Laptop AMD Ryzen 5000 is here. Zen 3 and clock up to 4.8 GHz

AMD unveils Cezanne APU at CES 2021, mobile version of Zen 3 is here

We’ve already covered Intel’s news from CES 2021, (10nm Jasper Lake, Tiger Lake-H35 and Rocket Lake desktop) and now it’s time to turn to AMD’s showings at the virtual event. The company unveiled the expected Ryzen 5000 mobile processors which brings the Zen 3 architecture to laptops. They are based on the Cezanne APU and should come to notebooks from next month on. We already have the specifications of 15 and 45W(+) models.

In a way, APU Cezanne is both a relatively conservative, incremental product as well as new grounds-breaking one. Its overall design is not very different from mobile Ryzen 4000 Renoir released a year ago. It should still have a similar memory controller (DDR-3200 and LPDDR4X-4266 support is expected, although this has not yet been revealed by AMD) and the integrated graphics still uses the Vega architecture.

AMD has also not increased the number of graphics computing units, so there will still be only 512 shaders available, which means the integrated GPU will be slower than Intel’s Iris Xe in Tiger Lake quad-core processors. However, according to unofficial information, it is possible that the multimedia engine has been updated to support AV1 video decoding for example, and energy efficiency and battery life could perhaps also have been somewhat improved.

AMD seems to have concentrated its resources on the processor part, the CPU cores, and that’s where the big jumps happen. Instead of eight Zen 2 cores, the Cezanne APU/mobile Ryzen 5000 uses eight cores of the latest Zen 3 architecture, which according to AMD has up to 19% higher IPC. If you want to read about details and improvements made to these cores, we have a separate article about it. Single-core performance will therefore be significantly increased in mobile Ryzen 5000.

In addition, Zen 3 brings another bonus. In Ryzen 4000, the cores came in two quad-core CCX blocks, and each of those blocks had only 4 MB of L3 cache for its use. Ryzen 5000 “Cezanne” has all eight cores joined in one CCX block, and the L3 cache capacity has been increased to 16 MB at the same – which can be fully used by any one of the cores. In tasks where the 4MB L3 was limiting, big improvements might occur and gaming performance should also benefit.

AMD Ryzen 5000 laptop processor, Cezanne APU in BGA package

On January 12 at CES 2021, AMD introduced 35–45 W processor models for gaming notebooks (H-series) and also 15W U-series for mainstream notebooks. Both are based on the same Cezanne chip, just with different TDP settings.

45W and 35W models

The H-Series line consists of a total of six 8-core and two 6-core models. You can see everything in the table below. The king of them all is the Ryzen 9 5980HX – 45W octa-core with 3.3 GHz base clock speed and 4.8 GHz maximum boost for single-threaded applications. In addition to it, AMD will also offer the Ryzen 9 5980HS, which has a reduced TDP of 35W – its specifications are generally the same, but the base clock is reduced to 3.0 GHz.

A little cheaper 45W model Ryzen 9 5900HX has the same 3.3 GHz base clock, but maximum single-core boost is just 4.6 GHz. There is a 35W version too, Ryzen 9 5900HS, its clock is 3.0–4.6 GHz. The cheapest octa-core is a 45W Ryzen 7 5800X with 3.2–4.4 GHz clock; it has a 35W variant as well – Ryzen 7 4800HS (2.8–4.4 GHz). The lineup is then complemented by a hexa-core model Ryzen 5 5600H (45W) with 3.3–4.2 GHz clock, again has a 35W sibling – Ryzen 5 5600HS (3.0–4.2 GHz).

Mobile processors AMD Ryzen 5000, 35W and 45W series

All these processors have SMT enabled, i.e. two threads per core. Fortunately AMD does not deactivate SMT on any Cezanne APU, as was the case with some mobile 4000 Ryzens. All models also have the full 16MB L3 cache. Unfortunately, the specifications of their integrated GPUs were not revealed at all. The maximum is 512 shaders and it is clear that the clock will not be much higher than in the previous generation (1750 MHz there), but we do not know exactly how much is AMD going to cut the number of shaders in the lower Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 SKUs.

AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS official benchmarks

HX: Unlocked models for extreme notebooks

As you may have noticed, the 45W Ryzen 9 SKUs are labelled HX instead of H. This denotes that the processors are unlocked for overclocking and laptops with them may have increased power draw compared to the default state – their TDP is therefore referred to as “45W+”. Such models might see the manufacturer increasing the power budget to the level of desktop 65W processors, for example (or maybe even more, we’ll see). With Intel’s 14nm processors, it was not uncommon for extreme gaming notebooks to try to compensate the worse energy efficiency Comet Lake-H chips with higher power draw allowance, and perhaps such overclocked notebooks with Ryzen HX might possibly be AMD’s response to those Intel machines.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX official benchmarks

15W series Ryzen 5000U: where troubles begin

Some paragraphs earlier we said that AMD manufactures the more powerful H-series mobile processors from the same silicon as the power-saving 15W U-series. This is true in general, but in the Ryzen 5000 generation it will actually be more complicated. AMD has taken a step that will probably be very controversial and cannot be praised. The company will introduce five Ryzen 5000 models, but only two of them will actually use the new Zen 3 architecture. These are complemented by 3 other models within the same naming scheme, that will in fact use the old Zen 2 architecture and are apparently just rebranded Renoir chips from last year (the codename for this rebranded refresh should be Lucienne). Rumors pointing to this have surfaced before, now the unfortunate news has sadly been been confirmed…

Both of these chips are using 7nm technology, so it’s not as deplorable as hypothetical mixing of 7nm chips with 14nm/12nm chips, but even so this is not a good thing, given how much faster the Zen 3 cores should be (and it’s possible that Cezanne will also support AV1 acceleration unlike Renoir). With things like this, an uninformed customer cannot just count on the fact that “5000 = new architecture” and we now need to keep in mind which models are new and which are rebranded/old.

AMD Ryzen 5000 laptop, Cezanne APU in BGA package

You can see all five models in the following table. The most powerful octa-core, Ryzen 7 5800U, is based on Zen 3. It has a 16 MB L3 cache (AMD states 20 MB, which is the sum of L3 and the L2 cache of the eight cores) and a maximum boost of 4.4 GHz; the base clock is 1.9 GHz. Besides it, also the six-core model, Ryzen 5 5600U, contains the Cezanne chip with Zen 3 cores. It has a 2.3 GHz base clock and maximum boost of 4.2 GHz. You can use the mnemonics that chips with an even second digit in the model designation are Zen 3 (and you can also tell by the fact that the cache capacity is over 16 MB).

The other three models with an odd number in the second place of the designation are Zen 2/Renoir/Lucienne: The Ryzen 7 5700U with eight cores has 1.8–4.3 GHz clock and 12 MB cache (L3 itself is 8 MB). The Ryzen 5 5500U hexa-core has a 2.1–4.0 GHz clock and 11 MB cache. The only quad-core in the lineup, the Ryzen 3 5300U, is also Zen 2, with 2.6–3.8 GHz clock and 6MB cache (its L3 is 4 MB). A quad-core SKU based on Cezanne/Zen 3 has not yet appeared, although it may be added at a later time.

Mobile AMD Ryzen 5000 processors,15W series

All five models have active SMT, which is a progress in case of the Zen 2 SKUs. Thanks to that the Ryzen 7 5700U, for example, should have better multi-threaded performance than the current 4700U model, since that one had SMT deactivated (only eight threads). Unfortunately, AMD does not say anything about the configuration of integrated graphics, yet again. GPU specs will hopefully be revealed later when the processors are actually launched on the market.

Official benchmarks of AMD Ryzen 5000U processors
Official benchmarks of AMD Ryzen 5000U processors in multi-threaded applications

First laptops are said to arrive next month

At the moment during CES 2021, AMD has only pre-announced the mobile Ryzen 5000 processory, this was not the final “launch”. That however shouldn’t be that far away. First laptops with these processors should start appearing as early as February (hopefully these will not be just the redesignated Zen 2 ones…). According to AMD, manufacturers are preparing more than 150 different models, so the selection should expand compared to what was on offer with Ryzen 4000 – last year “only” over 100 different types of laptops were in preparation.

Zen 3 is expected to significantly increase the single-threaded performance of Ryzen processors in notebooks, so AMD has a shot at catching up with Intel’s 10nm Tiger Lake processors. Conversely, AMD doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to advance the performance in integrated graphics now, which used to be the main strength of the APU chips in the past. Perhaps the company has changed its strategy and now assumes that at the point when higher graphics performance is required for a notebook, such design is going to be fitted with a dedicated GPU anyway.

AMD has shown various benchmarks for these processors, but as always, these official performance figures need to be taken with a grain of salt as they can be cherry-picked and therefore misleading. AMD also promises that 5000 Ryzen with Zen 3 architecture should result in an improved battery life. The Ryzen 7 5800U in a reference laptop with a 53Wh battery reportedly achieves 17.5 hours of battery life with Wi-Fi turned on as tested by MobileMark, and up to 21.4 hours during video playback. Of course, this can vary in real laptops depending on the memory and other components (LCDs) used and also on how well the firmware is optimized.

Battery life for AMD Ryzen 7 5800U processor (data for AMD reference platform, official tests)

In the end it’s up to reviews of actual laptops to show how good will the Ryzen 5000 mobiles series really be. But at the very least, it seems that with its arrival and with Intel’s 10nm Tiger Lake-U and Tiger Lake-H, both larger gaming as well as thin and ultra-mobile notebooks on the Windows/x86 platform are poised to make great advancements and 2021 could be a very strong year for this PC segment.

English translation and edit by Lukáš Terényi

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