AMD Ryzen 7000 ‘Zen 4’ Mobility CPUs Detailed: Dragon Range With Up To 16 Cores Over 5 GHz, Phoenix Point With Up To 8 Cores & 12 RDNA 3 Compute Units
The approach AMD is taking this time around with its Ryzen 7000 mobility family is interesting but it is no surprise either. Intel split its high-end lineup into two variants, the Alder Lake-HX and Alder Lake-H SKUs. The HX variants are designed to offer the best CPU performance with lots of cores & lots of core clocks while the standard lineup retains its high-performance positioning with a mix of great integrated graphics. The AMD Dragon Range and Phoenix Point ‘Ryzen 7000’ CPUs lineup are just that.
AMD Zen 4 Powered Dragon Range CPUs For Extreme Gaming Laptops in 2023
The AMD Ryzen 7000 Dragon Range CPUs will be utilizing the brand new Zen 4 core architecture. It looks like the new Dragon Range APU lineup will be aimed at Extreme Gaming laptops with sizes above 20mm and based on what AMD has stated, these will bring the highest core, thread, and cache ever for a mobile gaming CPU. These will also include the fastest creator and productivity performance ever for mobile PCs. The new Dragon Range lineup will also be DDR5 and PCIe 5 compliant and feature SKUs above the 55W range. Coming to the SKUs, AMD is rumored to utilize the ‘HX’ naming scheme to differentiate its Phoenix Point chips from the Dragon Range parts. There are said to be four initial SKUs, the same as the desktop Zen 4 lineup. These will include:
AMD Ryzen 9 7980HX - 16 Core / 32 Thread AMD Ryzen 9 7900HX - 12 Core / 24 Thread AMD Ryzen 7 7800HX - 8 Core / 16 Thread AMD Ryzen 5 7600HX - 6 Core / 12 Thread
The clock speeds for these chips are said to range from 3.6-4 GHz+ base and 4.8-5.0 GHz+ boosts, depending on the TDP. So it looks like the TDP will be configurable based on laptop designs from different manufacturers. Plus, AMD shipping the same core counts as their desktop variants does confirm that they will be really aggressive against Intel’s HX parts. There are also going to be 2 CUs as a part of the RDNA 2 iGPU featured on the Dragon Range chips. The primary focus of the CPUs will be on the discrete graphics solutions rather than integrated solutions.
AMD Zen 4 Powered Phoenix Point CPUs For Thin & Light Gaming Laptops in 2023
AMD also very recently confirmed that its Phoenix Point CPUs will utilize both Zen 4 and RDNA 3 cores. The new Phoenix Point CPUs will carry LPDDR5 and PCIe 5 support and come in SKUs ranging from 35W to 45W. The lineup is also expected to launch in 2023 and most possibly at CES 2023. AMD has also pointed out that the laptop parts may include memory technologies aside from LPDDR5 and DDR5. Talking about the rumored SKUs, there are said to be four Ryzen 7000 variants in the AMD Phoenix Point CPU lineup too. These include the Ryzen 9 7980HS with 8 cores and 12 compute units, Ryzen 9 7900HS with 8 cores and 12 compute units, Ryzen 7 7800HS with 8 cores and 12 compute units & finally, the Ryzen 5 7600S with 6 cores and 6 compute units. Following is the lineup in full:
AMD Ryzen 9 7980HS - 8 Core / 16 Thread / 12 Compute Units (6 WGPs) AMD Ryzen 9 7900HS - 8 Core / 16 Thread / 12 Compute Units (6 WGPs) AMD Ryzen 7 7800HS - 8 Core / 16 Thread / 12 Compute Units (6 WGPs) AMD Ryzen 5 7600HS - 6 Core / 12 Thread / 6 Compute Units (3 WGPs)
Once again, AMD will include several 8-core SKUs in its Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 lineup with only the Ryzen 5 featuring a lower core count of 6 cores and 12 threads. The lineup will be equipped with up to 12 RDNA 3 compute units or 1536 stream processors, clocking around 2.6-3.0 GHz for a total of 9.2 TFLOPs of compute power. RedGamingTech also shared a diagram that depicts a Phoenix Point die with three chiplets, a Zen 4 and IOD complex, a GCD with RDNA 3, and an MCD with 32 MB of SLC cache. The Zen 4 and IOD chiplet is said to be based on a 4nm process node, the RDNA 3 die is based on a 5nm process node while the cache die is based on a 6nm process node. So it will be a multi-chiplet design using various core IPs on different nodes, similar to what Intel is doing with its Meteor Lake lineup. To put things into perspective, the Sony PlayStation 5 delivers 10.29 TFLOPs of compute power so that’s really close for Phoenix Point CPUs to hit current-generation console performance in almost a year since their release. It is stated that AMD is really targeting NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q performance with its fastest RDNA 3 integrated chip. The 3060 is one of the most popular choices of notebook GPUs so if AMD can manage to offer performance close to it, that would be a big win for team red as you will be getting some insane performance of a chip under a 60-70W TDP design. Expect more info on the laptops by early 2023.