After announcing its high-performance Ryzen 7000-series CPUs for desktops and mainstream laptops, AMD is now ready to ship more power-optimized versions aimed at premium ultra-slim laptops. The Ryzen 7040U series, codenamed ‘Phoenix’, comprises four CPU models at launch, based on the current-generation ‘Gen 4’ architecture with RDNA3 graphics capabilities. Laptops based on these new chips will be announced by major manufacturers in the coming weeks, though there’s no word yet on availability.
While most of the Ryzen 7000 family was a first for laptops Announced at CES 2023, the specific details of the new 7040U series have just been made public. According to AMD’s The new numbering scheme, with the leading digit indicating the time of launch, the second digit indicating the relative power of each CPU in the series, and the third digit telling you which Zen architecture generation is used. The U suffix represents the 15-30W thermal envelope target. Thus, this series includes Ryzen 3 7440U, Ryzen 5 7540U, Ryzen 5 7640U and Ryzen 7 7840U.
The top-end Ryzen 7 7840U has eight CPU cores with multi-threading for up to 16 threads. It has a peak speed of 5.1Ghz, 12 GPU compute units, and 16MB L2 cache. Both Ryzen 5 models have six cores and 12 threads with 16MB of L2 cache memory, and eight or four GPU CUs, depending on where you go in the line. The base Ryzen 3 7440U is a quad-core, eight-thread part with four CUs and only 8MB of L2 cache.
The two high-end parts are AMD’s first CPUs to feature Ryzen AI hardware for AI acceleration. It is a dedicated on-package FPGA developed by Xilinx, developed by AMD achieved in 2022, The company promises “magical new experiences” and “advanced features” such as the Microsoft Studio Effects Pack in Windows 11 that can reframe video calls based on the position of your head, filter out background noise, adjust your… Correct the eyes to make it look like you’re looking straight into the camera, and blur your background.
AMD is claiming leadership in content creation and professional workloads against not only Intel/s 13th Gen P-Series CPUs, but Apple as well. current-gen M2, GPU power will be a major selling point, thanks to the RDNA 3 graphics architecture that supports ray tracing acceleration. Battery life for the laptop has also improved significantly thanks to smart power management, though AMD hasn’t published any expected runtime numbers yet. Real-world performance will of course depend on the laptop makers’ implementation and how they prioritize weight and heat dissipation.