AMD has shared a closer look at its upcoming product roadmap for the PC market, specifically its Ryzen 7000 processors based on the Zen 4 architecture. In this roadmap image, the company has revealed its plans for the next generation of gaming laptop processors, which include the Phoenix series and the new Dragon Range series. These new Dragon Range processors based on AMD’s Zen 4 architecture are unique because they come with a 55W+ power rating.
Until recently, laptop processors usually only went up to 45W, and that’s what you’d find in the more powerful gaming laptops. However, it looks like AMD is catering to users of extra-large gaming laptops with this new 55W range, which should offer more performance at the expense of higher power consumption. AMD isn’t alone in this, either, as Intel has been reported to be working on a similar line of products dubbed the HX series, and Dell has already announced its latest workstations with 55W Intel CPUs, albeit official details are still scarce.
AMD Zen 4 roadmap | Image credit: Tom’s Hardware
According to the slide shared by Tom’s Hardware, the new Dragon Range series won’t just use the latest Zen 4 core architecture, it will also have the “highest core, thread, and cache ever” for a mobile gaming CPU. It’s worth noting here that the current leader as far as core and thread counts go is the Intel Core i9-12900H, which has 14 cores and 20 threads. However, the reports of Intel’s HX series suggest we could see that go up to 16 cores and 24 threads, so it’ll be interesting to see if AMD can top that. Intel’s latest processors also go up to 24MB of cache.
While the most powerful gaming laptops will use these new 55W processors, AMD is still going to be making Zen 4-based CPUs and APUs in the 35W-45W range for thin and light gaming laptops. We’d already heard about the upcoming Ryzen 7000 processors for the desktop, codenamed Raphael, and this new roadmap confirms that they’re indeed launching later this year. As usual, those will have a TDP starting at 65W. A common thread across all the processors with the Zen 4 architecture is support for PCIe 5 and either DDR5 or LPDDR5 RAM, and they’ll be built on a 5nm process.
Unfortunately, the roadmap doesn’t tell us much more than that, so concrete specs will have to wait until a later date. Most likely, AMD will have a dedicated event to reveal those details later this year or early next year. Still, gamers wanting the best possible experience on a laptop may have something to look forward to now.
Source: Tom’s Hardware