Ryzen (Zen)

RAM and storage may be low, but the performance-per-dollar for this deal is insane no matter how you spin it. $450 for a decent 1080p gaming laptop will appeal to a lot of budget and casual gamers.

Cyber Monday sales are live and promise some of the best discounts of the year. We list the 10 best laptop deals you can snag right now that promise a great feature set and performance to boot, for a steal.

The new Vermeer CPU from AMD, the Ryzen 5 5600X, has made a strong showing in the latest Mindfactory CPU sales data that covers Black Friday. The Zen 3 chip joins 12 other AMD processors in outselling every single Intel part on the list. Additionally, 2,290 units of the top-selling Ryzen 5 3600XT were purchased in comparison to just 290 Intel Core i5-10400F processors.

The ThinkPad E15 Gen.2 features a new more compact design and offers more performance thanks to an AMD CPU. The IPS display is still very dim and the underside still gets very hot under load.

We have taken a look at the 13.3-inch subnotebook Lenovo IdeaPad S540. We were once again surprised by the currently outstanding performance of the Ryzen processors. Thanks to this, the laptop received a very good rating despite the manufacturer having cut a few cut corners.

Select X470 and B450 motherboards from ASRock and Gigabyte are already getting beta BIOS versions supporting the Ryzen 5000 CPUs with SAM function. MSI and Asus are also offering unofficial BIOS updates for testers. However, these are not stable versions by any means, so users are advised to wait for the official AGESA V2 1.1.0.0 BIOS releasing in January.

Until Intel can offer an octa-core U-series vPro CPU with Iris Xe graphics, the AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U or Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U will be the fastest options available on any ultra-thin business laptop without question.

Intel has gone after AMD and its Ryzen 4000 APUs, but its tale of throttling and unrepresentative laptop reviews has not won us over. Instead, it muddies the waters of which benchmarks we should trust and AMD's decision to allow OEMs to configure the performance of its APUs on battery power.

The subnotebook should feel right at home for multimedia playback, classrooms, browsing, emailing, and the occasional travel especially since it doesn't rely on slower Intel Atom or Celeron solutions.

The new Zen3 cores from the upcoming Ryzen 5000 mobile APUs seem to be more proficient at single-core tasks, as the Ryzen 7 5800U shows 20% higher single-core scores compared to the Ryzen 7 5700U model that integrates Zen2 cores. However, the Zen3 cores do not offer any significant benefits in multi-core tests, with only 2.6% performance uplift.

Down from its original launch price of $630 USD, the Inspiron 15 5505 is our next Holiday highlight sale because of its fast processor performance relative to the low asking price. This is Dell's latest budget laptop that should easily outperform any other in its sub $500 range.

Instead of using the potentially more harmful method involving raised voltages, the latest Ryzen 5000 desktop CPUs make it easier for users to obtain impressive overclocking results through undervolting. This way, users do not need sophisticated cooling solutions, and can just utilize regular AIOs. However, there is greater variance between samples, as well, so it all is more dependent on the luck of the draw.

The EliteMini UM700 from MINISFORUM offers an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H APU, up to 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage and a plethora of I/O. The EliteMini UM700 can be ordered now for US$539.

HP's latest mid-range convertible laptop comes with one of the fastest U-series CPUs available for a fair price without needing to cut RAM or storage in the process.

Business laptops are known for their good keyboards, numerous connections, and high reliability - but unfortunately, also for their often below-average LCDs, a stereotype that HP regrettably reinforces with the AMD Ryzen 4000 EliteBook 835 G7.

The AMD models of Lenovo's current ThinkPad lineup are often the better choice, because in addition to a significant performance advantage they are usually less expensive. This is also true for the ThinkPad T14, one of the best 14-inch business laptops you can get.

The 16-core, 32-thread AMD Ryzen 9 5950X has appeared in a couple of startling benchmark results involving the Vulkan graphics API. The Zen 3 Vermeer processor was teamed up with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 and an AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT in two separate Geekbench tests, with both benchmarks producing impressive compute scores.

AMD is already preparing to launch the Ryzen 5000 APU series, yet Gigabyte is a bit late to the party with some Ryzen 4000 PCs. Better late than never, as they say. The recent teaser from Gigabyte does not specify the exact processors, but we can expect up to a Ryzen 7 4800U. There will also be support for Wi-Fi 6 and 2.5 Gbps LAN connections.

GamersNexus recently confirmed that NVIDIA is working on a platform-agnostic alternative to AMD's Smart Access Cache technology. According to NVIDIA, their Resizable BAR solution delivers a similar performance uplift as Smart Access Cache (up to 10 percent, depending on the title).

The top single-core score chart for Geekbench 5 is currently headed by a couple of entries that were purportedly produced by a potent combination of an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and Apple iMac Pro. While the results are breathtaking, the information raises a red flag in regard to how accurate these particular Geekbench listings are.

The iBOX-V2000V and iBOX-V2000M mini PCs are powered by low-power Ryzen Embedded V2516 6-core and the Ryzen Embedded V2516 6-core processors, respectively. These 10 W TDP models do not require active cooling, but still provide decent performance as they are said to be faster than Intel's Comet Lake ULV chips.

Another example of the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U mobile APU has been spotted, this time being tested in an HP Pavilion laptop on Geekbench. The Lucienne Zen 2-based part showed good improvements over the Renoir Ryzen 7 4700U and includes SMT. However, the difference fades considerably when the Ryzen 7 5700U is compared with the Ryzen 7 4800U.

After revealing a stellar Zen 3 lineup, AMD is now looking to strengthen its position in the low-TDP embedded market with the new Ryzen Embedded V2000 processors featuring up to 8 Zen 2 cores and improved Vega IGPUs. Team Red prepared two 10 W models to take on Intel's ULV Comet Lake processors, plus two more 35 W models that appear to beat the i7-9750H models.

Don't want to wait a few more months for the Zen 3 mobile APUs? How about some custom laptops with desktop-grade Ryzen 5000 CPUs like the NS-15 AMD workstations from Origin PC? They sure are pricier, but you are essentially replacing your desktop PC. You can choose among all four new Ryzen 5000 CPUs, including the Ryzen 9 5950X flagship.

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X has been impressing many with its various appearances on synthetic benchmarks. However, it is the Intel Core i9-10900K that tops the average bench charts over at UserBenchmark, while the powerful Zen 3 Vermeer CPU has to languish behind in fifth position, regardless of higher core scores across the board. Is this the final nail in the coffin for the controversial benchmark?

AYA has finally begun shipping the NEO, its compact and handheld games console. The AYA NEO Founder comes with a translucent shell, an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U APU and a 47 Whr battery. AYA is only shipping the NEO Founder in China for the time being, though.

A Chiphell forum user showcased the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X running on an older, entry-level A320 motherboard from ASRock. This indicates that some motherboard manufacturers may plan on supporting the Ryzen 5000 series on entry-level AM4+ boards, despite AMD's claims to the contrary.

Large display, fast processor, sufficient storage, and an aluminum case - for around 900 Euros (~$1,054), the Honor MagicBook Pro actually offers everything that a multimedia laptop needs.

Besides teasing the upcoming advanced undervolting feature for the Ryzen 5000 CPUs, Robert Hallock also clarifies some aspects regarding power plans, DDRAM clocks, CPU thermals and voltages, plus overclocking through Precision Boost 2.

An Acer Aspire 5 powered by the upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 5700U Lucienne APU has popped-up on Amazon Italy. The laptop features a 15.6-inch FHD display, 8 GB RAM, and a 512 GB PCIe SSD. The chassis and port selection seem to be unchanged from the previous generation. Though now listed as not available, the laptop was initially indicated to be priced at €779.

Most of the tests we've seen thus far claim that it is quite tricky to push all cores above 4.7 GHz on a Ryzen 9 5900X, but the creator of the CTR overclocking utility managed to run this model stably at 4.82 GHz on all core coupled with DDR4-3933 RAM and the performance gains are quite substantial, unlike the PBO overclocking offered by the Ryzen Master utility.

AMD offered a glimpse into how Zen 3 processors can be beneficial for gaming. Comparison with corresponding Intel Comet Lake processors shows Zen 3's new CCX architecture helps eliminate most latency issues and allows much improved single-threaded and gaming performance across the board.

Powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H CPU and Radeon RX 5600M GPU, the Dell G5 15 Special Edition can offer GeForce RTX 2060-level gaming performance for the price of a typical GeForce GTX 1650 Ti laptop.

AMD's overall X86 market share at the end of Q3 2020 reached 22.4%. The desktop CPU market share is already higher than 20% and, with the launch of the Ryzen 5000 CPUs, it may quickly climb to new all-time-highs in the next few quarters. Thanks to the success recorded by the Renoir APUs, AMD's notebook market share also reached an all-time-high 20.2%, while the server sector is not doing that great with only 6.6% market share.

The upcoming EliteMini Box X400 mini PCs will support Ryzen 2000 / 3000 / 4000 APUs up to a Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G processor. Even though the chassis is the same as the Intel version that comes with a GTX 1050 Ti GPU, the AMD models do not support discrete GPUs. Pre-sales will start this November.

The new AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is almost as fast as the Ryzen 7 3700X and its level of Cinebench performance simply blows the Intel Core i5-10600K out of the water: 42% better in multi-threading and 25% faster in the single-core test. The new AMD processor is also over 20% faster than its predecessor in both multi-threaded and single-threaded tests.

Intel Rocket Lake seems to have an edge in single-core performance over the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, if a leaked UserBenchmark score is to be believed. The Rocket Lake part is shown to be just 5% behind the Ryzen 9 5950X in overall scores although the latter managed good leads in individual multi-core tests.

CPU-Z scores of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X are now available, and they show good leads over the Core i9-10900K in single-threaded workloads while also showing significant leads over the Core i7-10700K and Ryzen 9 3900X. From the available information, it looks like the Ryzen 5 5600X is also adept at multi-core tasks as well.