AMD Unveils Ryzen Mobile Processors Combining Zen Cores and Vega Graphics

MojoKid writes: AMD is officially launching a processor family today known by the code name Raven Ridge, but now referred to as Ryzen Mobile. The architecture combines AMD's new Zen CPU core architecture, along with its RX Vega GPU integrated into a single chip for laptops. There are two initial chips in the mobile processor family that AMD is announcing today: the Ryzen 5 2500U and the Ryzen 7 2700U. Both processors feature four cores capable of executing 8 threads with SMT. However, there are differences with respect to processor clocks and GPU specs. AMD's Ryzen 5 2500U has a base clock of 2GHz and a boost clock of 3.6GHz, while Ryzen 7 2700U cranks up another 200MHz on both of those figures. Ryzen 5 2500U features 8 Radeon Vega graphics CUs (Compute Units) and a GPU clock of 1.1GHz, compared to 10 Radeon Vega CUs and a GPU clock of 1.3GHz for the higher-end Ryzen 7 2700U. AMD is making rather ambitious claims for the new processors, and promises some impressive gains over its 7th generation Bristol Ridge predecessors. According to AMD, CPU and GPU performance will see 200 percent and 128 percent uplifts, respectively. AMD is also showcasing benchmark numbers that have the new CPUs outgunning Intel's new quad-core Kaby Lake R chips in spots, along with significant performance advantages in gaming and graphics, on par with discrete, entry-level laptop GPUs like NVIDIA's GeForce 950M. Thin and light laptops from HP, Lenovo and Acer powered by Ryzen Mobile are expected to ship in Q4 this year.

I wonder what their energy use is like...

[ctilsie242]

For laptops like this where battery life is a major factor, I wonder how the AMD side of the house compares to Intel's offerings. Having the GPUs on the same chip might help things.

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[jellomizer]

It may depend. All in one chips, are often well optimized for what they do. However you may get some power savings if you want just a CPU and a different GPU Chip that may perform less. But it is good for its attended purpose. Other then Laptops these chips go into other Devices where their may not need a full display, but just a standard character LCD Panel. Where the GPU is chewing up power that isn't needed.
 

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[K. S. Kyosuke]

It would be much more useful than for just that in laptops if programmers had any sense.

Optimus

[JBMcB]

nVidia was kinda trying to do this with Optimus, where the laptop display would be driven by either the CPU's integrated graphics or the GPU, and you could set it per application. Worked OK, though I never noticed much battery improvement as I mostly used the integrated graphics for the stuff I was doing.

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[AvitarX]

The article says around 50% less than Bristol Ridge

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[AvitarX]

Sorry, I was hoping for more details on one I can get this.

I promise I don't usually read them.

Re:I wonder what their energy use is like...

[jandrese]

These are designed to compete directly with Intel's -U processors. 15W design power, able to be clocked down to 12W or up to 30W depending on the situation. When idle the chip can shut down 95% of the graphics part and 100% of the compute part, leaving just enough to keep the screen drawn. When watching video it can also shut down most all of the CPU for better battery life. This is probably AMD's most aggressively mobile chip ever. It will be interesting to see if the major OEMs bite beyond the meager three offerings at launch.

Re:I wonder what their energy use is like...

[edxwelch]

Anandtech has a good write up of the technical details: https://www.anandtech.com/show... [anandtech.com]
The power management is considerably improved from desktop Ryzen. They are using linear LDO regulators to manage power for each component independently.

Big things, small packages.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see these being used in NAS and media centers where graphics and cost are important without all the heat.

AMD Ryzen ThinkPad please

[ReneR]

Now all we ask for are some quality ThinkPad's with AMD Ryzen, not some cheap ass, low cost, entry level plastic crap that starts to fall apart after half a year or two.

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[jaklode]

mobile Ryzen Pro needs to be out first.

AMD Thinkpads ?

[DrYak]

Well, earlier this year, Lenovo announced ThinkPad A475 (Basically a T470 with AMD bristol bridge 7th gen APU).

Perhaps they will eventually annonce new additions to this family, upgraded to Ryzen Mobile (a probable A485, same base configuration, but an upgraded APU ?)

Let's hope...

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[harrkev]

According to Tom's Hardware, out of the three announced AMD laptops, two of them are going to use single-channel memory. Yeah, that will make AMD look good.

http://www.tomshardware.com/ne... [tomshardware.com]

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[ReneR]

As I mentioned in my other post, I have the suspicion some vendors artificially limit AMDs offerings to receive more PR money from Intel,

Media PC?

[cerberusss]

Just bought an Intel NUC with a Kaby Lake i3 inside, which can do 4K via its HDMI 2.0. I'd love to bring it back and get an AMD system. But nowhere in The Fine Article it says something about HDMI 2.0, is this in the cards?

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[Kjella]

Well the do mention their 4K 60P decoding capability and other Vega-based cards have HDMI 2.0 so I think it'd be weird if they didn't.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously VEGA (AMD) can do 4K or even 8K. Intel's 'lead' is in decoding multiple streams at the same time, not something most people care about. But unless you need a PC you might be better off with one of those ultra cheap ARM based TV boxes.

PS what you should be probably thinking about is whether you need 10-bit, HDR, HEVC 4K decoding at 60FPS. Standard 4k is nothing these days - but other advanced aspects are becoming more commonplace.

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[jawtheshark]

I personally hope for NUC-like devices featuring these. They would make nice Steam Machines, at competitive pricing. NUC is trademarked by Intel, so they won't be called NUC. I'll keep an eye on Zotac Nano series and Gigabyte Brix series.

Can they match Intel's open source graphics driver

[hackel]

The biggest question for me when deciding on any hardware purchase is how well the manufacturer supports the development of Free, open-source drivers for their hardware, either through the availability of specifications or actually contributing to driver development. Intel has become phenomenal at this, to the point where Intel graphics are the only thing I'll consider using at this point. I used to be a big fan of AMD, but it feels like they have not kept up, particularly since they purchased ATI. I would love to see that trend reversed. I'm also extremely concerned about the presence of binary black-box code running on the CPUs in the form of management engines and such. What are the specifics on these CPUs? Can all that garbage be easily disabled? Intel (and Qualcomm) really need some good competition, so I really hope AMD can be a contender, but I don't have my hopes up.

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[TsuruchiBrian]

ATI released their proprietary catalyst/fglrx driver in 2002 .
AMD acquired ATI in 2006.
AMD releases open source AMDGPU driver in 2015.

There is aslo a FOSS radeon driver
According to wikipedia: The free and open-source "Radeon" graphics device drivers are not reverse engineered, but based on documentation released by AMD without the requirement to sign any non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Documentation has been released gradually beginning in 2007

It appears to me that if anything AMD/ATI has been getting be

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[Anonymous Coward]

I am running Fedora 26 which includes an open-sourced amdgpu driver in the kernel.

Running a proprietary video driver is a Holy pain in the rear. Every time the system gets update/upgraded, though a (somewhat) atheist, always need a lot of prayer lest things become cooked.

Running the amdgpu in Fedora desktops has been smooth as silk. My system is AMD FX 8350 + Radeon RX 480; it beats all the myriad of Intel I7 machines that we have (at least on Linux desktops).

Really look forward to the Ryzen mobile. Plan

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[Kjella]

The biggest question for me when deciding on any hardware purchase is how well the manufacturer supports the development of Free, open-source drivers for their hardware, either through the availability of specifications or actually contributing to driver development. (...) I used to be a big fan of AMD, but it feels like they have not kept up, particularly since they purchased ATI.

Huh? ATI was totally closed source, as bad as nVidia or worse. AMD is releasing tons of open documentation, here for example is a 239 [amd.com] page guide describing the Vega ISA and as for the drivers Phoronix said [phoronix.com]:

It's phenomenal seeing the open-source driver support one day-one and that for Linux OpenGL games the performance even surpasses AMDGPU-PRO. This Vega launch is easily the most successful discrete GPU launch ever where it's backed by fully-open drivers.

That said, the problem for open source graphics on Linux is that the gaming market share is falling despite /. posting about how many indie games there are. The latest Steam survey says 0.60% and a whooping 96.6% for Windows, it used to be about 1%. It's hard to get AMD to spend more of their very limited

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[Z80a]

A much better reason to do that is simply to have the work done for em.
I bet they constantly read the open source linux driver for "ideas".