AMD has finally revealed more details about its Athlon and Ryzen 7020 series processors, having previously teased the new chips at Computex earlier this year under the codename ‘Mendocino’. Team red is hoping to remedy several shortcomings that plague many a Windows 11 laptop with the release of these CPUs, by offering performance and features that you wouldn’t typically associate with mainstream and budget models.
Built on a refined version of the same Zen 2 architecture that powers the Steam Deck’s custom APU, this time on a 6nm manufacturing process instead of 7nm, the 7020 series is made up of three SKUs. Both the AMD Ryzen 5 7520U and AMD Ryzen 3 7320U feature four cores and eight threads, boost clocks higher than 4GHz, and Radeon 610M graphics which use RDNA 2 cores. The Athlon Gold 7220U is the cheapest and least powerful option, with just two cores, four threads, and lower clock speeds.
The 7020 series isn’t designed to compete with the best gaming laptop processors, and instead aims to provide great battery life and good levels of performance for everyday computing. AMD claims that you should be able to squeeze 12 hours of juice out from systems running one of these new CPUs, and improved system responsiveness compared to Intel’s offerings.
These chips pack just about all the comforts you could want out of a Windows 11 laptop, including wake-on-voice, fast charging, and enhanced security thanks to the 7020 series’ onboard Microsoft Pluton processor. They also support DDR5 RAM, which should help keep your new portable PC plenty fast across creative and general applications.
While you shouldn’t expect the 7020 series processors to provide an experience similar to the best gaming CPU or graphics card, AMD does claim you can expect more than 60fps in esports games like CS:GO and DOTA providing you’re willing to run them at a 720p resolution. For those looking for a powerful all-in-one solution, keep your eyes out for more details on the 7040 and 7045 series, which we should learn more about next year.
The first laptops to feature AMD Athlon and Ryzen 7020 series CPUs should arrive in Q4 of this year, with models from manufacturers such as Acer, HP, and Lenovo leading the charge. How long we’ll have to wait for them to launch after the desktop versions of the AMD Ryzen 7000 series remains to be seen, but it hopefully shouldn’t be too long after.