One of the new Ryzen Mendocino. © AMD
This summer, AMD announced new Mendocino processors at Computex. The manufacturer has just formalized their release by giving a few more details on the series. This will now be called Ryzen 7020, corresponding to the new nomenclature presented recently, and intended for laptops at low prices.
Three new processors
Based on the Zen 2 architecture released a few years ago (the current Ryzen 6000s are under Zen 3, Zen 4 has just been announced for desktop PCs, let’s remember), these processors will be able to climb up to 4 .3 GHz in boost for the most efficient of them, and will be compatible with DDR5 RAM. At the bottom of the scale is a dual-core Athlon Gold 7220U clocked at 2.4GHz, then a quad-core Ryzen 3 7320U clocked at 2.4GHz, and finally a quad-core Ryzen 5 7520U also clocked at 2.8GHz. Entry-level processors as we already do, you might say. Well, not quite since the manufacturer is emphasizing here two essential points which could possibly shake up the entry-level PC market.
The three processors unveiled. © AMD
Decent performance and long battery life
First of all, AMD promises interesting performance for office automation and even gaming light thanks to the integrated graphics Radeon 610M based on the RDNA 2 architecture, which is difficult to envisage today on PCs costing less than €500. Its Ryzen 3 7320U has been touted as much faster than an Intel Core i3-1115G4, but it should be noted that it’s an older generation processor. Above all, the manufacturer predicts up to 12 hours of battery use, a nice score made possible thanks to the 6 nm engraving process used on recent Ryzen 6000 processors, and low consumption announced between 8 and 15 W. It will take obviously check these statements during tests, but it is quite possible that some laptops will reach that point.
AMD compared the performance of its Ryzen 3 to the Intel Core i3-1115G4. © AMD
For the moment, we already know three models that will be equipped with these processors: an Ideapad 1 from Lenovo, an Acer Aspire 3 and a 17-inch HP PC. If the promises are kept, low-cost computers could become much more interesting than today for users who only do office work or a little multimedia (light games and video playback, in particular), with performance and autonomy that holds up.