Skip to main content

AMD Ryzen Mobile APUs making their way to notebooks later in 2017

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X review
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
AMD held its annual Financial Analyst Day web conference on May 16, and the firm announced a number of new products that PC enthusiasts have been eagerly awaiting. While we did not get information on the full lineup and release dates for the highly anticipated Vega generation of AMD GPUs, we did learn about some interesting products that provide of glimpse of where the company is headed.

One such product involves new mobile solutions, namely those based on the new Zen architecture and Ryzen CPUs. AMD introduced the Ryzen Mobile APU line of chipsets that will mate Vega graphics with Ryzen CPUs to make for competitive new mobile options for notebook makers, according to Techreport.

The news came via AMD Jim Anderson, and the new chipsets appear to offer solid performance improvements over the company’s current A-Series APU. In terms of CPU performance, Ryzen Mobile APUs promise a 50-percent improvement in processor performance along with a 40-percent improvement in graphics performance.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

In addition, AMD is projecting a 50-percent reduction in power usage even given those significant performance increases. That means that Ryzen Mobile APUs could make their way into the market’s thin and lightweight ultraportable notebooks and 2-in-1 machines. AMD should, therefore, pose some serious competition to both Intel’s mobile CPUs and integrated GPUs, and Nvidia mobile GPU options.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

AMD did not provide too many details on the new Ryzen Mobile APUs. We don’t know the pricing yet, and the only availability information that we have at this point indicates that Ryzen Mobile APU-equipped notebooks should make their way to the market sometime during the second half of 2017, whereas commercial machines will not see the new chipsets until the first half of 2018.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

AMD is holding its next major press event at Computex, where many are expecting more specifics on Vega. It is entirely possible that we will learn more about the Ryzen Mobile APUs during this event or otherwise during Computex, but if not, then we still will not have to wait too long to see notebooks with another solid performance option.

Mark Coppock
Mark has been a geek since MS-DOS gave way to Windows and the PalmPilot was a thing. He’s translated his love for…
AMD may have a leg up on Intel with Zen 5
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D sitting on a motherboard.

It appears that AMD may be just about ready to strike a huge blow against Intel -- and it might come sooner than expected. According to a new rumor, AMD is said to be announcing its next-gen top processors as early as next week, presumably during Computex 2024. While AMD might beat Intel to the punch when it comes to releasing new CPUs, the Ryzen 9000 lineup may start out small.

The tantalizing bit of gossip comes from wjm47196 on Chiphell forums, whose message was later shared by VideoCardz. The message itself is quite cryptic, but reading between the lines gives us some insight into the upcoming lineup.

Read more
AMD’s upcoming APUs might destroy your GPU
AMD CEO Lisa Su holding an APU chip.

The spec sheets for AMD's upcoming APU lineups, dubbed Strix Point and Strix Halo, have just been leaked, and it's safe to say that they're looking pretty impressive. Equipped with Zen 5 cores, the new APUs will find their way to laptops that are meant to be on the thinner side, but their performance might rival that of some of the best budget graphics cards -- and that's without having a discrete GPU.

While AMD hasn't unveiled Strix Point (STX) and Strix Halo (STX Halo) specs just yet, they were leaked by HKEPC and then shared by VideoCardz. The sheet goes over the maximum specs for each APU lineup, the first of which, Strix Point, is rumored to launch this year. Strix Halo, said to be significantly more powerful, is currently slated for a 2025 release.

Read more
Gigabyte just confirmed AMD’s Ryzen 9000 CPUs
Pads on the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Gigabyte spoiled AMD's surprise a bit by confirming the company's next-gen CPUs. In a press release announcing a new BIOS for X670, B650, and A620 motherboards, Gigabyte not only confirmed that support has been added for next-gen AMD CPUs, but specifically referred to them as "AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors."

We've already seen MSI and Asus add support for next-gen AMD CPUs through BIOS updates, but neither of them called the CPUs Ryzen 9000. They didn't put out a dedicated press release for the updates, either. It should go without saying, but we don't often see a press release for new BIOS versions, suggesting Gigabyte wanted to make a splash with its support.

Read more