AMD announces new Zen 4 desktop processors, crowned by the Ryzen 9 X3D, and its new range for laptops

Everyone expected great news from the AMD conference at CES, and the truth is that the firm led by Lisa Su has not disappointed. During his speech in Las Vegas, the processor manufacturer has unveiled new Ryzen 7000 desktop chips, including a new Ryzen 9 that is described as the best CPU gaming of the market, and its new family of chips for portable equipment. There are also new GPUs for laptops gamingbut let’s focus for now on the Ryzen.

New Ryzen 7000 at 65 W and high-performance versions with 3D V-Cache

Starting with desktop processors, the Ryzen 7000 family grows with the addition of the Ryzen 5 7600, Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 9 7900 at 65 W, equipped with 6, 8 and 12 cores respectively and compatible with the new socket AM5 released by Zen 4 architecture.

All of them will come with Wraith fans (low-profile Stealth on the Ryzen 5 7600 and Prism with RGB control on the rest) to make them a bit more competitive.

The real novelty, however, resides in the introduction of 3D V-Cache memory, until now practically reserved for Epyc chips, in generalist processors located in the highest part of the catalogue.

The most advanced of all those announced is undoubtedly the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, which will be equipped with about 150 MB of L2+L3 cache to provide an FPS jump of between 15% and 25% in those games where the limit in the speed is imposed by the CPU instead of the GPU.

Using this high-performance memory will also give a good boost to professional and productivity applications. AMD claims that 7-Zip runs up to 52% faster compared to an Intel i9-13900K and up to 17% faster in Adobe Premiere Pro (PugetBench Live).

Unlike the 65W chips, which will arrive in January, the new family with 3D V-Cache does not yet have launch prices.

Zen 4 hits the laptop market

There are also important news regarding laptop CPUs, which debut Ryzen 7000 processors in low-power, high-performance versions. Its release marks the debut of Zen 4 technology in a market where efficiency is everything and which has been quite welcoming to AMD in recent times. Competition from Intel is however fierce, and the company will have to provide reliable proof of a performance that, from the outset, is expected to be high.

Housed in the Ryzen 7045HX family, the new high-performance processors use the same 5nm photolithography technology as their desktop counterparts. They integrate between 6 and 16 processing cores and incorporate much more L3 memory to improve overall performance (the Ryzen 9 7945HX has 64 MB, which is a real outrage compared to the 16 MB of the Ryzen 9 6980HX), but in return they go up notably its consumption, with a TDP that can reach 75 W.

Compared to the previous generation, the new Ryzen 7045HX provide significant improvements, with jumps of up to 62% in League of Legends.

An interesting fact is that the GPU integrated in these processors is quite poor. It’s based on RDNA2, which has decent hardware, but only two compute units (CUs); Something that shouldn’t be surprising either, considering that these processors will be associated with independent graphics units, whether they are from AMD or Nvidia. In your case, the internal GPU is strictly for doing basic desktop work.

The rest of the Ryzen 4000 lineup is a bit more complex, mixing Zen 2-based budget models, Zen 3+-derived intermediates, and true Zen 4 models, each with different graphics options. It seems that the most powerful without resorting to a dedicated GPU will be the Ryzen 7040, which will combine a Zen 4 CPU with a 12 CU RDNA3 internal graphics unit; Enough to run many games at a low detail level.

The first computers with Ryzen 7000 Mobile processors will be announced this CES and will go on sale in February.