AMD promises its new laptop chips will crush the Apple M2 - and it’s got receipts
Like a phoenix from the ashes
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Well folks, they’re finally here: after a spate of delays,AMDhas unveiled its shiny new laptop processors, the Ryzen 7040U series. Designed to power a new wave of next-generation ultra-thin devices, these chips could take laptop performance to a whole new level - and AMD is clearly feeling confident about it.
Why do I say this? Well, Team Red isn’t messing about with its promotional material: we’ve got direct comparisons not just toIntel’s competing 13th-gen CPUs, but alsoApple’s powerhouse M2 chip.
AMD doesn’t beat around the bush; the Ryzen 7 7840U, the initial flagship APU of the new series, apparently offers 9% better 3D rendering performance, 14% better responsiveness, and a whopping 72% better multiprocessing performance than the standard M2. That’s the one you’ll find in the latestMacBook Air- we can probably expect the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips found in this year’sMacBook Pro.
Packing up to 8 Zen 4 cores and AMD’s Radeon 780M integrated graphics as well as XDNA AI architecture, these new chips - previously codenamed ‘Phoenix’ - are purpose-built for thebest ultrabooksaround. With that in mind, they use impressively tiny amounts of power; even the flagship 7840U uses just 15W of power at base, almost half that of the base TDP of the competing Intel Core i7-1360P.
The RDNA 3 iGPUs are hugely improved here too, apparently crushing Intel’s Iris Xe integrated graphics, with performance as much as 139% better than the i7-1360P’s graphics. That’s at 1080p Low settings, but still impressive for a system without a dedicated GPU!
There will be four new chips: the aforementioned Ryzen 7 7840U, the midrange Ryzen 5 7640U and 7540U, and the affordable Ryzen 3 7440U. No Ryzen 9 chip just yet - we don’t know if that’s not planned, or if AMD is holding it in reserve for a later release.
The future of gaming laptops?
I’ve already noted that AMD’s new chipscould be a huge blow to Nvidiaand the discrete graphics card market as a whole, and while the performance figures shown here don’t exactly blow me away (showing percentage comparisons rather than real-world framerates is telling), it’s still impressive.
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AMD is really committing to its integrated graphics, and I couldn’t be happier about that: I’ve long believed thatdiscrete graphics cards should be left in the past, and processors like this are a step in the right direction.
After all, AMD already makes the chips that power our modern consoles, from theSteam Deckto thePS5. More recently, Team Red has pushed its newZ1-series APUs, which will be powering the intriguing new PC gaming handheld from Asus - theROG Ally.
Low-power processors with impressive integrated graphics could prove to be the future ofgaming laptops- if you’ve ever used a gaming laptop, you’ll probably know that most of them are big, bulky, heavy machines. That’s because they need to pack in a whole graphics card; and not just that, but a cooling solution and a large battery to support it.
Cut out the dedicated GPU, and you end up with laptops like the gorgeousDell XPS 13: sleek, lightweight, and without the jet-engine fan whine of a beefy gaming rig. This is the future, folks! I’m tired of lugging around my chunky oldRazerBlade! I want something slim and light, dammit! Let’s go, AMD!
Christian is TechRadar’s UK-based Computing Editor. He came to us from Maximum PC magazine, where he fell in love with computer hardware and building PCs. He was a regular fixture amongst our freelance review team before making the jump to TechRadar, and can usually be found drooling over the latest high-end graphics card or gaming laptop before looking at his bank account balance and crying.
Christian is a keen campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights and the owner of a charming rescue dog named Lucy, having adopted her after he beat cancer in 2021. She keeps him fit and healthy through a combination of face-licking and long walks, and only occasionally barks at him to demand treats when he’s trying to work from home.
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