AMD's Ryzen 4000 (Renoir) processors may be mobile powerhouses, but for reasons unknown, laptop vendors were reluctant to pair the Zen 2 chips with high-end graphics cards. Ryzen 5000 (Cezanne), on the other hand, appears to have won over manufacturers as there are already retailer postings of upcoming laptops (via Tum_Apisak) with options that span up to a GeForce RTX 3080.
Pinnacle, a South African IT distributor, has listed Asus' refreshed ROG Zephyrus and Strix gaming laptops with Ryzen 5000 processors. These are examples of some of the potential configurations that will hit the market when Ryzen 5000 is officially released.
Current Ryzen 4000 processors are based on AMD's Zen 2 cores and TSMC's 7nm FinFET node. While the manufacturing process won't change, Ryzen 5000 should usher in the Zen 3 microarchitecture for mobile devices. Zen 3 did wonders for AMD's desktop Ryzen processors by bringing in notable IPC (instruction per cycle) enhancements, and we expect nothing less on mobile.
AMD Ryzen 5000 Laptops
| Model | Processor | Memory | Graphics Card | Storage | Part Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ROG Zephyrus G15 | Ryzen 9 5900HX | 32GB | GeForce RTX 3080 | 1TB SSD | GX551QS-93210B0T |
| ROG Zephyrus G15 | Ryzen 9 5900HX | 32GB | GeForce RTX 3070 | 2 x 512GB SDD | GX551QR-932512B0T |
| ROG Zephyrus G14 | Ryzen 9 5900HS | 16GB | GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q | 1TB SSD | GA401QM-91610G0R |
| ROG Strix 17.3 | Ryzen 9 5900HX | 32GB | GeForce RTX 3070 | 1TB SSD | G733QS-93210B0R |
It is no surprise that the Ryzen 9 5900H will carry the flagship totem for the Ryzen 5000 lineup. The APU wields a similar eight-core, 16-thread setup as its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 4900H. However, preliminary benchmarks have exposed the octa-core chip with a 16MB L3 cache, two times more than the L3 cache on existing Ryzen 4000 parts.
For reference, AMD's H-series processors typically adhere to a 45W TDP, while the special-binned HS-series are held to a lower 35W envelope. When Asus first announced the Ryzen 4000 family, Asus was the first to feature the HS-series in its Zephyrus G14 laptop. This generation seems no different from the last as the new Zephyrus G14 will rock the Ryzen 9 5900HS.
The Ryzen 9 5900HX broke its cover recently, but the Zen 3 chip's secret remains to be unraveled. It's plausible that the Ryzen 9 5900HX is just a faster variant of its H-series counterpart or that AMD may have finally unlocked the multiplier for enthusiasts to overclock the processor, like what Intel allows with its HK-series SKUs.
If Pinnacle's information is accurate, the Zephyrus G15 offers the best configurations. Leveraging the Ryzen 9 5900HX, the 15.6-inch gaming laptop is available with a GeForce RTX 3070 or RTX 3080 graphics card. Since the retailer didn't specify otherwise, these should be the standard mobile versions and not the Max-Q or Max-P variants. In any event, it's an enormous upgrade, considering that the present Zephyrus G15 is stuck with underwhelming graphics options, such as the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q or GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q.
The Zephyrus G14 presently features GeForce SKUs, spanning from a GeForce RTX 1650 up to the GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q. The new version will arrive with the GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q.
No one has any idea of when AMD will release Ryzen 5000, but the sudden appearance of benchmark submissions and retailer listings point to an imminent launch. CES 2020 is coming up, and AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech. It would be the ideal venue to announce the mobile Zen 3 chips since the desktop counterparts are already out.
