AMD Brings Chiplets, Zen 4, RDNA 3 and XDNA AI to Laptops: 5nm Dragon Range and 4nm Phoenix Arrive

admin January 5, 2023

2 5 minutes read

AMD revealed its laptop chip executives today at CES 2023 in Vegas, including a 5nm Dragon Range chip that will come with its Zen 4 architecture, the first chiplet-based processor for laptops. AMD also announced a new 4nm Phoenix lineup featuring Zen 4 architecture and RDNA 3 graphics engine combined with AMD’s first Ryzen AI engine built on the new XDNA architecture. This new advancement uses technology from AMD’s acquisition of his Xilinx just a year after the acquisition to inject a purpose-built AI engine inside AMD’s latest laptop chips.

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(Image credit: AMD)

AMD also introduced some new designs with the 6nm Mendocino, 7nm Barcelo-R and 6nm Rembrandt-R series all hitting the market earlier this year. The overhaul marks the broadest laptop portfolio ever as AMD continues to steal market share from Intel, so there’s a lot to cover.

AMD Ryzen 7045 Series: Dragon Range

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The 5nm Dragon Range HX series marks the debut of AMD’s chiplet architecture on laptop platforms, creating a new chip line for ‘extreme gaming’ and creators. This new chip lineup would take advantage of AMD’s existing chiplets from the Ryzen 7000 CPUs, but inject them into a smaller BGA package meant for laptops only. This creates a 55W+ processor that uses the Zen 4 CPU core architecture and RDNA 2 integrated graphics, the latter only used for light display tasks. These chips are in the latest high performance laptops for gaming, so they are always in systems with discrete GPUs.

The Halo Ryzen 9 7945HX model tops out at 16 cores and 32 threads, similar to desktop PC models, giving AMD the highest “performance core” count on the market. (Intel leads in recent laptop chips with 24 total cores, 8 of which are less efficient.) The chip boosts up to 5.4 GHz and packs a staggering 80MB total. cache and has an official TDP rating. 55-75W+.

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Ryzen 7045 processor
model	core/thread	Boost/Base Frequency (GHz)	Cache (MB)	TDP (width)
AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX	16/32	up to 5.4/2.5	80	55-75W or more
AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX	12/24	Up to 5.2/3.0	76	45 to 75W or more
AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX	8/16	Up to 5.1/3.6	40	45 to 75W or more
AMD Ryzen 5 7645HX	6/12	Up to 5.0/4.0	38	45 to 75W or more

AMD says these processors can deliver up to 100W in some laptop designs.It’s up to the OEM to determine the peak power delivery. You don’t want to be too far away. AMD also has 12-core, 8-core, and 6-core Dragon Range models that largely mirror what we see in their Ryzen desktop PC lineup, much like what Intel does with its own HX series, which is directly derived from desktop core processors. in the same way.

AMD has provided benchmarks, but as with all vendor-provided test data, approach them with caution. The company claims the 7945HX is 29% to 62% faster in CPU bound games than his Ryzen 9 6900HX. AMD also claims that the 7945HX is 18% faster at single-threaded work and 78% faster at multi-threaded work than the previous generation Halo chip, the Ryzen 9 6900HX.

According to AMD, these chips do not require an external discrete chipset as the functionality is built into the I/O die inside the processor, but OEMs will have to use an external chip for USB. I have.

Since Dragon Range is specifically for high-end extreme machines, AMD says there won’t be a surge of designs on the market. The cutting-edge design he will arrive in February 2023. Phoenix chips, on the other hand, will be the true workhorses of the new lineup.

AMD Ryzen 7040 Series: Phoenix

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The Ryzen 7040 HS series ‘Phoenix’ chip has been adopted as the mainstay of ultra-thin notebooks. These 35-45W chips are powered by the Zen 4 CPU architecture on the 4nm process paired with AMD’s RDNA 3 graphics engine, both of which are making their first appearance in the company’s mainstream laptop lineup. The flagship model uses his 8 cores and 16 threads running at up to 5.2 GHz. The chip also has a total of 40MB of cache. AMD also has a model with 6 cores and 12 threads.

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Ryzen 7040 HS-series processors
model	core/thread	Boost/Base Frequency (GHz)	Cache (MB)	TDP (width)
AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS	8/16	Up to 5.2/4.0	40	35-45
AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS	8/16	Up to 5.1/3.8	40	35-45
AMD Ryzen 5 7640HS	6/12	up to 5.0/4.3	38	35-45

The Phoenix chip’s Zen 4 cores and RDNA 3 graphics are very impressive, but the new XDNA architecture is the center of attention. AMD has rapidly integrated his FPGA technology acquired at Xilinx last year, integrating a new FPGA-based AI engine directly into the die of its new 7040 series processors. The engine can handle up to four simultaneous AI streams, but can be quickly reconfigured to handle different amounts of streams. AMD claims its fully programmable ‘Ryzen AI engine’ based on the XDNA architecture is faster than Apple’s neural engine in his M2 processor.

AMD is early to offer this hardware, and while there aren’t many workloads that will benefit from it yet, they are working on APIs to advance their software development efforts. Additionally, Microsoft is working closely with AMD to take full advantage of Windows’ new engine, and several new features, such as camera tracking and eye focus features, will be available soon. AMD says it is fully committed to its AI roadmap with its XDNA architecture. For example, XDNA 2 and XDNA 3. AMD expects other use cases to emerge soon, including gaming, security, predictive UIs, and collaborative work.

Phoenix processors arrive in March 2023.

AMD Ryzen 7035 and 7030 series: Rembrandt-R and Barcelo-R

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The 6nm Rembrandt-R and 7nm Barcelo-R chips are the refresh generations that will come along with the Zen 3+ and Zen 3 architectures respectively. Rembrandt uses the RDNA 2 graphics engine and Barcelo comes with Vega.

AMD also has Mendocino chips that come with the Zen 2 architecture paired with the RDNA 2 graphics engine, all manufactured on the latest 6nm process.

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Ryzen 7035 series processors
model	core/thread	Boost/Base Frequency (GHz)	Cache (MB)	TDP (width)
AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS	8/16	up to 4.75/3.2	20	35
AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS	6/12	up to 4.55/3.3	19	35
AMD Ryzen 7 7735U	8/16	up to 4.75/2.7	20	15-28
AMD Ryzen 5 7535U	6/12	up to 4.55/2.9	19	15-28
AMD Ryzen 3 7335U	4C/8	Up to 4.3/3.0	Ten	15-28