AMD Zen 3 laptop
While the AMD Zen 2 architecture brought Ryzen 9 processors to laptops for the first time, the market now offers a more ample selection of uncompromised performance and gaming notebooks based on the newer Ryzen 9 platforms. Show Throughout 2021, the best Ryzen 9 laptops were based on the Zen3 Ryzen 5000 Cezanne series of mobile processors, with the Ryzen 9 5900HX on the most powerful models, and the highly efficient Ryzen 9 5980HS and 5900HS processors available on a handful of portable formats. A Ryzen 9 5980HX CPU option was also part the of Cezanne family, but never actually made it into real products. That’s changing as of early-2022, though, with AMD launching the Zen3+ Ryzen 6000 Rembrandt series of mobile processors, with the Ryzen 9 6900HX and 6980HX variation as the new top of the stack, as well as potential HS more-efficient options (Ryzen 9 6980HS and Ryzen 9 6900HS – to be updated). There are few details on the Ryzen 6000 hardware available at this point, and I’ll update the article once we know more, but down below I’ll touch on a few of the specifics that you should expect with the Rembrandt platform in 2022 laptops. This article will shed light on the specs and performance of these Ryzen 9 platforms, as well as provide a detailed list of all the laptops available on this sort of hardware. As a whole, there are mostly two kinds of AMD Ryzen 9 powered laptops out there: those based on the full-power H and HX processors (6900HX, 5900HX, 4900H), with a design TDP of 45+W, and the thinner-and-lighter form-factors based on the HS subseries of Ryzen 9 mobile APUs (5900HS, 4900HS), premium and efficient bins with a TDP of 35+W. Of course, all these can run at various power settings, and their performance varies between each product, as it’s highly dependent on the quality of each implementation, the thermal module, and overall design. You’ll find those particularities explained in our detailed reviews. We’re not going to thoroughly discuss benchmarks results in this article, but we’ll touch on what you should generally expect from the latest Ryzen 9 processors in a bit, with more details on those previously mentioned reviews. And then we’ll jump into those detailed lists of the available Ryzen 9 6900HX and Ryzen 9 5900HX/5900HS laptops, as well as those models launched in previous years and built on Ryzen 9 4900H/4900HS hardware, which are still available in stores, most likely with good discounts. Ryzen 9 5950HX – the no-compromise AMD laptops of this generation So first off, here’s a quick specs sheet of the Zen3+, Zen 3 and Zen 2 Ryzen 9 H and HS processors:
The H and HX models run at higher power and higher base clocks than the HS models, but they are otherwise very similar within the same generation. The difference between the 4000 and 5000 models might not seem like much on paper, but it actually is, thanks to the various IPC improvements and optimizations available with Zen3 cores, plus the extra amount of cache memory. The 5000-series APUs also get more capable Vega 8 integrated graphics, yet that won’t matter here, as all these Ryzen 9 notebooks come with dedicated graphics that take over in GPU-heavy loads. As for the 2021 Ryzen 6000 Rembrandt hardware, this is built on the refined Zen3+ build process and promises further improvements in IPC and design, as well as extras such as PCIe gen4 storage (which for some reason was left out of Ryzen 5000 mobile platforms) and support for DDR5 and LPDDR5 memory, among others. However, we’re still looking at 8C/16T designs with the 6900HX processors, probably running at higher clocks and paired with RDNA2 graphics. This latter aspect should matter on the Ryzen U platforms meant for ultraportable designs, but less so on the H/HX implementations covered here, as most of these are going to be paired with some sort of dGPU anyway. Looking past the updates in CPUs, I’m also looking forward to a broader selection of products exclusively based on AMD and GPU hardware this year, able to harness the AMD proprietary technologies such as SmartShift or FreeSync, etc. We’ve seen SmartShift at work in the ROG G15 Advantage in 2021 with the Ryzen 9 and RX 6800M configuration; with the new CPUs and the RDNA2-based Radeon RX 7000 GPUs, hopefully, AMD will be able to win more SKUs that could provide an excellent value/performance proposition. As for next-gen AMD hardware, the Zen4 architecture will only make it into laptops somewhat late into 2022 or early in 2023, with the launch of the AMD Phoenix and Raphael Zen4 5 nm platform, so expect the Ryzen 6000 Zen3+ processor to power most of the AMD notebooks of the 2022 generation. As a side note on the Ryzen 6000 models expected in 2022, I’m looking For what is worth, Ryzen 7 mainstream alternatives are also available for each of these 9s, still 8C/16T processors, but running and marginally lower clocks. Given the Ryzen 9 configurations are generally expensive, I’d expect most of you to be interested in the mid-range Ryzen 7 models instead, which we’ll touch on in a separate article. In all fairness, the Ryzen 9 platforms are also implemented into higher-tier performance and gaming products and are generally available on the higher-specced configurations. Unlike with the Ryzen 4000 generation that wasn’t broadly adopted and was mostly available on lower-tier laptops with up to mid-range graphics (such as the 2020 Zephyrus G15 and G14, Dell G5 Gaming, HP Omen 15, Lenovo Legion 5), the Ryzen 5000 hardware is now available in top-end designs with up to RTX 3080 graphics (and AMD RDNA2 dGPUs at some future point), excellent screens, uncompromised builds, and the latest features available as of 2021. At the same time, mid-tier and more affordable Ryzen 9 5000 designs are still available, for those of you on more limited budgets. Brief performance insights and numbersWe cannot properly discuss benchmarks and performance on the Ryzen 9 6000 mobile processors as of now. We’ll update in the following weeks once embargoes allow it. — updating For now, here are some performance numbers for the Ryzen 9 5900HX and 5980HS mobile processors in comparison to the other options out there (these are AMD numbers). We’ll update on the Ryzen 9 6000 numbers when available.
And here are some of our own findings on real products that you can find in stores. First, the Cinebench loop that tests the CPU’s sustained multi-thread performance. And here are a couple more tests:
Those Ryzen 9 5000 HS APUs are truly impressive at a fraction of the power required by the 5900HX implementations, and the gap between the 4000 and 5000 series Ryzen 9s is significant in both single-core tests and the longer-duration multi-threaded CPU loads. As for how these Ryzen 9s compare to the Intel options, we’ll cover that topic in a separate article. With all these in mind, here are the lists of the rumored or announced portable 5980HS/5900HS/4900HS models down below, with the full-size Ryzen 9 5900HX/4900H options further down. This article is not a selection of recommended best AMD Ryzen laptops, instead, it includes lists of all the available models built on this specific Ryzen hardware. Deciding on the best pick for your needs and budget is up to you, but our reviews will greatly help. That aside, these lists are a work in progress and we’re constantly updating them with new entries as they are launched, so if you spot something that should be in here and is not, please tell us about it in the comments sections at the end of the post. Portable laptops with AMD Ryzen 9 6980HS, 6900HS, 5900 HS 35W, or HX 45W hardwareThis section is reserved for lightweight and compact designs. Some are built on the efficient 35W Ryzen 9 HS platforms, either the 2022 Ryzen 6980HS/6900HS Zen3+ updates, the 20221 Ryzen 5980HS/5900HS Zen3 hardware, or the previous 4900HS generation. Some of these portable designs are also built on full-power Ryzen H45 specs though. — updating That’s because the top-tier Ryzen 9 5980HS processor is still exclusive to the limited-edition Flow X13 Supernova, while the 5900HS is only available on the 2021 ROG Zephyrus G14/G15. That might change in the future, though. I’ll update this section early into 2022 once the Ryzen 6000 platform is unveiled and I can share more details on the updated and the new designs that we’ll be able to get in the new year.
Asus have exclusive access to the AMD Ryzen HS hardware for the time being (up to Q3 2020), and we’ll update once more Ryzen 9 4900HS ultraportables are available. Full-size laptops with AMD Ryzen 9 6980HX / 6900HX/ 5900HX / 4900H 45+W hardwareThis section includes the full-size notebooks built on the 45+W Ryzen 9 5900HX and 4900H hardware platforms. I’ll update this section early into 2022 once the Ryzen 6000 platform is officially unveiled and I can share more details on the updated and the new designs available in the new year. — updating Also, keep in mind that most of the AMD-based budget and mid-tier gaming laptops such as the Nitro 5, Legion 5, Legion 5 Pro, are not available with Ryzen 9 processors, and only top at AMD Ryzen 7 5800H/ AMD Ryzen 7 4800H configurations, which we’ve covered in this separate article. Furthermore, most of the Eluktronics/Schenker/XMG/Aftershock models based on TongFang and Clevo barebone designs are also not available with Ryzen 9 5900HX processors at the time of this update, most likely due to allocation shortages with the current world situation. That should change in the next few months, and I’m especially looking for a Ryzen 9 configuration of the Prometheus 17 model with the 150+W RTX 3080 GPU, currently the most powerful AMD notebook configuration available out there. Some of these also have a MUX (indicated down below when available), which makes a big difference in games. I’ll also add that while most of these Rzeyn notebooks ship with Nvidia graphics, some models are now available with AMDs Radeon RX 6000M mobile graphics based on RDNA2. Check out this article for more details on the RX 6800M, 6700M, and 6600M chips.
Please keep in mind that we’re constantly working on updating these lists and adding new products as they are released, but errors might slip in despite our best efforts to keep things accurate. If you spot any mistake or any product that should be in here and is not, please let us know in the comments section down below. Furthermore, if you’re interested in the wider range of AMD Ryzen 7 5800H and Ryzen 7 4800H mid-range laptops that are available in stores these days, you’ll find them listed in this separate detailed article. We’ve also reviewed many of the available Ryzen 5000 and 4000 series notebooks here on the site, as well as compared the performance and benchmarks of the several Ryzen H processors and their Intel counterparts in these articles: one and two. |