AMD reveals new Ryzen 7040U Series for thin and light laptops

AMD’s remarkable rise in recent years means it’s now one of the leading component manufacturers worldwide. Much of the growth has been led by its Ryzen CPUs, which have proven to be more than a match for Intel.

There’s been plenty of excitement surrounding the new Ryzen 7000 Series, which AMD debuted in August 2022. The bulk of its CPUs were then announced at CES 2023, but plenty have been revealed since, and there could be even more on the way. Here’s everything you need to know.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Series release date

AMD revealed the first Ryzen 7000 Series processors on 29 August 2022. That’s earlier than we’d usually expect, but makes sense given there were no desktop CPUs in the Ryzen 6000 Series.

Those first four desktop chips went on sale from 27 September 2022, but that was just the beginning.

At its CES keynote on 4 January 2023, AMD revealed the bulk of its Ryzen 7000 Series lineup. That included several more desktop CPUs, and versions without the new 3D V-Cache were released on 10 January.

However, we had to wait until 28 February for the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D to go on sale. The slightly less powerful Ryzen 7 7800X3D didn’t go on sale until 6 April.

Laptops powered by the Ryzen 7000 Series are beginning to emerge, and plenty more are expected throughout 2023.

Some will be powered by the Ryzen 7000U Series, which was revealed on 3 May 2023. They’re specifically designed for thin and light laptops.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Series pricing

Alongside the announcement of the first four Ryzen 7000 Series desktop CPUs, AMD also revealed suggested pricing:

• Ryzen 9 7950X – $699
• Ryzen 9 7900X – $549
• Ryzen 7 7700X – $399
• Ryzen 5 7600X – $299

AMD revealed the following desktop CPUs at CES 2023. We initially only new suggested US pricing for the ones without the 3D cache, but the others were revealed in a February 2022 tweet:

• Ryzen 9 7950X3D – $699
• Ryzen 9 7900X3D – $599
• Ryzen 9 7900 – $429
• Ryzen 7 7800X3D – $449
• Ryzen 7 7700 – $329
• Ryzen 5 7600 – $229

Remember, that’s probably not what you’ll end up paying. Individual retailers can choose how much to sell the processors for, so there’s likely to be some variation.

Laptop-focused CPUs are designed to be integrated into devices and not available as standalone components. How much you pay will therefore depend on many other factors, including the other key specs and the brand in question.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Series specs and features

Desktop CPUs

Many of the key features of the Ryzen 7000 Series were announced alongside the first desktop processors in August 2022. The new CPUs shift to a 5nm process and adopt the Zen 4 architecture that launched alongside them, which AMD claims takes “gaming and content creation performance leadership to new levels”.

Here’s a summary of all 10 desktop CPUs announced so far, both at that initial event and CES 2023:

• Ryzen 9 7950X – 16 cores, 32 threads, 5.7GHz max clock speed, 80Mb cache, 170W TDP
• Ryzen 9 7950X3D – 16 cores, 32 threads, 5.7GHz max clock speed, 128Mb cache, 120W TDP
• Ryzen 9 7900X – 12 cores, 24 threads, 5.6GHz max clock speed, 76Mb cache, 170W TDP
• Ryzen 9 7900X3D – 12 cores, 24 threads, 5.6GHz max clock speed, 128Mb cache, 120W TDP
• Ryzen 9 7900 – 12 cores, 24 threads, 5.4GHz max clock speed, 65W TDP
• Ryzen 7 7800X3D – 8 cores, 16 threads, 5.0GHz max clock speed, 96Mb cache, 120W TDP
• Ryzen 7 7700X – 8 cores, 16 threads, 5.4GHz max clock speed, 40Mb cache, 105W TDP
• Ryzen 7 7700 – 8 cores, 16 threads, 5.3GHz max clock speed, 65W TDP
• Ryzen 7 5800X3D – 8 cores, 16 threads, 4.5GHz max clock speed, 96Mb cache, 105W TDP
• Ryzen 5 7600X – 6 cores, 12 threads, 5.3GHz max clock speed, 38Mb cache, 105W TDP

You might notice four new CPUs ending ‘3D’, which adds more L2 and L3 cache than the regular versions. This aims to improve responsiveness and framerates without a significant effect on clock speeds or overclocking capabilities.

All the new desktop CPUs are based on AMD’s latest Zen 4 architecture, and are compatible with existing AM5 motherboards – provided you perform a BIOS update. Other key features across all the new processors include the PCIe Gen 5 support and DDR5 memory (DDR4 has been dropped).

AMD

Inside each Ryzen 7000 desktop CPU you’ll find three chiplets; two 5nm Zen 4 CPU modules and a new 6nm I/O die with integrated RDNA 2 graphics, along with DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 controllers and built-in power management. This means every chip has some level of graphical power, with a separate graphics card only necessary for gaming or other very demanding workloads. 

The Zen 4 architecture the chips are based on will offer a “greater than 15 percent” improvement to single-threaded performance compared to Zen 3 according to AMD, though with the caveat that the new chips may need more power to provide that level of performance.

Laptop CPUs

AMD revealed its first Ryzen 7000 Series laptop CPUs in September 2022. Known as ‘Mendocino’, the Ryzen 7020 Series is specifically designed for everyday laptops, offering options for both basic Athlon chips and regular Ryzen 3 & 5 processors:

• Ryzen 5 7520U – 4 cores, 8 threads, 4.3GHz max clock speed, 6Mb cache, 8-15W TDP
• Ryzen 3 7320U – 4 cores, 8 threads, 4.1GHz max clock speed, 6Mp cache, 8-15W TDP
• Athlon Gold 7220U – 2 cores, 4 threads, 3.7GHz max clock speed, 5Mp cache, 8-15W TDP

All three are based on enhanced versions of the Zen 2 architecture, and use the 6nm process rather than shifting to 5nm. AMD specifically highlights their benefits for battery life, with up to 12 hours possible on some systems. However, that’ll depend on a variety of different factors, including battery capacity, screen size and brightness.

It combines with the latest Radeon 610M integrated graphics, which AMD says can deliver 720p gaming at over 60fps. You also get support for up to four displays and DDR5 RAM.

Compared to Intel’s 11th-gen core i3-1115G4, AMD says the new Ryzen 3 7320U is up to 80% faster at file compression, up to 57% faster at multitasking and up to 31% faster in “office productivity” – scenarios that are important to many people. You can also supposedly expect up to 31% faster app launches. But there are no direct comparisons to the more recent 12th-gen and 13th-gen, which have both delivered significant improvements.

But it was at CES 2023 where we saw the bulk of the new CPUs announced. These are split into the Ryzen 7030 Series (thin and light laptops), Ryzen 7035 Series (premium thin and light laptops), Ryzen 7040 Series (elite ultrathin laptops) and Ryzen 7045 Series (extreme gaming/creator laptops). Here’s a summary of what each offers:

• Ryzen 7045 Series – Zen 4 architecture, up to 16 cores/32 threads, 5nm node, up to 80Mb cache, DDR5 memory
• Ryzen 7040 Series – Zen 4 architecture, up to 8 cores/16 threads, 4nm node, up to 20Mb cache – DDR5/LPDDR5 memory
• Ryzen 7035 Series – Zen 3+ architecture, up to 8 cores/16 threads, 6nm node, up to 20Mb cache, DDR5/LPDDR5 memory
• Ryzen 7030 Series – Zen 3 architecture, up to 8 cores/16 threads, 7nm node, up to 20Mb cache, DDR4/LPDDR4 memory
• Ryzen 7020 Series – Zen 2 architecture, up to 4 cores/8 threads, 6nm node, up to 6Mb cache, LPDDR5 memory.

Understandably, AMD wants to draw specific attention to the high-end Ryzen 7045 Series, a new addition for this year. Known as ‘Dragon Range’, it’s designed to be integrated into the most powerful laptops you can buy and capable of AAA gaming or almost any other demanding workload.

AMD

It’s headlined by the top-spec Ryzen 9-7945X, which features a huge 16 performance cores and 32 threads. Intel’s equivalent Core i9-13980HX has a total of 24 cores, but 16 of those are for efficiency. With that in mind, AMD claims it can deliver a 78% increase in performance on Cinebench, a popular measure of CPU rendering performance.

The 7040 Series and 7035 Series are less exciting by comparison, offering only 8 cores and 16 threads, but these will likely make their way into premium laptops than consumers will consider. However, it’s worth reiterating that the latter uses the Zen 3+ architecture rather than the latest Zen 4.

Many of the new high-end laptop CPUs are designed to be paired with discrete GPUs. AMD launched four from the RX 7000 Series. However, there aren’t successors for all the RX 6000 Series, which continue to hold up well.

May 2023’s Ryzen 7040U Series CPUs are based on Zen 4, but a step down from the most powerful laptop processors in the range. They’re specifically designed for thin and light devices, aiming to deliver big improvements to both performance and power efficiency.

The lineup also offers up to 8 cores and 16 threads, with clock speeds supposedly reaching 5.1GHz. They’re paired with integrated Radeon graphics rather than a discrete GPU, but that makes sense considering the intended devices.

Here’s a summary of what you can expect:

• Ryzen 7 7840U – 8 cores, 16 threads, 5.1GHz max clock speed, 24Mb cache, 15-30W TDP
• Ryzen 5 7640U – 6 cores, 12 threads, 4.9GHz max clock speed, 22Mb cache, 15-30W TDP
• Ryzen 5 7540U – 6 cores, 12 threads, 4.9GHz max clock speed, 22Mb cache, 15-30W TDP
• Ryzen 3 7440U – 4 cores, 8 threads, 4.7GHz max clock speed, 12Mb cache, 15-30W TDP

From internal testing, it looks like AMD is putting the Ryzen 7 7840U head-to-head with Intel’s 13th-gen Core i7-1360P. You can supposedly expect 39% better productivity and 29% better content creation with AMD, with even Apple’s M2 apparently beaten on demanding apps.

Prior to launch, a Geekbench 5 listing for the Ryzen 5 7640U showed some mixed results:

The new chips also support AI functionality, meaning they should be well future-proofed. But even at launch, it means laptops powered by the Ryzen 7040 Series can use Windows 11’s Studio Effects video calling features.

New naming system

Starting with the Ryzen 7000 Series, AMD is introducing new naming system for its processors. In a blog post, the company says this is partly due to “the influx of new SOCs in new categories we’re developing”. Each number and letter represents something specific, allowing people to quickly identify key information about a specific CPU.

AMD

Judging by the specs and AMD’s claims, it looks like the Ryzen 7000 Series will be a force to be reckoned with among both desktop PCs and laptops. They look set to go head-to-head with Intel once again, who also announced most of its 13th-gen Raptor Lake CPUs at CES 2023.

Author: Anyron Copeman, Senior Staff Writer