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AMD has pulled the wraps off a new family of CPUs aimed directly at office workers and road warriors. If you’re an IT administrator, these are the chips you might consider deploying for your users, as AMD promises market-leading performance, efficiency, and security. The company is also leaning into its AI accelerator integration, hoping to capitalize on the current tech zeitgeist even though it’s only aimed at features that enhance video conferencing. The only bad news in AMD’s announcement is you’ll need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the different model names and what they offer.
Today the company is launching Ryzen Pro 7040 series CPUs targeting mobile workstations and laptops, as well as desktop users with several 65W SKUs. In a nod to the importance of the mobile market compared with the desktop, AMD has endowed its mobile chips with more cores and better graphics than the desktop chips, despite the latter requiring double the amount of power.
Starting at the top of the stack, there are six new mobile Ryzen Pro chips for mobile, segmented into high-performance in the 35W to 45W range and ultra-portable in 15W to 28W. These chips are all made on TSMC’s 4nm process, a refined version of the 5nm process used for its current Zen 4 CPUs. They also get RDNA 3 graphics, which is currently unavailable on any of AMD’s desktop CPUs. Finally, select models also get Ryzen AI accelerators, one of AMD’s big selling points.
The Ryzen Pro mobile lineup has great specs for low-watt parts.
Credit: AMD
The high-end Ryzen 7x40HS mobile chips are available in 9/5/7 classes. The Ryzen 9 and 7 models boast eight-core, 16-thread designs with only clock speeds differentiating them. The Ryzen 5 Pro is a six-core, 12-thread part with slightly lower clocks and 2MB less L2 cache than its big brothers. There are also three U-variants, with two Ryzen 7 models and one Ryzen 5. The top Ryzen 7 gets eight cores and 16 threads, with the other 7 SKUs offering six cores and 12 threads. See what we mean about that spreadsheet?
Overall, AMD claims its Ryzen Pro flagship mobile CPUs offer superior performance to Intel’s Core i7-1370P, a vPro CPU with six P-cores and eight E-cores for 20 threads total. The company claims that when comparing its Ryzen 7 Pro 7840U with the Core i7-1370P, it’s 12% faster in Microsoft Office apps such as Teams while using 15% less power. The company also claims it has better battery life in Teams than Intel and Apple’s new M2 Pro. According to AMD, a Ryzen Pro system can deliver 6 hours and 48 minutes of Teams time compared with 6 hours and 10 minutes for the Apple computer. The Core i7 PC only delivered 4 hours in AMD’s benchmarks.
AMD’s benchmarks show the Ryzen 7 Pro 7840U is neck-and-neck with the M2 Pro in Cinebench.
Credit: AMD
The company is also touting its inclusion of Ryzen AI in some mobile CPUs, which will offer three features for video collaboration via Windows Studio Effects. Those include better background blurring, AI-assisted eye contact, and the ability for the camera to follow you as you move around your workspace. The company says in the future, its integrated AI functionality will offer even more features, including data analytics, a personal digital assistant, and more.
On the desktop side, AMD is launching three SKUs: the Ryzen 9 Pro 7945, Ryzen 7 Pro 7745, and Ryzen 5 Pro 7645. The stack includes 12/24, 8/16, and 6/12 core/thread combinations that top out at 5.4/5.3/5.1GHz, respectively. They’re all 65W parts, with the major differentiating factor besides clock speeds being the amount of L2/L3 included. The top-shelf part sports 76MB, while the lower two CPUs offer 40MB and 38MB. Unlike the mobile chips, though, these CPUs are made on TSMC’s 5nm process and include “Radeon graphics,” which sounds like RDNA 2. We contacted AMD for clarification but haven’t heard back as of press time. AMD has confirmed the desktop chips do indeed use RDNA 2 graphics.
Credit: AMD
AMD’s pitch with its desktop parts is that since the AM5 socket is new, you can depend on it for a few years of upgrades, leading into 2025 at least. Adding to its longevity is the socket’s ability to tolerate up to 230W of power and its use of DDR5 memory, which will be the standard for years. That is certainly not the case with Intel’s Raptor Lake, which is likely the final CPU for the LGA 1700 socket. Meteor Lake will introduce a new socket, though, and it’s reportedly aimed at mobile, so this will be an area where the two companies will clash soon.
The 7000-series CPUs replace the 6000-series of Ryzen Pro chips, which came out a year ago. Those used Zen 3+ architecture and RDNA 2 GPUs and were made on TSMC’s 6nm process. Therefore, it’s an upgrade to Zen 4, RDNA 3, and an improved manufacturing process with TSMC N4. The desktop parts replace the 5000-series, which used TSMC 7nm process and the Zen 3 architecture.
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