Comments Locked

16 Comments

Back to Article

  • Farfolomew - Thursday, January 6, 2022 - link

    Are all the new 5000 and 6000-series APUs Zen3 cores, or are there pesky Zen2(+?) cores thrown in as well, like with last year's mobile 5000-series debut?
  • ikjadoon - Thursday, January 6, 2022 - link

    Typo in the chart: The 5400U / 5600U / 5800U are 2021 Cezanne, not 2021 Lucienne. Don't blame ya.

    AMD's confusingly named lineups have only gotten worse and I think I finally understand why: AMD doesn't want people to realise how long it takes AMD to move its architectures from desktop CPUs to mobile APUs (the largest market).

    It's taken 14 months after the Zen3 desktop CPU launch for AMD to finally replace all its Zen2 mobile APUs.

    Intel is doing the same BS: "11th" gen = Tiger Lake mobile, Rocket Lake desktop. "10th" gen = Comet Lake mobile, Ice Lake mobile, Comet Lake desktop.

    At least Alder Lake returns some sanity = 12th gen is always Alder Lake.

    //

    To your Q, the leaks claim Barcelo (Zen3 mobile APU refresh) is replacing Lucienne (Zen2 mobile APU refresh), so AMD should finally be Zen3-base-only in *new* mobile APUs.

    I don't see anything official from AMD claiming otherwise, so unless we see "AMD Botticelli: the Zen2+ 2022 refresh!", I pray Zen2 is wrapped up.

    Unfortunately, like Intel, plenty of now-ancient AMD 2000 (Zen mobile APUs, not the Zen+ desktop CPUs) and 3000 series (Zen+ mobile APUs, not Zen2 desktop CPUs) are still being sold in bargain desktops.
  • [email protected] - Thursday, November 17, 2022 - link

    "I pray Zen2 is wrapped up."

    A bit late to reply, but Ryzen 7000 now includes Zen 2 APUs called Mendocino.

    Ryzen 7000 includes Zen 2, Zen 3, and Zen4 SKUs making their mobile CPUs a complete Clusterf**k as no one will know what they're actually getting unless they thoroughly research the specific chip in their product.

    I'm on the cusp of boycotting AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs for the nonsense that both companies are up to.

    I used to hate Intel, but they're now looking like angels by comparison. Though sadly there's a chance that some 13th Gen products could use existing Raptor Lake dies.
  • neblogai - Thursday, January 6, 2022 - link

    There are still laptops being refreshed (minor chassis changes) with Lucienne, same like they are with Cezanne/Barcelo. For example- refreshed Lenovo Yoga 6 (2022) with 5500U and 5700U. For most users- there is no real difference, Zen2 or Zen3- there APUs are plenty fast, and have nice iGPU too.
  • abufrejoval - Thursday, January 6, 2022 - link

    I'd still hazard that 99.5% of Barcelo is marketing and the illusion of progress.

    What customers might appreciate even more would be choice. And of course there might be those who'd be overwhelmed by having to pick 100MHz here vs. 100MHz there.

    Higher CPU clocks might also help close the distance to team blue, who just love to race up theirs, while the iGPU won't run beat (non-existing) dGPUs anyway.

    I tend to let my 5800U laptop run at 28Watts "smart power", but I'd really like to be able to change that from within Windows and Linux, not just via the BIOS, because that's where I could automate the preferences based on the work context.

    Vendors have so much choice, but they pass on so little to the ones who actually own these devices: That just really needs to change!
  • neblogai - Thursday, January 6, 2022 - link

    Lucienne was actually better than Renoir- tested in the same chassis (notebookcheck), laptop with 5500U lasted almost an hour more in WLAN test, than the same laptop with a 4500U: https://www.notebookcheck.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-5-14A...
    Though, I have not heard any official info, what benefits does Barcelo bring over Cezanne.
  • GeoffreyA - Friday, January 7, 2022 - link

    Yes, Barcelo is quite disappointing.
  • shabby - Thursday, January 6, 2022 - link

    100mhz higher cpu clock, 200mhz lower gpu clock... nice refresh.
  • lightningz71 - Thursday, January 6, 2022 - link

    This "refresh" stinks in my opinion.

    The biggest selling point of these APUs is their in built graphics capabilities. Most of these are going into laptops that have no dGPU at all, so every ounce of performance from the GPU matters. Regressing the clock speeds of the iGPU to provide an ounce of thermal/power headroom for the CPU cores seems quite counterproductive as almost every benchmark that I've seen shows the CPU cores to be plenty fast for their markets and the GPU side to be trailing relative to their competition. Focusing these down to thin and lights with LPDDR4X and pushing the iGPU up to 2000+ Mhz would have helped close the gap with TigerLake products.
  • meacupla - Friday, January 7, 2022 - link

    Well, the article does say "These are just refined for voltage, frequency, and power based on customer requests."

    From the looks of it, I think these are aimed at models that feature extra long battery life, while doing nothing more than play youtube on wifi.

    If you wanted more GPU power, you'd get a R7 6800U anyways. So why make a big fuss about it?
  • arashi - Friday, January 7, 2022 - link

    A lot of people here think they have their hands on the pulse of the market, but time and time again they miss the mark so hard. Dunning Kruger.
  • dotjaz - Monday, January 10, 2022 - link

    You option doesn't matter, you are not buying millions of chips. AMD obviously listened to their customers, and personally I don't see how this is bad since Vega is bad so most of these are actually paired with dGPU anyway.
  • edzieba - Friday, January 7, 2022 - link

    It seems pretty nuts that a "hardware refresh" has as its main defining feature a clock range rebalance that could be rolled out as a BIOS option (as turbo ranges have been updated previously).
  • Hul8 - Friday, January 7, 2022 - link

    It seems pretty nuts that you'd want them to change the performance specs of the APU without communicating that to customers in the SKU name.

    Keeping the numbering still in the 5000s and only adding +25 seems pretty inoffensive to me.
  • ET - Friday, January 7, 2022 - link

    AMD's product pages currently show the same GPU clocks as for the equivalent Cezanne CPUs, so it's basically just a small CPU clock update.

    What's strange is that these product pages no longer mentioned LPDDR4. I wonder if that's just an oversight.
  • meacupla - Friday, January 7, 2022 - link

    99% certainty, it's just an oversight. There's zero hardware change from before the refresh, and it wouldn't make sense that AMD would disable LPDDR4 on these chips, because this refresh is aimed at people who want to get more battery life out of their ultra portable.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now