AMD has launched a new series of processors designed to underpin the fastest and most energy-efficient mobile workstations on the market.
Announced at CES 2022, the Ryzen Pro 6000 series is made up of eight distinct SKUs, topped and tailed by the eight-core Ryzen 9 Pro 69050H and six-core Ryzen 5 Pro 6650U, respectively.
The launch of the new range marks the first time AMD’s Zen 3+ architecture features in a CPU for business laptops, bringing with it support for the latest DDR5 memory and Wi-Fi 6E networking technologies.
Battery is king
During a presentation attended by TechRadar Pro, AMD laid out the performance gains achieved by its new Ryzen Pro 6000 CPUs. As ever, the specific comparisons were carefully selected, but nonetheless offered some indication as to what we can expect.
In comparison to Intel's 12th Gen Core-i7 chips, the new Ryzen processors are said to offer up to 17% performance uplift across common collaboration and video conferencing workloads, and up to 15% greater performance for office software.
The attribute AMD is most eager to shout about is battery life, however, which has become all the more important since the transition to a hybrid working model.
“IT decision-makers and professionals have different expectations for their business laptops than they did two years ago. Today, employees want the best experience, all-day battery life and cutting-edge connectivity,” said Matt Unangst, who heads up the commercial client business at AMD.
“AMD is uniquely positioned to help laptop OEMs meet professionals where their expectations are, and we are laser focused on delivering leadership solutions.”
The company says its Zen 3+ architecture offers an unrivalled power-to-efficiency ratio, with up to 45% longer battery life for video conferencing over Microsoft Teams in comparison to Intel’s Core i7-1260P. And overall, AMD claims customers can expect well over 24 hours’ worth of battery life from the new range.
Laptops powered by the Ryzen Pro 6000 series - including the new ThinkPad Z from Lenovo and HP Elitebook G9 – are expected to hit the market later this quarter.
