To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more

AMD announces new Ryzen 6000 laptop processors

Meet the new AMD mobile processors built to give Intel the jitters

AMD has lifted the lid on a tantalising selection of laptop and desktop processors ahead of this year’s CES tech expo. The new Ryzen 6000-series laptop CPUs are something of a headline act, supported by a new Ryzen 7 5800X3D desktop processor, Radeon RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 desktop graphics cards and five new AMD Radeon RX 6000M Series and new Radeon RX 6000S Series mobile (laptop) GPUs. We’re going to dwell on the mobile processors here – the Ryzen 6000 CPUs and Radeon RX 6000M/S GPUs.

READ NEXT: Asus launches refresh of its gaming laptops, with the dual-screen ROG Zephryus Duo 16 playing a starring role

The new AMD Ryzen 6000 CPUs use a 6nm fabrication process, which should result in a marked improvement in performance compared to the 7nm Ryzen 5000 series; up to 1.3x faster processing speeds, AMD claims, and up to 2.1x faster graphics than the previous generation of Ryzen laptop CPUs.

AMD also claims that single-thread performance is up by 11% and multi-thread performance, up to 28%. It’s all thanks to AMD’s Zen 3+ core, which AMD says also facilitates improved battery life and performance-per-watt.

Capable of clock speeds up to 5GHz, these chips are AMD’s fastest laptop processors yet, and they come packing RDNA 2-based onboard graphics with reportedly enough grunt to handle most PC games in Full HD (1080p). The 6000 series chips also support DDR5 RAM, USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6. There are 20 different flavours available and over 200 laptops currently on track to launch with an AMD Ryzen 6000 processor inside – at wildly varying price points.

On to the GPUs, and it’s a similar story. The Radeon RX 6000M laptop GPUs are built with high-end gaming laptops in mind: the new AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT laptop GPU, for example, promises an average 7% faster graphical performance (at 1440p, AMD is at great pains to add) compared to its predecessor, the RX 6800M. The 6000S series, meanwhile, is designed for lightweight laptops.

AMD reckons you can get a 6000S-series GPU into a laptop that’s 20% slimmer than existing models, and one that weighs as little as 4.5lbs (just over 2kg). This while still apparently delivering a steady 100fps in select titles at Max settings – and a projected 10% higher overall graphical performance at 1080p compared to competitors. 

There are eight variants of the new AMD Radeon RX 6000M laptop GPU and three unique 6000S GPU models. AMD hasn’t made it clear quite how many laptops will be launching with these GPUs inside but you can find out more via the official AMD Ryzen RX 6000M/S landing page.

Read more

News