AMD Mobile CPUs To Get New Branding Starting Ryzen 7000 Series, Dragon Range & Mendocino SKUs Confirmed
AMD is getting ready for a major Ryzen Mobile launch in the coming months. Starting with the Mendocino family, the Ryzen 7000 Mobility CPU family is going to make use of a new & refined branding scheme which will scale from entry to high-end chips. The reason for the introduction of this new naming scheme is based on the fact that AMD plans on introducing at least five product lines within its Ryzen 7000 Mobility lineup. Each CPU family will be targeted at a different segment & will include multiple generations of architectures. For example, the upcoming Mendocino Ryzen 7000 CPUs will feature the Zen 2 architecture with an RDNA 2 graphics core & are specifically designed for the entry-level segment in the $400 to $700 US price range. Then in 2023, AMD will be offering CPUs based on its Zen 3, Zen 3+, and Zen 4 families. The Zen 3 Barcelo Refresh and Zen 3+ Rembrandt refresh will coexist alongside the Zen 4 Phoenix Point CPUs in the mainstream and low power (thin & light) segment while the Zen 4 Dragon Range CPUs will be aiming for the enthusiast segment. The product segmentation is listed below:
Mendocino (Ryzen 7020 Series) - Everyday Computing Barcelo-R (Ryzen 7030 Series) - Mainstream Thin & Light Rembrandt-R (Ryzen 7035 Series) - Premium Thin & Light Phoenix Point (Ryzen 7040 Series) - Elite Ultrathin Dragon Range (Ryzen 7045 Series) - Extreme Gaming & Creator
So talking about the naming scheme, we know that Ryzen CPUs have a four-number naming scheme. Starting with Ryzen 7000 series, the first number will denote the model year so while Mendocino launches in Q4, it is regarded as a 2023 product like the rest of the mobile CPUs in 2023. The second number will denote the market segmentation and it will scale from 1 (Athlon Silver) being the lowest and 9 (Ryzen 9) being the highest segment. This will be followed by the architecture number with Phoenix & Dragon Range using the “4” numbering scheme since they utilized the Zen 4 core architecture. Lastly, we have the feature number which will either be 0 or 5 with 0 referring to a lower model within the same segment and 5 referring to a higher model within the same segment. Each model will be followed by a suffix & these include four types:
HX = 55W+ Extreme Gaming/Creator HS = 35W-45W Gaming/Creator U = 15-28W Thin & Light e = 9W fanless variant of U-part
Two SKUs have been mentioned which are part of the next-gen Zen 4 mobility family. First, we have the Ryzen 9 7945HX which is going to be a high-end model within the Dragon Range lineup and the second is the Ryzen 3 7420U which is going to be an entry-level SKU in the Mendocino family. AMD Dragon Range “Ryzen 7045” Series Mobility CPUs The AMD Dragon Range CPUs will be aimed at the high-performance segment with more cores, threads, & cache than what AMD has offered us previously while Phoenix Point will be aimed at the thin and light laptop segment. The Dragon Range CPUs will have a TDP rating of around 55W+ while Phoenix Point will have TDPs around 35-45W. The 55W TDP is for the base configuration and we can expect the chip to be configurable up to 65W for laptop designs with high-end cooling and bigger form factors. Considering that AMD’s current laptop lineup peaks out at 8 cores and 16 threads, AMD will be targetting up to 16 cores and 32 threads with its Dragon Range family of Ryzen 7000 CPUs. The CPUs will also feature more cache of up to 80 MB versus just 20 MB featured on AMD’s current fastest laptop chip, the Ryzen 9 6980HX. Considering up to a 74% improvement versus Zen 3 in multi-threaded applications at a 65W TDP threshold, we can see a huge gain in performance and that would also exceed Intel’s existing Alder Lake-HX lineup which features up to 16 cores and 24 threads. The new Dragon Range CPUs will feature a die similar to the Raphael SKUs on the desktop AM5 platform as such, they will also carry the 2 RDNA 2 Compute Units. The CPUs will be featured in various enthusiast laptops with high-end discrete graphics cards from all vendors but primarily NVIDIA & AMD. AMD Phoenix Point “Ryzen 7040” Series Mobility CPUs AMD confirmed its Phoenix Point APU lineup which will utilize both Zen 4 and RDNA 3 cores. The new Phoenix APUs 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. Based on earlier specs, it looks like the Phoenix Ryzen 7000 APUs might still carry up to 8 cores and 16 threads with higher core counts exclusive to Dragon Range chips. However, Phoenix APUs will carry a higher CU count for the RDNA 3 graphics core, uplifting the performance by a huge margin over anything that the competition might have to offer.
AMD Mendocino “Ryzen 7020” Series Mobility CPUs
The AMD Ryzen 7020 ‘Mendocino’ APUs will be equipped with Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU cores. These cores will be upgraded and optimized on the latest TSMC 6nm node & offer up to 4 cores and 8 threads plus 4 MB of L3 cache. The new specifications unveil that the AMD Mendocino APUs will be supported by the brand new ‘Sonoma Valley’ platform which is based around the FT6 (BGA) socket. The GPU will be based on the RDNA 2 graphics architecture and feature a single WGP (Work Group Processor) for up to two Compute Units or a total of 128 stream processors. The iGPU will feature 128 KB of on-die graphics cache which should not be mistaken as Infinity Cache. So as far as the architectural details are concerned, we are looking at:
Up To 4 Zen 2 CPU Cores With 8 Threads Up To 2 RDNA 2 GPU Cores With 128 SPs Up To 4 MB of L2 Cache Up To 128 KB GPU Cache 2x 32-bit LPDDR5 Channels (Up to 32 GB Memory) 4 PCIe Gen 3.0 Lanes
Other specifications include two 32-bit memory channels which support up to 32 GB LPDDR5 memory, four display pipes (1 eDP, 1DP, and 2 Type-C outputs), and the latest VCN 3.0 engine with AV1 and VP9 decode. As for I/O, the AMD Mendocino APUs will feature two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, and a single USB 2.0 port for SBIO. The I/O will also include 4 GPP PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes. This sounds pretty much like the same configuration that AMD has used on its Van Gogh SOC which powers the Steam Deck (handheld) console. These chips are expected to be super-efficient and are mentioned to operate with over 10 hours of battery life (internally projected). The laptops will come with an active cooling solution as confirmed by Robert Hallock since passive designs require more engineering and can raise the cost of the products. AMD also plans on refreshing its existing product lineups such as Barcelo and Rembrandt with Barcelo already being a refresh of the Cezanne CPUs. These will be branded under the Ryzen 7030 & Ryzen 7035 series and launch in 2023 too.
AMD Ryzen Mobility CPUs:
