AMD Ryzen 7040U series of ultra-thin laptops CPUs revealed: Zen 4 Architecture, RDNA 3 Graphics, Ryzen AI
After announcing high-performance Ryzen 7000 CPUs for mainstream desktop and laptop PCs, AMD is now ready to ship more power-optimized versions aimed at ultra-thin laptops. The Ryzen 7040U series, codenamed “Phoenix”, consisted of four CPU models at launch, based on the existing “Zen 4” architecture with RDNA3 graphics capabilities. Laptops based on these new chips will be announced by major manufacturers in the coming weeks, although there is no word yet on availability.
While much of the Ryzen 7000 family of laptops was first announced at CES 2023, specific details of the new 7040U series have just been announced. According to AMD’s new numbering system, the first number indicates the launch time, the second number indicates the relative power of each CPU in a thread, and the third number tells you which generation of Zen architecture was used. The suffix U represents the thermal envelope target 15-30W. Hence, this series consists of Ryzen 3 7440U, Ryzen 5 7540U, Ryzen 5 7640U, and Ryzen 7 7840U.
The high-end Ryzen 7 7840U features eight CPU cores with multi-threading for 16 threads. It has a maximum speed of 5.1GHz, 12 GPU compute units, and 16MB L2 cache. Both Ryzen 5 models have six cores and 12 threads with 16MB of L2 cache, and either eight or four GPUs as you move down the line. The base Ryzen 3 7440U is a quad-core, eight-thread part with four CUs and just 8MB of L2 cache.
The top two are the first AMD processors to feature Ryzen AI hardware acceleration. This FPGA is for a package developed by Xilinx, which AMD acquired in 2022. The company promises “new magic experiences” and “advanced features” like a Microsoft Studio Effects package in Windows 11 that can reframe video calls based on your head filter background noise, correct your eyes to make it look like you’re looking directly into the camera, and blur the background.
AMD claims leadership in content creation and professional workloads not only against Intel’s 13th generation P-series processors, but also with Apple with its current generation M2. GPU power will be a major selling point, thanks to the RDNA 3 graphics architecture that supports ray tracing acceleration. The laptops’ battery life is also said to be greatly improved thanks to smart power management, though AMD has yet to publish any projected runtime numbers. Real-world performance will of course depend on the laptop manufacturers’ implementations and how they prioritize weight and heat dissipation.