The best Ryzen AMD laptops are, without a doubt, among the best laptops on the market. Intel had some relief with the 11th Generation Tiger Lake CPUs, and the company’s 12th Generation Alder Lake CPUs are performing well, but AMD’s multi-year lead on 7-nanometer chips will continue to make things difficult for Intel. With some high-end gaming laptops sporting RTX 3080 GPUs now sporting AMD processors, no matter what category of laptop you are searching for, there is an AMD Ryzen laptop that will cover all your needs.
Article Breakdown
What is AMD Ryzen?
Ryzen is the brand name for AMD’s most recent – and fastest – CPU family. Ryzen CPUs and APUs were announced in 2017 and are based on AMD’s highly advanced “Zen” microarchitecture, the 8th generation of AMD processor technology, and represent the company’s first major processor introduction since the FX/A6 series approximately five years earlier.
The Terminology Used in Ryzen
When choosing a Ryzen processor or a Ryzen-equipped PC, you should be aware of the following AMD feature names and marketing terms:
- Extended Frequency Range (XFR): Allows you to “overclock” the processor to achieve greater cycle speeds if you have enough cooling (boosting a top-rated Ryzen chip from, say, 3.6 GHz to 4.2 GHz). Some Ryzen-powered systems include additional cooling to allow XFR, while others require it as an add-on.
- SenseMI Technology: An umbrella term for a collection of “learning and adapting” characteristics that allow a Ryzen processor to alter its function based on how it is used.
- Precision Boost: Allows Ryzen to make automatic, highly granular frequency adjustments (25MHz at a time) to improve performance while using less power. When Ryzen detects a workload that requires quicker processing while also perceiving that it has the thermal headroom to run faster for a short period of time, this feature kicks in.
- Smart Prefetch: Learn how your programs run and seek to load data to the processor in advance for improved application performance and workflow. Works in tandem with Neural Net Prediction.
- Neural Net Prediction: Ryzen can adapt from how you use it and practically “read ahead,” predicting the next stages in your work and making path changes to guarantee each activity runs as efficiently through the processor as feasible.
Are Ryzen Processors More Powerful?
AMD returned to the so-called “processor wars” in a big manner with Ryzen AMD processors, which have long been acclaimed for their integrated graphics capabilities and low cost, and have recently struggled in standard performance tests against Intel’s latest chips. However, with Ryzen, AMD added more cores, increased mid-range options to a maximum of six cores/12 threads, and presented Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) technology to force more operations through each core.
What Distinguishes Ryzen?
In terms of marketing, AMD has used the now-standard 3-5-7 CPU nomenclature for the first time to separate base units (Ryzen 3) from mid-range (Ryzen 5) and high-performance (Ryzen 7) processors. But proceed with caution. Because there is some crossover between the Ryzen categories, a high-end Ryzen 3 may be faster than a low-end Ryzen 5 in some circumstances, depending on the specifications. For more specialized applications, there’s Ryzen Threadripper and Epyc, a much more powerful server CPU based on AMD’s new Zen architecture.
But, aside from the marketing, what distinguishes Ryzen? Ryzen offers significant physical improvements over previous AMD processors:
- A 14nm transistor construction that consumes less power and produces less heat.
- Improved intra-processor connectivity for real-time changes to core/thread utilization
- Fewer shared resources – each core becomes increasingly distinct and self-sufficient.
- Overclocking features that allow for the release of more processor cycles for specified purposes
Conclusion
Computer gamers were clearly among Ryzen’s target audience, especially considering AMD’s long history of great graphics. In terms of gaming performance, Ryzen exceeds prior AMD processors by a wide margin, thanks to the better per-core performance and new overclocking features.
As a result, for most gamers, particularly those who don’t build their own custom-configured, game-optimized computers, a Ryzen-powered PC is a smart decision that might save you money.