AMD Unveils Two Laptop Processing Units

Looks as if AMD has joined the fray for mobile processors. Well, not mobile phone processors, but we are talking laptops. AMD has seen a comeback with the Ryzen 3, 5, 7, and Threadripper CPUs, and the company is only striking harder by incorporating its processors into the laptops, a market dominated by Intel. Yesterday, AMD unveiled its first two laptop processors from Ryzen: Ryzen 5 2500U and Ryzen 7 2700U. Both processors have been designed for ultra-thin laptops, and are designated as APUs, otherwise known as "accelerated processing units." Accelerated processing units combine a CPU and an integrated GPU into a single chip - y'know, for efficiency purposes.

Anyway, AMD is combining the Ryzen mobile processors with the Radeon Vega GPU, which is a clear advantage AMD has over Intel, which is forced to partner with companies like NVIDIA for GPUs.

Expect both processors to feature 15W of power, four cores, and eight threads. The Ryzen 5 2500U, however, sports a base clock-speed of 2.0GHz, though it can be boosted to 3.6GHz. On the other hand, the Ryzen 7 2700U, which has a base clock-speed of 2.2GHz, can be boosted to 3.8GHz.

If you reaaaally want to get a little more technical, the 2500U also offers eight Radeon Vega compute units that can be clocked at up to 1100MHz. And what of the 2700U? 10 Vega CUs, which are clocked at up to 1300MHz. Expect a dramatic improvement over its last generation of mobile chips. Hopefully, this shift will be a great advantage for AMD, which needs to strike fear into the hearts of Intel (and start offering more competitive prices for its products).