-inch gaming laptop retailing for around $1000 USD.

AMD surprised everyone during its Computex 2021 keynote today by demonstrating the first 3D stacked vertical cache called 3D V-cache. AMD showed a 192 MB 3D V-cache (64 MB per CCD) implemented successfully on the Ryzen 9 5900X. The 3D V-cache brings several improvements over conventional 2D and microbump 3D packaging and was demonstrated to yield up to 15% performance gains in today's games with the current 7 nm Zen 3 architecture.

Asus has modified its high-end ROG Strix G17 gaming laptop with an AMD graphics card. The Asus ROG Strix G17 Advantage Edition features a Ryzen 9 5900HX processor, a Radeon RX 6800M GPU, 32GB of DDR4-3,200 RAM and a high-refresh-rate screen.

Acer has updated the hardware on its Nitro 50 desktop. One can now pick between 11th-generation Intel Rocket Lake and the AMD Ryzen 5000 series of processors. GPU options max out at the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. Its entry-level model costs EUR 999 (US$1,216).

Acer has introduced a new member to the Swift series, the Swift X. The Swift X offers AMD Ryzen 5000 APUs options along with the NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU in a thin, lightweight design that weighs 1.39 kg and is just 0.7 inches thick. Acer also claims a 17-hour battery life for content creation on the go.

The new A7 X1 is the first AMD-based mid-range gaming laptop from Gigabyte's new Gaming series. It features the Ryzen 9 5900HX processor with integrated Vega 7 graphics plus an Nvidia RTX 3070 Max-Q 140 W discrete solution. The display is limited to FHD resolution, but gets 144 Hz refresh rate, and there is support for up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM and 6 TB of storage.

Four new Ryzen 5000 laptops have just been released courtesy of Xiaomi’s subsidiary Redmi. The RedmiBook Pro 14 Ryzen Edition laptop offers buyers the choice between two Zen 2 Lucienne parts while purchasers of the RedmiBook Pro 15 Ryzen Edition laptop can look forward to getting to grips with one of two Zen 3 Cezanne APUs.

We now have a rough idea about what AMD's Zen 4 Raphael-based processors could look like. The AMD Ryzen 7000 series of CPUs are tipped to support DDR5 RAM, feature 28 PCIe 4.0 lanes and a TDP of 120W (170W for some models). Rumours suggest that AMD is slated to launch these processors sometime in late 2022

The successor of the Ryzen 5 4500U-powered MINISFORUM HM50 is now available as the HM80. Inside it, there is a more potent Ryzen 7 4800U processor, alongside 16/256 GB or 32/512 GB of memory/storage. The prices of these two configurations, after the US$100 early-bird discount, are US$759 and US$829.