Enlarge / The most interesting thing about AMD's Ryzen 7 8700G CPU is the Radeon 780M GPU that's attached to it. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Put me on the short list of people who can get excited about the humble, much-derided integrated GPU.

Yes, most of them are afterthoughts, designed for office desktops and laptops that will spend most of their lives rendering 2D images to a single monitor. But when integrated graphics push forward, it can open up possibilities for people who want to play games but can only afford a cheap desktop (or who have to make do with whatever their parents will pay for, which was the big limiter on my PC gaming experience as a kid).

That, plus an unrelated but accordant interest in building small mini-ITX-based desktops, has kept me interested in AMD’s G-series Ryzen desktop chips (which it sometimes calls “APUs,” to distinguish them from the Ryzen CPUs). And the Ryzen 8000G chips are a big upgrade from the 5000G series that immediately preceded them (this makes sense, because as we all know the number 8 immediately follows the number 5).

Enlarge / AMD's first Ryzen 8000 desktop processors are what the company used to call "APUs," a combination of a fast integrated GPU and a reasonably capable CPU. (credit: AMD)

AMD's G-series Ryzen desktop processors have always been a bit odd—a little behind the curve on AMD's latest CPU architectures, but with integrated graphics performance that's enough for a tiny and/or cheap gaming desktop without a dedicated graphics card. They're also usually updated much more slowly than AMD's other desktop Ryzens. Today, AMD is announcing a new lineup of Ryzen 8000G processors, chips that should provide a substantial boost over 2021's Ryzen 5000G chips as long as you don't mind buying a new socket AM5 motherboard and RAM to go with them.

There are three new processors releasing on January 31. The most powerful is the $329 Ryzen 7 8700G, an 8-core CPU with a Radeon 780M GPU. The next step down, and probably the best combination of price and performance, is the $229 6-core Ryzen 5 8600G, which comes with a slightly slower Radeon 760M GPU.

At the bottom of the range is the $179 Ryzen 5 8500G. It also includes six CPU cores, but with a wrinkle: two of those cores are regular Zen 4 cores, while four are smaller "Zen 4c" cores that are optimized to save space rather than run at high clock speeds. Zen 4c can do exactly the same things as Zen 4, but Zen 4c won't be as fast, something to be aware of when you're comparing the chips. The 8500G includes a Radeon 740M GPU.

Enlarge / AMD's Ryzen 8040 series is a lot like the 7040 series but with a higher model number. (credit: AMD)

Both Intel and AMD usually have processor updates to announce at CES in January, but AMD isn't waiting to introduce its next-generation flagship laptop chips: the Ryzen 8040 series is coming to laptops starting in early 2024, though at first blush these chips look awfully similar to the Ryzen 7040 processors that AMD announced just seven months ago .

Though the generational branding is jumping from 7000 to 8000, the CPU and GPU of the Ryzen 8040 series are nearly identical to the ones in the 7040 series. The chips AMD is announcing today use up to eight Zen 4 CPU cores and RDNA 3-based integrated GPUs (either a Radeon 780M with 12 compute units, or Radeon 760M or 740M GPUs with 8 or 4 CUs). The chips are manufactured using the same 4 nm TSMC process as the 7040 series.

There's also an AI-accelerating neural processing unit (NPU) that AMD claims is about 1.4 times faster than the one in the Ryzen 7040 series in large language models like Llama 2 and ONNX vision models. Both NPUs are based on the same XDNA architecture and have the same amount of processing hardware—AMD says that the AI performance improvements come mostly from higher clock speeds.

Enlarge (credit: AMD )

The Ryzen 7000 desktop CPU series was AMD’s first to include a small integrated GPU by default to make the chips more appealing for budget and business desktops where a dedicated GPU would be overkill. These bare-bones GPUs won't play many games, as we found when we tested them , but they're a reliable way to light up a couple of monitors.

AMD said at the time that it also planned to continue making desktop APUs, the company's longstanding terminology for a Ryzen CPU paired with a more powerful integrated Radeon GPU, but we haven't heard anything about a new Ryzen desktop APU since. That could be changing early next year, according to the release notes for a slew of BIOS updates for Gigabyte motherboards . According to Gigabyte, a new series of APUs for socket AM5 motherboards will be released starting in January 2024, and they'll be compatible with any current socket AM5 motherboard running version 1.1.0.0 or newer of AMD's AGESA firmware.

Tom's Hardware has a breakdown of the Ryzen 8000G series, purportedly gleaned from this new AGESA version. According to this, the chips will be named the Ryzen 8000G series, and they'll use the same "Phoenix" silicon that AMD uses in its Ryzen 7040U laptop processors and the Ryzen Z1 series of chips for gaming handhelds.

Enlarge / Unlike Intel's E-cores, AMD's Zen 4c supports all the same capabilities as Zen 4, just in a smaller package with lower clock speeds. (credit: AMD)

AMD sells a lot of 7000-series Ryzen processors for laptops, but the most advanced ones are in the 7040 family . These are the only chips that combine AMD's latest Zen 4 CPU architecture and its latest RDNA 3 graphics cores, whereas other 7000-series laptop chips mix and match various older CPU and GPU architectures.

Today, the company is announcing two new Ryzen 7040U-series chips for thin and light laptops, but with a twist: They combine regular Zen 4 CPU cores with "Zen 4c" cores that are designed to save space rather than hit high clock speeds (via AnandTech ). AMD says that a Zen 4c CPU core has the same capabilities as a Zen 4 core but takes up 35 percent less space in a silicon die.

These new chips are codenamed "Phoenix 2," denoting that they are similar to but distinct from the original Phoenix design used in earlier Ryzen 7040U chips. Phoenix 2 combines two high-performance Zen 4 cores, four high-efficiency Zen 4c cores, and a Radeon 740M integrated GPU with four RDNA3 graphics cores. They also lack the Ryzen AI neural processing unit that accelerates some AI and machine learning tasks in the regular Phoenix chips.

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  This is the Framework Laptop 13. We're using the same pictures as a previous review because it's the exact same laptop. [credit: Andrew Cunningham ]

The Framework Laptop 13 is back again.

My third review of this laptop is probably the one that I (and many Framework-curious PC buyers) have been the most interested to test, as the company has finally added an AMD Ryzen option to the repair-friendly portable. Updates to the Intel version of the Framework Laptop have boosted CPU performance, but its graphics performance has been at a standstill since the Framework Laptop originally hit the scene in mid-2021.

Even AMD's latest integrated graphics won't make a thin-and-light laptop a replacement for a gaming PC with dedicated graphics, but a bit more GPU power makes the Framework Laptop that much more versatile, making it easier to play games at reasonable resolutions and settings than it is on Intel's aging Iris Xe graphics hardware.

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  The Ryzen 9 7945X3D is essentially a desktop Ryzen 9 7950X3D repackaged for laptops. [credit: AMD ]

For a couple of years now, AMD has offered special versions of its desktop processors with an extra 64MB chunk of L3 cache included. This cache is layered over top of the existing CPU silicon, earning it the name "3D V-Cache," and it has proven especially successful for accelerating cache-sensitive software like games.

Today, AMD is announcing the first 3D V-Cache processor for laptops, the Ryzen 9 7945X3D. It's a version of the regular 16-core Ryzen 9 7945HX with that same 64MB chunk of cache added in, giving it a total of 144MB of L3 cache.

The 7945HX is essentially a version of the desktop Ryzen 9 7950X repackaged for use in laptops instead of high-end desktops; while chips like the similarly named 7940HS use one monolithic silicon die for everything from the CPU cores to the chipset to the integrated GPU, the 7950HX uses a pair of 8-core CPU chiplets and a separate I/O die.

Enlarge / The 7040U series has four different CPUs, mostly separated by the number of CPU and GPU cores. (credit: AMD)

Today AMD announced additional details about its new Ryzen 7040U series of laptop chips, which bring the company's newest Zen 4 CPU architecture and RDNA 3 integrated graphics into thin-and-light laptops. Though just part of AMD's ( often-confusing ) Ryzen 7000 laptop lineup, the 7040U processors will be the ones to hold out for if you want to maximize performance without stepping up to a larger laptop with a dedicated GPU.

AMD has delayed the announcement of these chips twice. AMD announced in mid-March that systems would begin shipping in April, and it's currently the beginning of May. One of the laptop makers offering a Ryzen 7040-series laptop, Framework , won't actually be shipping its preorders until sometime in Q3, though the larger PC companies will presumably be able to get things to market a bit sooner.

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  AMD published a number of broad, flattering performance comparisons. Here, AMD compares itself to the i7-1360P, which isn't quite Intel's fastest CPU for these kinds of PCs. [credit: AMD ]

For most apps and games, the most relevant thing about the Ryzen 7040 chips is the improved CPU and GPU performance. The top-end Ryzen 7 7840U combines 8 CPU cores running at speeds of up to 5.1 GHz and a Radeon 780M GPU with 12 RDNA 3 cores. The Ryzen 5 7640U has 6 CPU cores running at up to 4.9 GHz and a Radeon 760M GPU with 8 cores. The Ryzen 5 7540U has the same 6 CPU cores but with a lower-end Radeon 740M GPU with 4 cores, while the Ryzen 3 7440U combines the same Radeon 740M GPU with 4 CPU cores.

Enlarge / AMD's Ryzen Z1 chips are APUs tuned specifically for handheld gaming PCs. (credit: AMD)

Nvidia GPUs power the vast majority of gaming PCs, but for more integrated game systems like consoles and handhelds, AMD's ability to offer tightly integrated Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs has earned it many customers ( and lots of revenue ). The most notable of these is Valve's Steam Deck, which combines a Zen 2-based CPU and RDNA 2-based GPU cores to provide passable performance for most games.

Though AMD designed the Steam Deck's chip exclusively for Valve, today, the company is announcing a pair of Ryzen chips aimed at the growing number of Steam Deck-esque handheld PCs from other companies. The Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme (respectively) combine 6 or 8 Zen 4-based CPU cores with 4 or 12 RDNA 3-based GPU cores, using AMD's latest architectures and a 4 nm manufacturing process to outrun the Steam Deck's APU.

The Z1 and Z1 Extreme are new APUs made specifically for handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck. (credit: AMD)

AMD says ( via The Verge ) that the Ryzen Z1 can run games about 55 percent faster than the Steam Deck, reflecting the improved performance and efficiency of the newer architectures and manufacturing process. Interestingly, the Z1 Extreme's extra GPU cores (12, up from 4 in the Z1) improve gaming performance, but they don't come anywhere near tripling or even doubling it. The extra hardware helps, but we're still dealing with integrated GPUs here, attached to a relatively slow pool of DDR5 that they share with the rest of the system rather than dedicated GDDR6 or GDDR6X memory.