WE WERE PROMISED AMD’s 7040-series Phoenix chips for April back when AMD revealed its new Zen 4 APUs. Then there were delays, and it’s only now that we are actually getting to see what they can do.
The wait has been worth it, as these mobile chips can rival desktop processors in performance. They are the first mobile Ryzens with Zen 4 architecture, coupled to Radeon RDNA 3 graphics. They also sport a dedicated AI block, the first in any Ryzen chip. There are U versions for low-power applications on a 4nm process, and 5nm HS versions for more chunky laptops. The most powerful is the Ryzen 9 7940HS, with eight cores, a base clock of 4.0GHz, maximum boost of 5.2GHz, and an integrated 780M GPU with 12 computer cores running at 2.8GHz. The latest is the top-tier low power variant, the Ryzen 7 7840U, which is almost identical to the 7940HS, bar the clock speeds, where the base drops to 3.3GHz. A specialized version of 7040U, the Z1, and Z1 Extreme, has been designed for gaming handhelds. The first of these are the Asus ROG Ally and Aokzoe A1 Pro. First tests of a 7040-series laptop show it to be more than a match for Intel.
After the 7040-series, we will have, according to a reference document on the Phoenix APUs, AMD’s first hybrid chip with performance and efficiency cores. This follows in Intel and Apple’s footsteps. Intel uses two different architectures, while AMD will use the same Zen 4 design for both, only customized, most likely in the cache and frequency departments. It also makes development easier, as you only have to write to one architecture.
At Intel, we’re due to see Meteor Lake, Intel’s 14th generation design. It uses the Intel 4 process for the CPU tiles, which have Redwood Cove performance cores and Crestmont efficiency cores. Each brings IPC increases of between 15 to 25 percent. The top configuration so far has six performance cores and eight efficiency cores. This is Intel’s first tile-based chip, with a separate processor, GPU, I/O, and SoC tiles, tied together using Foversos 3D technology, so we get multiple processes used on the same chip as the GPU, while SoC titles are manufactured by TSMC. There’s a new socket, too: LGA 1851, which is the same size as LGA 1700, but with 151 extra pins.