AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su took to the stage at CES 2023 in Las Vegas this evening (January 4) to showcase the chip company's latest advances, and new Ryzen 7000 CPUs were one of the most hotly-anticipated announcements.
The company launched the line in late September of 2022 with an opening volley of four desktop CPUs, all of which are built on TSMC's 5-nanometer process and run on AMD's new AM5 platform (which means yes, they require a new motherboard too).
But we've had to wait until now to see more of the Ryzen 7000 line, and that's what AMD brought to CES in the form of a new Ryzen 7040 laptop CPU (seen above).
Here's what we learned about the new Ryzen 7040 laptop chips, which are built on TSNMC's 4-nanometer process.
AMD Ryzen 7040: What we know so far
Most notably, the 7040 includes company's an on-chip dedicated AI engine branded Ryzen AI. AMD claims the 7040 is the first laptop chip to include such a dedicated AI engine, and it's capable of helping out with AI-intensive tasks like Windows Studio Effects in video calls (think: background blurring, auto-framing, etc).
AMD also claims the 7040 is capable of churning through multiprocessing workloads in Cinebench nT up to 34% faster than the Apple M1 Pro, which would be significant if true. Of course, we'll have to wait until the true chipheads get their hands on these CPUs and put them through their paces.
AMD also says the 7040 can deliver up to 30 hours of video playback in a laptop,, which is a big claim we can't wait to put to the test. The first Ryzen 7040-powered laptops are expected to debut in March, with more to come throughout the year.
AMD Ryzen 7040: Outlook
This is a big deal because the Ryzen 7000 CPUs are the next big thing from AMD, and the Ryzen 7040 is the new high-water mark for AMD-powered laptops. Of course, Intel dropped the fastest 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs yet at CES 2023, including the first 24-core laptop CPU. It remains to be seen whether the 7040 can compete with the best of Intel's Raptor Lake lineup.
The inclusion of onboard Ryzen AI is intriguing, and I can't wait to get some AMD 7040 laptops in for testing so we can see what sorts of improvements this chip delivers in terms of performance and power efficiency. Stay tuned.
