Silicon wafer sizes aren't what you think, and those impossibly small "3nm" and "2nm" chips you keep hearing about? They're more marketing label than measurement.

The latest predictions by the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), recently broken down by YouTuber TechTechPotato, presents the current timeline for TSMC's 2nm chipsets, as well as Intel Foundry's 18A and 14A process technologies, with A14 (1.4nm) chips expected in 2027 and A10 (1nm) process nodes expected in 2029. IMEC's predictions even highlight the possibility of producing 0.2mm silicon as early as 2039.

In reality, those numbers differ wildly from the physical, measurable transistors on a chip, and we may need to wait until the late 2030s before we even manage to break the 10nm barrier. Here's why.

Silicon wafers aren't as small as the 2nm size would make you think

The current 2-nanometer and 1.8nm silicon technologies in development by TSMC and Intel aren't made on wafers that are 2nm in thickness.

2nm is also not the distance between two transistors on the wafer.

Chip manufacturers tend to refer to silicon wafers based on the minimum feature size achievable on the wafer surface during fabrication. Right now, that size usually refers to the name of the process node rather than any physical feature of the chip.

In fact, since about 1997, silicon process node names have been inaccurate. Intel's 250nm process node actually had a gate length of 200nm. Intel continued this process understatement until 2011, when silicon process nodes dropped to 22nm, with an actual gate length of 26nm.

TSMC and Samsung also adopted the "perception marketing" for silicon in 2018 with the 7nm process nodes, which were similar in gate length to Intel's 10nm silicon.

And the confusion has only continued to spiral from there.

However, if you're looking for a hard physical measurement size for the current 3-nanometer chips, they have a gate length of 16-18nm and a metal pitch of about 23nm.

So, regardless of the current 2nm and 3nm talk, we likely won't see "true" 10-nanometer silicon until IMEC's predicted sub-A2 chipset generation in 2039.

Wafer size and Moore's Law go hand-in-hand

As a quick refresher, Moore's Law is an observation in microchip design, positing that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles roughly every two years. As silicon wafers get smaller, so do transistors, but eventually all things must bow to the laws of physics.

Contrary to its name, Moore's Law isn't an actual Law, but rather an observation in microchip design. Eventually, semiconductors can only get so small before circuit heat becomes a real design issue.

Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, has been against the idea of continuing the Moore's Law trend largely due to the higher thermal constraints of discrete graphics cards, while CPUs like Intel's Lunar Lake chipset have more room to grow (or shrink, in this case).

But with this reminder from IMEC about the true size of silicon wafers, and the expected improvement in chip interconnect architecture and transistor technology, Moore's Law seems far from unrealistic. Whether the trend will continue past the next decade, we can't say for sure, but it looks achievable based on current projections.

That said, the potential number of transistors on those sub-A2 (10nm Lg) chipsets is staggering. The current Intel Core Ultra 9 285K has about 18 billion transistors, meaning the sub-A2 chipsets could have around 300 billion transistors in 2039.

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Looking ahead, 2027 is expected to be the big year for console gamers, with the next-generation Xbox and PlayStation systems both looking to hit the market that fall.

Last week, Microsoft confirmed that the next-gen Xbox console will be powered by custom AMD hardware. On Monday, new rumors indicated Sony's next-gen PlayStation will also feature a custom AMD APU.

In fact, both consoles will reportedly have the same UDNA graphics chip.

Is this an indicator that the console wars are finally over? Will the next console you buy be less about specs and hardware, and more about design and game collection? And is all this AMD hardware actually a good thing for gamers?

Let's take a look.

AMD custom APUs are powering the next generation Xbox and PlayStation

Despite sounding unlikely, Xbox and Sony's next-gen consoles won't be the first to share a link in being powered by custom AMD APUs.

In 2013, both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were powered by AMD's Jaguar CPU architecture.

And, in 2020, both the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles were powered by custom hardware with AMD's Zen 2 architecture.

Clearly, the hardware similarities between Xbox and PlayStation haven't ended the console wars so far, meaning it's likely the console tribalism will continue even up to and beyond 2027.

After all, having the same hardware doesn't make the consoles equal in terms of performance, user interface, or game library. Both Xbox and Sony are still very much looking to go head-to-head in 2027, and keen for one of them to come out the victor, regardless of how much it may sound like the two are aiming for a hardware tie.

AMD's Ryzen Z series powers most gaming handhelds

AMD's gaming dominance isn't just in consoles. AMD's Ryzen Z series CPUs power most handheld gaming PCs, from our beloved Asus ROG Ally X to the Lenovo Legion Go 2 and upcoming Xbox handhelds.

In fact, the MSI Claw 8 is even getting an AMD variant with the Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip, making it a less unique handheld in the process.

Instead of offering a bevy of choices between various systems, the handheld gaming PC market is more like a palette swap. Choose your preferred color/aesthetic, and call it a day.

Of course, there are some other differences in optimization between the various handhelds, but with just the MSI Claw, MSI Claw 7 AI+, and MSI Claw 8 AI+ offering Intel CPUs, the handheld market feels very one-note.

Even in the more typical laptop and desktop PC space, AMD's X3D CPUs have taken over. At least as far as sales go. Things are a bit less grim for Intel on the laptop side, since there aren't as many laptops offering AMD CPUs, making a full CPU comparison difficult.

However, AMD's dominance isn't as cut and dry when looking at general laptop performance.

Is all this hardware homogeneity good for the gaming market?

On the one hand, having fewer hardware versions to optimize for makes things easier for game developers.

However, we're coming up on the third generation of home consoles with AMD APUs, and we still get games that are broken or nearly unplayable at launch. So clearly, the benefits there are not enough to counteract the gaming industry's development crunch issues.

While AMD fans are, naturally, excited to see their brand dominate the market... being at the top isn't always for the best. As competition decreases, advancements in tech tend to stagnate.

Ultimately, complacency is the death of innovation.

Intel's proven that pretty handily over the last several years, and is now playing catch-up on the PC side. Team Blue has had some recent successes, but there's still a way to go.

We can only hope AMD continues to see Intel and Nvidia as worthy competition, so gamers don't suffer from sheer entropy.

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AMD held its Advancing AI 2025 summit in San Jose, California, on Thursday, headlined by CEO Lisa Su's lengthy keynote address. However, it was not what Su said that alarmed me.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined Su on stage to wrap up the two-hour keynote, and their back-and-forth included one short exchange toward the end that now lives rent-free in my brain.

Referencing the recent ChatGPT outages, Su asked Altman, "Are there ever enough GPUs?"

Altman, whose OpenAI is an AMD customer, replied, "Theoretically, at some points, you can see that a significant fraction of the power on Earth should be spent running AI compute. And maybe we're going to get there."

Which sounds great for the AI industry. But what about the rest of us?

Just because we can, doesn't mean we should

Okay, look. I'm not the biggest fan of AI usage. One of the few types of AI that I find myself interested in is Intel's on-device custom RAG AI Assistant Builder. It's a small language model that runs locally and is mostly useful for the kind of busywork no one has time for.

Cloud-based AI data centers fuel my nightmares. The current pace of Artificial Intelligence growth is unsustainable. While Altman claims that users shouldn't be worried about ChatGPT's energy cost, adding AI usage on top of other sources of environmental pollution puts more pressure on a planet that was in dire straits before OpenAI programmed its first chatbot.

AI is not just an industry built on destroying the foundations of its own existence, though that is certainly an economic crisis in the making. It's also incredibly damaging to the environment and to the education of future generations.

AI-generated deepfakes are getting so good that most people can't tell real footage from AI video, leading us into a "future of AI control."

Without guardrails, unchecked artificial intelligence growth is very much an ouroboros.

AI has already negatively impacted most industries. Even if you accept that AI will eventually replace human workers in most roles, then who will buy the products? AI won't be selling laptops, phones, or software to itself. Throw in the ecological and educational damage AI systems can cause, and it's a bleak future we're looking at.

Thankfully, large language model (LLM) AI systems like ChatGPT are becoming increasingly efficient over time. So they might hit critical mass soon, and we won't need to reopen Three Mile Island to run virtual assistants. There are also plenty of companies looking into sustainability solutions for AI systems.

But is it worth it?

We still haven't gotten the "better Siri" we were promised. Agentic AI just sounds like a new way to commit to total social isolation. There may never be a "killer app" for AI.

Are knock-off Studio Ghibli profile photos really worth the cost? Then again, we've still not learned from Microsoft's notorious Tay.ai blunder from 2015.

So perhaps it's time to make like a dolphin and leave.

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AMD’s new Ryzen Z2 Extreme lineup has expanded with a game-changing twist: A built-in AI engine capable of 50 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of on-device AI compute.

The AI power in the new chip, the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme, is well above Microsoft’s 40 TOPS Copilot+ PC requirement, and ahead of Intel’s upcoming Lunar Lake platform and Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon X Elite.

The AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme and another chip, the AMD Ryzen Z2A, designed to extend battery life, were announced on Sunday at the Xbox Games Showcase, which also saw the unveiling of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Asus ROG Xbox Ally X.

What sets the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme apart is its AI credentials and the fact that it delivers this power in a 35-watt envelope, making it suitable for compact handheld devices and ultra-portable laptops.

Built for handhelds, ready for Copilot+

The Ryzen Z2 Extreme is built on AMD’s new Zen 5 CPU architecture, paired with RDNA 3.5 integrated graphics and support for LPDDR5X-8000 memory.

It features 8 cores and 16 threads with up to 24MB of cache and a Radeon GPU with 16 compute units. The NPU is based on AMD’s second-generation XDNA architecture, which handles AI inference without drawing heavily on CPU or GPU resources.

This chip is a direct successor to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, which powered high-end handhelds like the original ROG Ally. It significantly upgrades efficiency, graphics performance, and AI capabilities.

The dedicated NPU is capable of offloading Windows Studio Effects, AI-driven upscaling, noise suppression, and even real-time virtual assistant features, all of which run locally.

A confusing collection of chips?

Not everyone is thrilled by AMD’s approach. Critics point out that the Z2 lineup actually comprises four different generations of silicon under a single name.

PC Gamer emphasizes how Ryzen Z2 A appears to be nothing more than a rebranded Steam Deck’s Van Gogh APU, with old Zen 2 CPU cores and RDNA 2 GPU, despite AMD pretending it’s fresh silicon.

Similarly, the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme is simply the existing Strix Point Z2 Extreme chip with the NPU enabled; there are no changes to core or GPU configurations beyond flipping on the AI engine. Critics argue that this muddied naming strategy makes it harder for consumers to understand what they’re buying.

Others also question the NPU's real-world impact. While the presence of AI hardware brings potential for on-device features such as adaptive gameplay and upscaling, some argue that RDNA 3.5 still lags behind AMD's desktop RDNA 4 and far behind Nvidia’s Tensor core-equipped GPUs.

At best, the benefit is currently theoretical.

Pressure on Intel and Qualcomm

AMD’s new chips are arriving just in time for a wave of next-generation handhelds. Asus has already confirmed that it’s building new devices around the Z2 series. The Asus ROG Ally X is expected to feature the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, while Lenovo’s Legion Go 2 and Go S are set to include both high-end and lower-tier options.

Lenovo and MSI have also confirmed new devices around the Z2 series. MSI is adding a Z2 Extreme configuration to its Claw handheld, while Lenovo’s Legion Go 2 and Go S are set to include both high-end and lower-tier options.

AMD's move into AI-capable handheld chips puts pressure on Intel and Qualcomm. The Core Ultra 7 155H includes an integrated NPU rated at about 11 TOPS, while Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite offers up to 45 TOPS. Intel’s upcoming Lunar Lake platform is also expected to reach 45 TOPS.

By delivering 50 TOPS in a power envelope that works in handheld devices, AMD currently holds the edge in AI performance per watt. Unlike Snapdragon chips, AMD’s processors are x86-based, meaning they offer full compatibility with the existing Windows game library. That remains a major advantage for handheld PCs.

A big win for AI and gaming

Combining high-end gaming performance with serious AI power, AMD is clearly looking to take the lead in bringing AI into the gaming handheld space.

And with strong OEM support and a lineup that covers both premium and entry-level use cases, the Ryzen Z2 series may well power the next wave of portable PCs.

If you're waiting for a handheld that can handle both AAA games and AI workflows, AMD just gave you 50 trillion reasons to pay attention.

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Not all laptop chips are created equal, and that's as true of AMD's innovative Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" APU as any.

AMD unveiled the Strix Halo APU in January as the Ryzen AI Max 300 series, debuting three consumer chipset variants and four variants made for workstation-class machines.

While we normally expect a large performance gap in between, say, a Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 9. But, with a name like Ryzen AI Max, you may not be expecting such a performance gap between the three APUs in the AI Max series.

An APU, or accelerated processing unit, is a chipset that combines the CPU and an integrated graphics tile. AMD coined the term back in 2011. AMD uses APU for all of its mobile chipsets, from the Ryzen AI Max to the Ryzen AI 300 series.

So far, we've seen only systems powered by the 16-core Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip, including the Asus ROG Flow Z 13 gaming laptop.

However, the Ryzen AI Max family offers more budget-friendly options, too, from the 12-core Ryzen AI Max 390 down to the 8-core Ryzen AI Max 385.

Last week, we finally saw the 8-core Strix Halo chipset's performance. An HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a featuring this budget-friendly APU has been benchmarked on Geekbench 6, and the results were uploaded to the Geekbench archives.

So, how does the 8-core Ryzen AI Max PRO 385 stack up against the 16-core 395? Let's take a look.

AMD Ryzen AI Max 385: Geekbench scores

According to results uploaded to Geekbench on May 27, the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a with an AMD Ryzen AI Max PRO 385 APU scored a Geekbench single-core score of 2,489 and a multicore score of 14,136.

We expected these scores to be higher. However, a few factors may explain the larger-than-expected performance gap.

First, there's the hardware matchup (8 cores vs. 16). The Ryzen AI Max PRO 385 also has a lower max frequency than the flagship, which could explain the dip in single-core performance.

The difference in RAM between the HP ZBook Ultra configuration Laptop reviewed and the ZBook scores uploaded to Geekbench could also be behind the score differences, as RAM affects how Geekbench scores are calculated.

AMD Ryzen AI Max: Full specs

What does this mean for the Ryzen AI Max 385?

While the Ryzen AI Max 385 and its professional variant will still be interesting chipsets — as both still feature the larger Radeon 8060S integrated graphics tile — these early benchmarks clarify a few things.

• The Ryzen AI Max 300 series starts at 385 and tops out at 395.
• The Ryzen AI 300 Strix Point series starts with the Ryzen AI 9 365 and tops out with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375.
• The Ryzen AI 7 350 and Ryzen AI 5 340 are both technically on AMD's Krackan Point architecture.

Based on AMD's naming convention, the Ryzen AI Max 300 is designed to sit directly atop the Ryzen AI 300 series. So, as the entry-level Ryzen AI Max chip, the 385's Geekbench scores are just above what we've seen from the top end of the Ryzen AI 300 series.

We're not certain yet how expensive the Ryzen AI Max 385 will be compared to its slightly less powerful Ryzen AI 300 series counterparts, as only two Ryzen AI Max systems are on the market so far.

The HP ZBook Ultra with the Ryzen AI Max 385 starts at $2,599. Meanwhile, the Asus ROG Flow Z13 doesn't have a Ryzen AI Max 385 variant but costs $2,099 for the slightly more powerful Ryzen AI Max 390 chipset.

But based on those prices, you are paying quite a bit more for the Ryzen AI Max chipset and its more powerful Radeon 8060S iGPU.

The real question is, is the Ryzen AI Max worth its high price tag? Right now, that's still up for debate.

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On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social network to condemn Apple’s practices of offshoring jobs to China to manufacture the iPhone and other products in its device lineup.

After threatening an individual tariff of 25% on all Apple products, some analysts are already putting in predictions for how the President’s proposed rate could affect Cupertino’s supply chain, and ultimately what the company would need to charge for products like the iPhone, MacBooks, and more if those threats are made real.

Trump threatens a 25% hike on Apple products

For starters, here is some context on what it looks like when a country tries to apply individual tariffs to companies or sectors attempting to reshore.

What Trump is suggesting, at least broadly, wouldn’t be the first time a government has applied tariffs to a single corporation.

Throughout history, the U.S. has placed tariffs on everything from Chinese-made solar panels to Canadian lumber to protect and ensure the growth trajectory of domestic competitors.

However it is the first time a president has threatened a domestic U.S. company with tariffs for goods it produces overseas.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Friday morning.

“If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”

The fact that no one has ever tried to do something like this before acknowledges just how unprecedented Trump’s threats are.

Some economists say it is damaging to the U.S. consumer and stock market.

As Apple produces nearly 90% of its entire product stack from within China’s borders, this clearly presents a problem for the company.

In February of this year, Tim Cook made loose promises that Apple plans to restore over $500 billion worth of manufacturing to the US over the next four years.

This timeline feels suspiciously convenient on its own, but Trump has decided to put even more pressure on Cupertino to bring jobs back home nonetheless.

What are analysts saying about next steps?

Ahead of Trump’s latest amendment to global trade policy, Dan Ives, global lead of technology research at financial services firm Wedbush Securities, told CNN in April that bringing iPhone manufacturing back to the U.S. wasn’t much more than “a fictional tale.”

“You build that (supply chain) in the U.S. with a fab in West Virginia and New Jersey. They’ll be $3,500 iPhones,” he said.

Ives also addressed the sheer logistical nightmare, saying it would take more than three years and $30 billion just to get 10% of the supply chain back to US shores.

Whether a tariff or the cost of reshoring is applied, the end result is a more expensive iPhone, MacBook, iMac, or Vision Pro for you or someone in your family going forward.

Would you even want a U.S.-made iPhone?

If there’s one tech story that points to the potential pitfalls of Trump’s overall strategy for the U.S. tech industry, it’s Intel.

Over the past half decade, the company has lost almost 65% of its total value, a decrease driven by AMD’s surprise chiplet attack, which threw one of America’s most stable blue chip stocks into abrupt, and up to now seemingly unending, chaos.

AMD had spent the better part of its history trailing Intel in sales, innovation, performance, and reliability. However, the company’s growing partnership with Taiwan’s chip fab specialists, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, created a new attack point.

One where the engineering, programming, and design of a chip could be handled stateside, while TSMC would shoulder the actual chip fabrication.

A split set of duties allows companies like AMD or Nvidia to offshore many of the dirtier, more heavily regulated parts of producing chips to other regions, while hiring talent willing to work in buildings not attached to silicon manufacturing floors in the United States.

Meanwhile, Intel continued to expand domestic fabrication in places like Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, and others for years before the CHIPS Act was even a thing.

Famously, the company stumbled significantly from the 10nm to 7nm production process (to the tune of billions of dollars). AMD eventually seized its opportunity to close the gap between the two chipmakers.

Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t Apple?

AMD’s model isn’t unique, of course. Nvidia, Apple, and even a modernized Intel all have to rely heavily, if not entirely, on Taiwan and TSMC to manufacture a significant portion of the chips backed by their engineering and design efforts.

Designing a product in the U.S. and manufacturing it abroad has become a core component of the NAFTA-driven economic model since Clinton first passed the bill in the 90s. As such, it’s almost strange for Apple to be singled out the way it has been, considering how many of its direct competitors do the exact same thing.

In all likelihood, Trump, who famously said “everything’s computer," is no expert on technology trade. This lack of awareness likely allows underdogs like AMD, and even more confusing tech prospects like Nvidia, to fly under the 78-year-old’s radar in what’s become the status quo for any Silicon Valley company that wants to keep the lights on these days.

Currently, the only company seemingly capable of usurping Apple’s claim to the number one most valuable company is Nvidia, another tech giant that’s doing the exact same thing Trump claims to be against.

However, one thing Apple doesn’t have that Nvidia does is the backing of everyone around them. What’s suitable for Nvidia is good for the world (or the U.S.). So even rivals like Meta, Tesla, and Amazon still line up next to one another to sing the hardware maker’s praises.

At the same time, they also commit to a competing AI arms race of biblical proportions against each other.

Whether Apple’s 25% tariff is real, enforceable, or something Trump will even care about next week is likely a whim left to the courts and whatever Fox News complained about last night.

But if the company does get stuck with a new sticker price, it could face even fiercer competition from rivals like Samsung and lose shares to domestic winners like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia, which are just as complicit in offshoring US manufacturing as Apple but still somehow manage to escape Trump’s ire.

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Of all the chipmakers at Computex, AMD had the most announcements for consumers and enthusiasts. But don’t get too excited — Qualcomm, Intel, and Nvidia set a low bar.

AMD’s Jack Huynh, SVP and GM of Computing and Graphics, hosted the company’s Computex press conference.

While AMD’s conference was held off-site, it just may have been the most interesting speech of the show.

Huynh kicked off with gaming announcements, unveiling the Radeon RX 9060 GPU, new Ryzen AI Pro processors, and improvements to its FSR ("FidelityFX Super Resolution") upscaling and frame generation technology.

So, what’s new from AMD this summer?

FSR "Redstone": Machine learning graphics improvements coming this year

To set the stage for Redstone, Huynh recapped the success of the Project Amethyst partnership with Sony to improve FSR into the fourth iteration.

FSR 4 was released earlier this year with the RDNA 4 Radeon RX 9070 GPUs and will be improved with FSR Redstone when it is released later this year. It is also currently supported in 60 games, with more to come.

FSR Redstone will be available on all RDNA 4 GPUs, and at launch, 40 games will support Redstone super sampling. Redstone brings machine learning enhancements like advanced radiance caching, machine learning ray regeneration, and machine learning frame generation.

These advanced features will become available as an update to AMD's FSR 4 super sampling software later this year.

Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU

AMD’s more budget-friendly Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU features RDNA 4 architecture and offers all the advantages of FSR 4 for just $349 for the 16GB model, and $299 for the 8GB variant.

If you’re hoping to get your hands on the latest AMD graphics card, the Radeon RX 9060 XT will go on sale on June 5, 2025.

While the Radeon RX 9060 XT is a less powerful GPU than the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT, it gets all the same benefits of FSR 4, including frame generation and the upcoming Redstone improvements.

Ryzen AI Pro laptops

Huynh recapped the Ryzen AI 300 series' successes, though some of AMD’s claims are a bit suspect.

AMD claims the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 is 15% faster than Apple’s M4 Pro 12-core CPU. Based on our own testing, this is true on the Geekbench 6 multicore benchmark, but the M4 Pro wins in more real-world benchmarks, like the PugetBench for Adobe suite.

As for new announcements in this segment, AMD has brought the power of the new Ryzen AI Pro 300 chipsets with new devices by Asus.

“If you’re a fan of AMD technology,” Huynh enthused, “you’re a fan of Asus innovation.”

Asus is expanding the ExpertBook P-series lineup to include AMD CPUs on desktops, mini-PCs, and laptops. It is also offering monitors with Free-Sync compatibility.

Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000 series

While AMD’s workstation Threadripper Pro 7000 series CPUs are relatively unmatched in terms of raw computing power, the company is upgrading the chip to a new generation on the 4-nanometer Zen 5 architecture.

With up to 96 cores and 192 threads, the Threadripper 9000 series is the ultimate chip for those who believe “bigger is better.”

While Apple’s Ultra processors and Intel’s Xeon line are in a similar class, neither company has gone as heavily into the over-spec segment as AMD’s Threadripper lineup. Of course, there are often diminishing returns by adding so many additional cores and threads, which is why Intel ditched hyperthreading on the Arrow Lake platform.

However, there will always be exceptions. And that’s the Threadripper gamble.

Previous iterations of the chip have often proved AMD correct in the benchmark stakes, as the Threadripper 7980 outperforms even the Epyc 7773X data center CPU in Cinebench 2024. So if you want the most powerful workstation chip to power your special effects business, like AMD partner WetaFX, the Threadripper 9000 Series is worth the excitement.

And if you need more endorsement than the facts, WetaFX’s Daniel Seah told James Cameron “who is like a god,” that he couldn’t meet to talk about the next Avatar film because “I have to go to Taipei for AMD.”

AMD also announced the Radeon AI Pro 9700 GPU to further support the desktop workstation ecosystem.

What’s next for AMD

AMD has also announced ROCm support for the Radeon RX 9000 series and AMD Ryzen AI Max APUs, with support for additional hardware and Linux operating systems like RedHat coming later this year.

ROCm is also expanding Windows support to Pytorch and ONNX-EP.

AMD announced the most new chips and software support at Computex, thanks to its expanded gaming, professional, and workstation lineup.

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MSI appears to have a new Claw 7 handheld coming.

Since January, there have been rumors of a third seven-inch MSI gaming handheld. This time, powered by an AMD chip.

Notebook Check has that rumor rundown, but the question is: Should we even care about this new Claw 7?

The original 7-inch MSI Claw broke our hearts because of inconsistent performance and poor build quality. This then made the MSI Claw 8 AI+ such a good redemption story.

In fact, I enjoyed playing with the eight-inch Claw 8 so much that I bought the Claw 7 AI+ (A2VM) — an upgraded version of the original with better triggers, joysticks, and Intel's Lunar Lake chipset — with my own, hard-earned cash.

MSI's Claw handhelds have been the flagship Intel-powered handhelds, for better or worse. With the strength of Intel's ultra-efficient Lunar Lake chipset, the Claw 7 AI+ and Claw 8 AI+ offer impressive battery life and strong graphics power.

But this new Claw handheld could swap out an Intel Core Ultra chip for AMD's Ryzen Z2 Extreme. MSI is expected to announce new hardware at Computex in Taipei next week, which could include this new handheld.

While the Ryzen Z-series chips have been a favorite of gaming handhelds since the first Ryzen Z1 hit the Steam Deck in 2022, the Claw's Intel chipset helped differentiate it in a sea filled with AMD-powered handhelds that just felt like a cheap palette-swap.

But what do we know about the Claw 7 A2HM so far? Let's take a look.

MSI Claw 7 A2VM vs MSI Claw 7 A2HM: What's the difference?

The current MSI Claw 7 AI+ (A2VM) features Intel's Core Ultra 7 258V Lunar Lake chipset, with the Arc 140V integrated graphics tile, plus 32GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 7-inch, 1920 x 1080, 120Hz IPS touchscreen display.

Intel's Arc 140V graphics chip offers solid gaming performance at 1080p resolution and Medium graphics settings, which has only gotten smoother with recent Intel graphics driver updates for the Arc platform.

MSI's newest Claw 7 A2HM leaked thanks to a listing spotted on the EU version of MSI's virtual storefront and the Hi-Res Audio log. Neither listings include details on specs.

What we do know is simple: this handheld lacks the "AI+" tagline in the official model name. MSI's current naming convention includes "AI" if the chipset has an NPU, and "AI+" if that chipset includes a Copilot+ level NPU.

The lack of any AI branding has lent credence to the rumor that the new Claw 7 will ditch Intel's Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake platforms. Both Intel chips include an NPU, while AMD's Ryzen Z2 generation does not.

So far, all we know about the new Claw 7 A2HM is that it exists and will likely be announced at Computex next week.

Are there too many Ryzen Z2 Extreme handhelds?

Of course, the Claw 7 A2HM could be an Intel handheld using the Core Ultra 200H Arrow Lake chipset. Intel has hinted at Arrow Lake handhelds arriving this summer, and the MSI product page doesn't give us much other than a screen size.

But if the MSI Claw 7 A2HM is an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme handheld like the Lenovo Legion Go 2, Asus ROG Ally 2/ Xbox handheld, and rumored Steam Deck 2, things could get a bit too crowded on the AMD side of the handheld pool.

Of course, AMD's chips have been popular for handhelds for a variety of reasons, and there are definitely folks who want an AMD-powered Claw. But personally, I think the Claw would just become a slightly more dragon-themed version of the Asus ROG Ally X or Legion Go 2 if we get a Ryzen Z2 Claw.

If the Claw 7 A2HM is an Arrow Lake device, it makes more sense considering MSI's close partnership with Intel on previous handhelds. The Intel Arc 140T integrated graphics chip boasts some serious gaming power and battery life and has a stronger CPU than the Lunar Lake variant, which would come in handy for your next RTS session.

And it's not like MSI has abandoned Intel for handhelds. The Claw 8 AI+ is reportedly getting a new black-and-white color scheme, as demand remains high for the second-generation Claw.

If the Claw 7 A2HM is an Arrow Lake handheld, it maintains the sense of individuality that has kept the Claw brand separate from all the other handhelds. Conversely, if it is a Ryzen Z2 handheld, it will be lost in the sauce.

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On April 1, 2023, Asus unveiled its greatest April Fools' Day prank to date: The ROG Ally. Except it wasn't a joke at all.

Following three days of confusion, Asus would confirm that the ROG Ally, a Windows handheld gaming PC powered by AMD's latest (at the time) Ryzen Z1 APU and embroidered with the company's signature RGB panache, was very much real — and every bit as impressive as its original reveal led us to believe.

In our May 2023 review of the ROG Ally, we awarded it four out of five stars, rating it as one of the best handheld gaming PCs to date.

Since then, we've seen a well-received mid-cycle refresh for the ROG Ally in 2024's ROG Ally X (which scored an even more impressive four-and-a-half stars during our review in July 2024), but a next-gen follow-up has yet to be seen. Until now, that is.

On the verge of Nintendo's first Switch 2 showcase, Asus has swooped in with a gaming handheld reveal of its own, teasing a faster, redesigned, and longer-lasting ROG Ally successor.

Not only that, it may be the first Xbox handheld to hit the market.

The new ROG Ally: Fresh look, faster speeds, marathon stamina

Handheld gaming PCs have exploded in popularity over the last few years, with Valve's Steam Deck spearheading the ultra-portable PC gaming charge since its February 2022 release.

Asus' ROG Ally would follow a little over a year later, and the ROG Ally X a year on from that, both offering a considerable performance upgrade over Valve's Linux-based handheld with a full Windows 11 experience to boot.

Since then, the Ally and the Ally X have been the handhelds to beat, fending off stiff competition from the likes of the Lenovo Legion Go and the MSI Claw 8 AI+.

Asus' freshly-teased handheld hopes to build upon that success, with the hardware's trailer promising a fresh look, faster speeds, more capacity, and marathon stamina.

The new ROG Ally's secret weapon?

While unconfirmed, key to these claimed upgrades could be AMD's new Ryzen Z2 Extreme APU, revealed during CES 2025, a next-gen version of the Z1 Extreme chip that powered the original Ally.

We've already seen the Z2 family of APUs (primarily designed for entry-level handhelds) in action through the Z2 Go of Lenovo's Legion Go S.

However, the Z2 Extreme is a different beast entirely, built on the Zen 5 architecture with RDNA 3.5, 8 CPU cores (16 threads), 16 GPU cores, a 24MB cache, and a cTDP of 15-35W.

As AMD's Director of Product Marketing, Adam Kozak tells Laptop Mag, on the difference between Z2 Go and Z2 Extreme performance, for "the guys who want to play the latest games with the full settings... It's night and day."

An Ally to the Xbox

Also of note from the new ROG Ally tease was a reply from Microsoft's official Xbox account, suggesting that the brand may somehow be involved with the new handheld.

It's been previously reported that Microsoft is working with Asus to develop an Xbox branded handheld ahead of a "true" Xbox handheld to be launched alongside a new generation of consoles in 2027.

While this means that the new ROG Ally will likely remain as a Windows gaming handheld, similar to the original, Microsoft's recent changes to the Xbox app that position it as a hub to access all games on a system could see it positioned as a front-facing launcher for the new Ally, and tie-in to the consoles "fresh look" claims alongside a redesigned chassis.

However, we'll need to wait to hear more from Asus or Xbox to be certain of how far this collaboration goes (if at all). There's still a chance that the new ROG Ally could be its own machine, with an Xbox-branded alternative available in the future.

Pricing and availability, along with the full reveal of the handheld console, remains to be seen.

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Since its launch in 2022, Valve's Steam Deck has racked up a considerable audience and left a lasting impression on the gaming scene. However, three years later, its aging hardware is starting to show, with several manufacturers already on their second iterations of PC gaming handhelds. So, can we expect a Steam Deck 2 to follow? I, like you, dared to dream, but recent speculation may have set us both up for disappointment.

My latest beacon of hope came in the form of a "Plus" version of the custom Aerith APU that powers the Steam Deck, spotted within a shipping manifest by X user Olrak29_.

It's not the hardware leap many of us were hoping for, but the Aerith Plus APU does boast higher clock speeds and faster LPDDR5X memory support. It's not much, but it's something. And for those eagerly awaiting a Steam Deck successor, something is enough to spark speculation.

Sadly, while the internet picked up this ball and ran with it, fueling speculation of a Steam Deck 2 reveal on the soon-approaching horizon, a Valve employee has thrown a wet blanket over these embers of excitement. Aerith Plus isn't set for the Steam Deck 2, after all.

So, what is it for?

Enter that one Valve employee who keeps dashing my Steam Deck 2 dreams

How do we know the Aerith Plus APU isn't Steam Deck 2-bound? Enter Pierre-Loup Griffais: Valve coder, Steam Deck project member, and a man seemingly hired to ensure there's always a penny placed on the track, ready to derail my own personal hype train at every turn.

Posting to his Bluesky account, Graffais wasted no time shutting down speculation over the APU ahead of the weekend with a clear and unmistaken two-word message: "Not happening."

This isn't the first time Griffais has publicly set the record straight. They previously took to Bluesky to smother suggestions that freshly revealed Ryzen Z2 APUs could power a Steam Deck follow-up in January, once again clearly stating: "There is and will be no Z2 Steam Deck." This definitively suggests that AMD's new APUs are not the "Generational leap in compute" that Valve designer Lawrence Yang claimed would trigger the company to consider developing a second-generation Steam Deck in an October 11 interview with Reviews.org.

With AMD having provided the horsepower that propelled both the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go with its Ryzen Z1 APUs, it felt as if this new generation of Z2 chips would provide Valve with the perfect opportunity to play catch-up with its contemporaries. However, part of me wonders: If not now, when? And will it happen at all?

There are other options, this is one of many

Yes, the Steam Deck 2 may be further afield than we'd have hoped for by now, but that's not to say we don't have options in the meantime. Perhaps the closest thing to a Steam Deck 2 alternative is the Lenovo Legion Go S.

Lenovo's follow-up to the Legion Go makes use of an AMD Z2 Go APU, features an 8-inch, full-HD touchscreen display with a 120Hz refresh rate, up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, with an improved 12-Core RDNA 2 GPU and expanded 55.5Whr battery.

Better still, while the version currently available to purchase is a Windows gaming handheld PC like its predecessor, the Legion Go S is set to become to first third-party handheld licensed to run Valve's impressive Linux-based SteamOS later this year — offering the "feel" and experience of the Steam Deck with several hardware refreshes.

If not the Steam Deck 2, what is Aerith Plus for?

Still, the question remains: If the Aerith Plus APU isn't destined for the Steam Deck 2, what is it for?

Honestly, we can't say for certain. However, it doesn't seem powerful enough to power Valve's other rumored hardware, a standalone Deckard PCVR headset, and a revival of its Steam Machine.

My best guess is that the Aerith Plus APU is destined for third-party SteamOS handhelds. It could provide them with a serviceable performance boost to differentiate them from the Steam Deck without causing Valve any immediate headaches over how best to handle its Steam Deck verified badge as hardware sporting different and more powerful processors comes into play.

While the Aerith Plus SPU won't power a second-generation Steam Deck, I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility that it could be part of a future hardware refresh for the handheld. But that suggestion only leaves me open to more pellets of disappointment as Pierre-Loup Griffais readies his blunderbuss to once again pick off my prayers on their way to heaven.

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Integrated GPUs, built into the processor of your computer, have long been seen as the bottom rung of the gaming hardware ladder — pigeonholed as ultra-low-tier performers best suited for those who enjoy gaming at frame rates comparable to a slide projector.

It's discrete graphics, separate processors with their own dedicated memory, that get most gamers swooning, typically offering unrivaled performance in games, video editing, and more.

However, AMD APUs have been slowly breaking that mold, not only powering quality handheld gaming PCs like Valve's Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally X but now directly challenging discrete mobile GPUs from Nvidia following early benchmarks of its new Ryzen "Strix Halo," AI Max chipset.

AMD's Ryzen Strix Halo dazzled us in January, winning our best-in-show award during CES 2025, and with good reason. Outfitted with up to 128GB of memory that can be weighted between CPU, iGPU, or NPU as required, the new Ryzen AI Max chipsets showcase some phenomenal performance, with leaked benchmarks from earlier this month appearing too good to be true.

With the curtain rising on Ryzen AI Max 300 reviews, it appears, in this particular instance at least, that what glitters, is gold.

AMD Ryzen Strix Halo performance: The numbers don't lie

According to several benchmarks shared by Hardware Canucks, AMD's Ryzen Strix Halo, with its iGPU, doesn't just clip at the heels of Nvidia's RTX 4070 mobile GPU — it outperforms it in several gaming tests.

In particular, the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 APU was able to run Cyberpunk 2077 in 1600p resolution at its highest graphics settings at an average of 39.4 frames per second (fps), while an RTX 4070 mobile GPU using the Ryzen 9 8945HS processor managed an average of 37.3 fps.

Similarly, AMD's Strix Halo APU also outperformed its discrete GPU counterpart while running Bethesda's Starfield in 1600p resolution at its highest settings, running at an average of 36.8 fps compared to the RTX 4070's 34.7 fps.

It wasn't a clean sheet of victories, however. The RTX 4070 retained the lead in titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, Doom Eternal, and Rainbow 6: Siege — though not by a wide margin.

Beyond gaming, the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 was also able to reach near Apple M4 Pro levels of performance in the Cinebench 2024 multi-core benchmark, netting a score of 1,669, just shy of the M4 Pro's 1,715 rating.

Is the iGPU back?

For something to come back, it generally needs to go away first. To give iGPUs their credit, they've been capable of some solid feats in recent years, and have serviced many budget gamers before that.

However, the integrated GPU is definitely having something of a revival period, with not only AMD showcasing some impressive gaming flair but Intel also, whose Arc 140T iGPUs found in its Arrow Lake chips also impressed during our Elden Ring gaming test using the Asus Zenbook Duo.

There's still some ways to go before the iGPU stands to challenge more powerful discrete GPUs in laptops, and even mid-level GPUs when it comes to Nvidia's ray-tracing prowess, but the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395's performance and lower power draw paint a bright future ahead for integrated graphics and could go some way to eliminating the stigma surrounding these options.

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Chipmaker AMD quietly revealed on Tuesday that it had passed a mind-boggling gaming milestone, but the announcement came amid less-rosy numbers about its overall gaming business.

The Santa Clara-based company released its fiscal year earnings report for 2024, revealing the company surpassed 100 million shipped units during the quarter that ended in December. Those units are semi-custom processors that power most of the gaming consoles on the planet.

AMD makes custom chips for the Sony Playstation 4 and PlayStation 5, the latest Xbox consoles, the Asus ROG Ally, the Lenovo Legion Go, the Acer Nitro Blaze, and the Steam Deck.

The milestone may be overshadowed by the news that AMD gaming revenue was down 59% year over year in the fourth quarter.

During the three months ending December 2024, AMD's gaming segment earned $563 million, compared to $1.4 billion in the same period in 2023.

Even though the gaming revenue beat estimates of $498 million for the quarter, that's still a massive drop.

AMD CEO Lisa Su said that in the months ahead, she expects gaming revenue to be down from the previous quarter but less down than other parts of AMD's business.

"We would expect gaming business will be down a little less [than the corporate average]," Su told investment analysts during a Q&A session following the release of earnings.

"That's a little atypical from a seasonality standpoint, but we’re coming off of a year when there was a lot of, let’s call it, inventory normalization, and now that inventory is normalized, we would expect [gaming revenue in Q1] would be down a little bit less than the corporate average."

(Inventory normalization can be understood as a reduction in the production of chips, perhaps because of lower demand).

Is the gaming console market cooling off?

So, is the gaming console market cooling off? Let's look at Sony.

In November, Sony executives told analysts during an earnings call that they were forecasting selling 18 million PS5s during the 2024 fiscal year, despite questions about the price of the PS5 Pro. (Sony's 2024 fiscal year ends on March 31, 2025.) In the 2023 fiscal year, Sony sold 20.8 million PS5s.

The PlayStation 2, the top-selling console of all time at 160 million units sold, was equally as successful as Sony says the PS5 will be in 2024: Sony shipped 18.07 million PS2s for the fiscal year ending in 2001.

Essentially, the numbers show that demand remained largely the same regarding PS2 in 2001 as it does the PS5 in 2024.

And in business, if you're not growing, you're cooling. Su and AMD's forecast for gaming revenue in Q1 — that it will be down slightly from the previous quarter — may be the latest signal that the console cooldown continues.

The upshot of this news is the flurry of new handheld gaming PCs — many of which use semi-custom AMD processors — that are coming onto the market. Almost the power of a gaming laptop in a handheld form factor could usher in a new era of gaming that relies less on the console and is more about the handheld.

And if you're feeling the console cooldown, you could always try Laptop Mag's preferred device, the gaming laptop.

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From your smartphone to your gaming rig, silicon is the silent conductor making all of your computing possible, and the driving force behind modern technology. Laptop Mag's Silicon Survey meets with the minds behind some of tech's most powerful computer chips.

However, today's processors target more than Moore's Law. CPU, GPU, SoC, and APU designs are only half of the story following the emergence of powerful generative AI software, after all.

Join us as we take a deep dive into the latest trends shaping the next wave of computing and gain insight into how companies like Apple, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia, ARM, and MediaTek see this space evolving over the coming years, and the architecture, engineering, and innovation needed to make it happen.

Welcome to Laptop Mag's Silicon Survey 2025.

The only constant is progress

Opening words from special issue writer, Madeline Ricchiuto

Whether or not Moore’s Law is actually dead, all of our interviewees for this special issue agreed that performance gains will continue long into the future.

But what that means, and how we get there differs by chip maker. Intel’s Robert Hallock tells Laptop Mag, when it comes to hardware performance and efficiency, “You can't go backwards.”

The only constant is progress. (Read more)

"MediaTek is the number one provider of Arm-based Chromebooks": Adam King unpacks on the Chromebook boom

With years of experience creating processors for the ChromeOS platform, MediaTek looks to maintain its grip on Chromebooks despite competition from Qualcomm

MediaTek chipsets power plenty of smartphones and tablets, but its in Chromebooks that the brand truly takes the lead. As Adam King tells Laptop Mag, "MediaTek is the number one provider of Arm-based Chromebooks."

Despite competition from Qualcomm's budget-friendly Snapdragon X chipset, MediaTek's ChomeOS head start alongside a push to make performance affordable through its Helio, Dimensity, and Kompanio families of processors could be key to its continued success.

The company looks toward a bright future, with King telling Laptop Mag: “MediaTek will keep finding new ways to add more computing power to our chipsets.” (Read more)

“The consumer wins either way”: Arm’s Chris Bergey on the rise of Arm computing and the rivalry with x86

Smartphone success stories are now shaping the computing industry

Arm’s Senior Vice President and General Manager, Client Line of Business, Chris Bergey, tells Laptop Mag about the advantages of Arm technology and how it has shaped the world of silicon — from phones to tablets and Chromebooks to home PCs.

Thanks to the success of Apple’s M-series silicon and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Series, Arm has dominated much of the computing industry in the last few years.

But Arm has done more in the last few years than just making new CPU cores. Arm PCs have become more powerful and efficient than their x86 counterparts, pushing Intel and AMD for further innovation. (Read more)

“AI is dramatically reshaping many industries, including gaming”: Nvidia’s Jesse Clayton muses on the AI-powered future of gaming

If any company can get gamers behind AI, it would be Nvidia.

How much will AI shape gaming in the years ahead? A prediction from Jesse Clayton, a 19-year veteran of Nvidia and its Director of Product Management and Product Marketing for Windows AI, has the answer:

“AI is dramatically reshaping many industries, including gaming ... These neural rendering innovations are laying the path for the future of gaming.”

Nvidia’s GTX and RTX gaming GPUs have dominated the field for years. While AMD and Intel are now both players in the discrete GPU market, most gamers will still opt for the Nvidia card. Laptop Mag hosts an exclusive interview with Clayton to find out the secret to Nvidia's success. (Read more)

Nvidia in action: Top reviewed Nvidia RTX gaming laptops

• READ MORE: Best gaming laptops in 2025: Our top picks after hundreds of hours of testing, reviewing, and gaming

MacBooks "without any compromises": Apple's Doug Brooks says performance and battery life dominance will continue as M5 rumors emerge

The Apple veteran exclusively tells Laptop Mag about the future of Apple Silicon — and how Apple arrived at this moment.

One of Apple’s biggest selling points is its quality control.

Because of Apple’s end-to-end authority over its iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks — from the silicon level up to the finished product — the build quality has been difficult to match.

Doug Brooks, who started working at Apple as a Systems Engineer in 1994 and is now Product Manager for Mac Hardware, is enthusiastic about the future, particularly in two areas: Apple’s ability to maintain its dominance in the performance and battery life arenas. And with Apple’s M5 silicon chips reportedly going into mass production, the trend of Apple excellence is looking bright. (Read more)

Apple in action: Top reviewed Apple laptops

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“AI tasks will happen automatically and seamlessly”: Qualcomm’s Kedar Kondap believes AI is the future of computing

Despite legal trouble and fierce competition, the second generation of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X PCs will continue to vie for dominance in 2025

Qualcomm helped define the AI PC market in June 2024 with the release of its Snapdragon X Elite processors, and leaders at the San Diego company hope to continue surfing this wave well into 2025 and beyond.

Senior VP and GM of Compute and Gaming, Kedar Kondap is confident about the future of Qualcomm, noting the company’s early performance leads over rival chip makers like Intel and AMD, alongside the growing potential of AI. From Kondap’s point of view and from the outside, Qualcomm seems well-positioned to compete for dominance in Windows laptops for years to come. (Read more)

Qualcomm in action: Top reviewed Qualcomm laptops

• READ MORE: Best AI PCs in 2025: 6 laptops optimized for the latest AI features

“Not everybody has a killer app for AI yet”: Intel’s Robert Hallock opens the company playbook on AI, NPUs, and more

Performance, efficiency, gaming, and AI are all cornerstones of the Intel roadmap

To say 2024 was a rough year for Intel may be an understatement. But, as Intel’s Robert Hallock told Laptop Mag, “You can't go backwards. That's unacceptable.”

Even after various setbacks in the past year — from the beleaguered Arrow Lake desktop launch to speculation about the company’s direction and the resignation of CEO Pat Gelsinger — Hallock, the company’s Vice President and General Manager of Client AI and Technical Marketing, says Intel has no choice but to look forward. (Read more)

Intel in action: Top reviewed Intel laptops

• READ MORE: Best laptops in 2025: Our top 10 recommendations in January

"Boring stuff changes the world": AMD's Jason Banta on what to expect from AI and AMD in the future

Team Red had a clear lead on Intel in 2024, but can AMD maintain the momentum?

“Boring stuff changes the world,” AMD’s Jason Banta, Vice President and General Manager of the Client OEM group, tells Laptop Mag, insisting that what we’ve seen from AI and Microsoft’s Copilot+ suite is only the beginning.

While Microsoft's initial suite of AI tools and features for Windows 11 may seem boring, they're part of a growing snowball effect that could (one day soon) drastically impact the performance and potential we eke out from our hardware and, in turn, the experiences we gain from it. (Read more)

AMD in action: Top reviewed AMD laptops

• READ MORE: The best AMD Ryzen laptops in 2025: 6 top picks we've tested and reviewed

Can we keep expecting 20-30% increases in hardware performance and efficiency, generation to generation?

As part of our 2025 Silicon Survey, Laptop Mag spoke with executives from AMD, Apple, Arm, Intel, MediaTek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm to determine if we can expect to see performance and efficiency plateaus in the coming years.

You’ll be able to catch these exclusive interviews in full throughout the week in Laptop Mag’s Silicon Survey special issue. And while the microchip world may be divided on whether or not Moore’s Law is actually dead, all of our interviewees agreed that performance gains will continue long into the future.

But what that means, and how we get there differs by chip maker. Intel’s Robert Hallock tells Laptop Mag, when it comes to hardware performance and efficiency, “You can't go backwards.”

The only constant is progress.

What is Moore’s Law and why does it matter for chips?

Moore’s Law is a trend in microchip design, first recognized by Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore. Moore observed that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles roughly every two years. In 1965, Moore predicted that this trend of doubling transistors would continue for the next decade. However, his observations have stood as a guiding principle of processor design for the last 60 years.

While the end of Moore’s projections proving accurate has been heralded many times, Computex 2024 saw the most recent resurrection of the “Moore’s Law is Dead” debate among chipmakers.

Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang is the largest proponent of the idea that Moore’s Law is dead, while former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger argues otherwise. After all, Intel’s Lunar Lake chips prove that you can still double the number of transistors on an integrated circuit, even in modern computing.

Taking a long, hard look at raw computing power and efficiency from all the major chip makers over the last several years, we wonder: can we expect to keep seeing the same major performance increases between generations of silicon?

Eventually, physical hardware scaling will have to change. Moore’s Law is only a trend in outcome, not a bankable guarantee. Semiconductors can only get so small, and microchips can only house so many transistors before the actual and inarguable laws of thermodynamics have to step in. TSMC is already hard at work on a 2-nanometer process for semiconductors, but how small can a semiconductor get before it cooks under the pressure?

As our interviewees highlighted, microchip performance is about more than transistors. Chips aren’t just hardware. To run a new chip, you need new drivers and software.

With the rise of AI, Nvidia’s argument has changed from “Moore’s Law is dead” to “Our systems are progressing way faster than Moore’s Law” because of artificial intelligence, which has been the biggest force behind Nvidia’s new RTX 50-series “Blackwell” GPUs.

Regardless of the approach, we can expect major performance gains to continue for several generations

Part of the argument that “Moore’s Law is Dead” can be traced back to the industry itself.

“I think the industry is always cyclical sometimes. It's always a balance of performance per Watt, right?” Intel’s Robert Hallock tells Laptop Mag. “Sometimes the industry can unlock a new process node or a new technology and performance jumps way up, and then you can't do that every year… I firmly believe there are still leaps and bounds out there, that we've by no means hit the collective end of our ropes on performance.”

However, it isn’t just a hardware versus software debate, as chipmakers have now adopted a dual approach.

“Chip manufacturing technology is improving at a fairly steady rate, enabling processors to physically shrink in size every two or three years. Every size reduction enables us to improve power efficiency and add more transistors,” Qualcomm’s Kedar Kondap tells Laptop Mag.

But Kondap also admits that AI and the introduction of the NPU in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series processors has “created new performance metrics and introduced AI capabilities into both the mobile and PC markets.”

Nvidia has long held that optimization and AI are the way of the future for continued performance. After all, Nvidia’s new RTX 50-series GPUs are still using the same 4N (4-nanometer) node as the RTX 40-series GPUs, because “The 4N process provides us with the best combination of performance, power, and price for our GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs” Nvidia’s Jesse Clayton expounded.

That said, refusing to place all of its eggs in one basket, Clayton also makes Nvidia's wider goals apparent, stating, “hardware is not the only important aspect … NVIDIA’s AI software platform, which has been in development for more than a decade, enables developers to get the most out of their RTX GPUs.”

AMD’s Director of Product Marketing, Adam Kozak, may have been the most succinct. Even when using older architecture and older nodes, you can still see major performance improvements, because “The software can now do more tricks.”

While chip makers like Intel and Qualcomm strive to prove that Moore’s Law still has life left in it, others focus on fine-tuning output, using software and AI to push performance past potential plateaus. And we’ll see these improvements coming throughout 2025 and over the next few years.

Laptop Mag invites you to read about these improvements and more as we publish a series of interviews with AMD, Apple, Arm, Intel, MediaTek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm throughout the week as part of our Silicon Survey special issue.

“Boring stuff changes the world,” AMD’s Jason Banta, Vice President and General Manager of the Client OEM group, tells Laptop Mag, insisting that what we’ve seen from AI and Microsoft’s Copilot+ suite is only the beginning.

“They [Microsoft] are looking at all aspects of the way you interact with a PC and saying, okay, how can we apply AI models, how can we use AI to improve this experience,” and that goes beyond email summaries and AI-generated desktop backgrounds.

AI isn’t everyone’s favorite buzzword. However, advancements in AI computing have helped shape many of AMD’s recent successes, and Microsoft's exploration of AI will be one the company looks to mirror as it expands on the capabilities of its hardware.

While Microsoft's initial suite of AI tools and features for Windows 11 haven't clicked with everyone yet, they're part of a growing snowball effect that could (one day soon) drastically impact the performance we eke out from our hardware and, in turn, the experiences we gain from it.

It's this potential that AMD hopes to tap into, and with major overhauls to the company’s CPU and GPU lineup, and great efforts to bolster the software that takes advantage of it, 2025 looks like a big year for Team Red. So, what can we expect from AMD in the future?

The AMD Advantage

AMD is somewhat unique as far as PC chipmakers go. The company has robust CPU and GPU lines, while Nvidia and Intel are playing catchup on at least one processor front. AMD has also been implementing NPUs into its mobile CPUs for the past three generations. Qualcomm is a new player in the computing space and hasn’t jumped into either the gaming or discrete GPU sectors yet.

When we look at the best AI PC chips of 2024 and the upcoming 2025 processors, AMD is a key player. Our Best in Show Laptop Laurel winner for CES 2025 was the Ryzen AI Max chipset for good reason.

But what makes AMD’s approach to mobile chips different from Intel's or even Qualcomm's?

AMD’s Director of Product Marketing Adam Kozak explained that the difference between the Ryzen Z2 Go and the Ryzen Z2 Extreme is “night and day" because the “software can do more tricks.”

The same can be said for any hardware using AMD’s new Zen 5 architecture compared to its Zen 4 predecessor. “The opportunity for us, at least, is to help partners get devices that have longer battery life, performance, and then we’re adding more and more features to that software that we’re pulling down from our discrete [GPU] cards.”

Part of the benefit of using AMD processors is the cross-pollination of development, allowing for hardware advancements in discrete GPUs to be distilled into integrated graphics chips on a laptop CPU or handheld gaming PC chip.

AMD AI and Gaming

While many enthusiasts, including myself, like to view AI as separate from gaming, there is some overlap. AMD’s Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) frame-generation technology is a type of AI, the discrete GPU is still the most powerful AI accelerator we have, NPC behavior is AI, and Nvidia’s ACE system can further augment NPC behavior using generative AI to deliver dynamic text and speech outcomes.

But that’s not the only way AI can be used to augment our gaming lives. Banta hints that AI could be used to completely change the way we interact with game worlds, telling Laptop Mag, “Maps are mastered largely static… those environments are somewhat static, somewhat consistent, and that has its advantages as far as predictability of the experience, but it has some disadvantages, and it’s kind of repetitive."

Offering a suggestion on how AI can help to overcome these disadvantages, Banta tells Laptop Mag, "I think world generation is a very natural extension to some of the generative AI concepts we’re seeing right now, because being able to pick up a game, and maybe it’s a game you’re familiar with, and getting an entirely new experience.”

That’s not a pie-in-the-sky dream. In fact, it may be closer to a reality than you'd think. Banta continues, revealing to Laptop Mag, “We’re already having conversations with game engine developers and game developers who are looking for ways of leveraging models that are more generative in nature, whether it’s the world, the characters, the language… there’s a lot to explore there that we’re seeing right now.”

Looking ahead: The AMD roadmap

While Intel and Qualcomm garnered much of the AI PC fanfare in 2024, AMD has incorporated NPUs into its mobile processors since the “Phoenix Point” Ryzen 7000 series launched in 2023.

Those small NPUs helped AMD level out performance against Intel and, with further refinement in the 8000 “Hawk Point” and Ryzen AI 300 “Strix Point” designs, could take the fight to arm-based systems like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and Apple’s M-series Silicon.

The Ryzen 9000 “Granite Ridge” desktop CPUs couldn’t stay on shelves, snatched up by performance enthusiasts in the wake of Intel’s beleaguered Arrow Lake desktop launch.

At CES 2025, AMD announced further additions to its current generation of Ryzen processors, which includes more CPUs in the Ryzen AI 300 series, plus the Ryzen 9000 “Fire Range” gaming laptop CPUs, the Ryzen AI Max “Strix Halo” APU, a new generation of handheld gaming PC Ryzen Z2 chips, and the Radeon RX 9070 series of discrete desktop GPUs.

The first Ryzen Z2 chips will be available with the Lenovo Legion Go S when it launches in mid-February, while the Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs are slated for a March launch.

The expanded Ryzen 9000 “Fire Range” gaming laptop processors, Ryzen AI 300 series CPUs in the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 class, and the Ryzen AI Max chipsets will launch within the first half of 2025.

What’s next for AMD?

AMD has expanded the Ryzen AI 300 series to include more budget-friendly Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 variants. The Z2 series of handheld gaming PC chips is on the way, as is a new series of Radeon 9070 discrete graphics cards.

The Ryzen AI Max is tasked with making a case for the benefits of unified memory in gaming and video editing workflows, something Apple has championed for some time now. We’ll also get gaming laptops featuring the Ryzen 9000 series of “Fire Range” CPUs.

We want to see how AMD’s new silicon holds up in our lab tests before we make any claims, but if you’ve been considering one of the best AMD Ryzen laptops, you might want to hold off another few months.

Of course, that also runs the risk of getting hit with tariffs on tech imports, which could see laptops and gaming hardware prices spike by up to 40%. However, the US tariffs aren’t yet set in stone, so this may change.

But beyond that, Banta tells Laptop Mag that AMD still has “a lot of stuff to come.”

“Our road map just has us doing more and more AI capability because we know some stuff’s coming ... so be ready for that.”

Over the last decade, the price of laptops, gaming hardware, and smartphones has only grown, but things might get exceptionally worse soon.

Throughout Donald Trump's presidential campaign, he proposed placing tariffs as high as up to 60% for goods from China, and up to 20% for everything else coming into the United States. He said this back in September, but he recently provided an update on these proposed tariffs.

Trump gave a speech on Monday during the House GOP Issues Conference where he said "In the very near future, we're going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the United States of America." In particular, Trump mentions Taiwan, and cites that it holds 98% of the chip business, stating "We want them to come back."

In short, our wallets could be in huge trouble very soon.

How much damage could Trump's tariffs actually do?

When Trump initially proposed these tariffs last year, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) filed a report documenting predictions for how drastically these tariffs could hike prices if they go through.

The report suggests that laptops and tablets could get 46% more expensive and video game consoles might rise by 40%. Smartphones would be the least impacted, marked up by just 26%, but it's still a drastic increase (via TechCrunch).

Senior Director of the CTA, Brian Comiskey, claimed at CES 2025 that spending for “tablets and laptops could decline as much as 68%, gaming consoles as much as 58%, and smartphones up to 37%.”

These claims get a lot scarier when you apply them to the things we actually use. AMD outsources its chip manufacturing to TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. AMD chips power the PS5 and Xbox Series X, but the Nintendo Switch 2 is rumored to use an Nvidia chip. Unfortunately, Nvidia's chips are also manufactured by TSMC. In other words, all of these are imported from Taiwan.

If the 40% price increase on game consoles is true, it would mean the Xbox Series X and PS5's launch prices of $500 could be as high as $700 for the coming generation. Rumors for the Nintendo Switch 2 suggest it could be anywhere from $400 to $450, but the proposed tariffs could bring that up to anywhere from $560 to $630.

Even when we move to laptops, and focus on something like Apple products, the majority of Apple Silicon is outsourced to manufacturers like TSMC. However, towards the end of last year, Apple began making some chips in America as reported by independent journalist Tim Culpan, still produced by TSMC. The branch is called TSMC Arizona, and while it's reportedly starting small, it's a start.

On the other hand, Intel manufactures at several different locations, with production facilities in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Ireland, and Israel. It also has assembly and test sites in China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

On Intel's website, the company claims "approximately half of our workforce handles production," and in 2011, it claimed that "roughly three-fourths of the company's microprocessor manufacturing is done here in America." 2011 was a long time ago, so it's hard to say if that's accurate in 2025, but that's the latest statement Intel has made on how much is produced in America.

There's one more major chip maker we haven't covered: Qualcomm. A brief look at the company's website reveals that it will similarly suffer at the hands of these tariffs, where it's stated, "The majority of our manufacturing and test suppliers are located in the Asia-Pacific region."

In short, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm are potentially facing trouble. Intel and Apple may be more prepared for this impending storm, but both could still be greatly impacted by these tariffs. Apple has only just begun producing in America and still has a majority of its manufacturing done elsewhere. Meanwhile, we have no clear picture of how much of Intel's manufacturing is presently done within the United States.

We have no information on exactly when these tariffs will become a reality. However, it could happen within weeks as Trump can, in most cases, impose tariffs without congressional approval according to the National Law Review.

Considering these companies are the ones manufacturing the chips that power your laptops, smartphones, and gaming consoles, our wallets could be in huge trouble in the near future.

More from Laptop Mag

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• Revealed AMD Ryzen AI Max “Strix Halo” benchmarks could be bad news for Nvidia
• DeepSeek: The best ChatGPT alternative or a hotbed of dubious claims?

Could we see a major shakeup in the gaming laptop market this year?

A Redditor shared over the weekend a "how to sell" PDF that's still on the AMD website that reveals what could be bad news for Nvidia — though there are still plenty of question marks.

The document reveals testing benchmarks for AMD's Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" APU processor, and they imply that AMD's integrated Radeon 8060S GPU is more powerful than the Nvidia RTX 4070 discrete mobile GPU.

If these benchmarks are accurate, as AMD claims, they could give budget-conscious gamers an alternative to Nvidia's pricey RTX GPUs.

New Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" performance benchmarks

The benchmarks AMD shared show a 23% average increase in frame rates with the Radeon 8060S iGPU compared to the Nvidia RTX 4070.

Additionally, AMD recorded these results on the 2023 and 2025 Asus ROG Flow Z 13 gaming tablets at similar TDPs and form factors.

AMD tested both systems on High settings at 1080p resolution and ran multiple game benchmarks including: Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, Far Cry 6, Borderlands 3, and Assassin's Creed: Mirage.

Laptop Mag uses many of these same benchmarks in its testing to find the Best gaming laptops. However, we opt for "Ultra" graphics settings — not "High" — and disable frame-generation technology like AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution, or FSR for short.

However, with scores of 77-197 fps (frames per second), the Ryzen AI Max 395 is on the high end of the spectrum for mobile GPU performance.

AMD does not state in the PDF whether FSR or Nvidia's DLSS was enabled while testing the Ryzen AI Max 395 and RTX 4070.

While AMD's benchmarks look reliable, we'll wait for our independent testing to confirm the performance.

However, assuming these benchmarks are accurate, the Ryzen AI Max could be a solid contender for the mid-range gaming space, as it would easily outperform the RTX 4050 and 4060 mobile GPUs.

Is the RTX 4070 a good comparison point for Strix Halo?

AMD's benchmarks are a fair comparison for the RTX 4070 mobile GPU and Ryzen AI Max 395, as both are restricted to a similar device. Though the two Flow Z13 gaming tablets have some differences in build, they are the best comparison we can make with existing consumer devices.

Yes, the 2023 Flow Z13 has an Intel Core i9-13900H processor, nearly two generations behind. And yes, gamers backing Team Blue prefer the Intel HX series CPUs over the H.

Asus likely decided to build the Flow Z13 with the 13900H rather than the HX variant due to the Z13 tablet's thermal constraints.

So, given all that, the comparison to the RTX 4070 feels about as fair as we can expect without running the chips on an independent test bench.

In my hands-on testing with the Flow Z13 at CES, the tablet performed smoothly and at decently high graphics settings while playing Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.

Even if Ratchet and Clank isn't the most demanding game, the Ryzen AI Max 395 performed well after hours of running the same demo.

So, while I can't say I can confirm the RTX 4070 comparisons, I can't argue with them either.

Could this indicate a shift in the budget laptop market?

Nvidia will launch the RTX 50 series on laptops in just a few months. However, the desktop RTX 50-series GPUs are already subject to price-hike rumors. Additionally, all of the known launch systems for the RTX 50-series mobile launch are on the premium side of the market.

After all, Nvidia hasn't announced any new lower-end GPUs for desktops or laptops. While those GPUs could launch later this year, the budget gaming space will still utilize the RTX 4050 and RTX 4060 for a while longer.

So if AMD's Radeon 8060S iGPU on the new Ryzen AI Max chips can provide Nvidia RTX 4070-level performance, it could be a cheaper mid-range gaming GPU option that offers better performance than the RTX 4050 and RTX 4060 mobile GPUs.

The Asus ROG Flow Z13 tablet is the only AMD Ryzen AI Max launch system dedicated to gaming. However, the Flow Z13 gaming tablet is a little pricey to be called mid-range at $2,000. But there could be plenty of reasons for that price tag.

We'll have to wait for more Ryzen AI Max systems to hit the shelves to tell.

But so far, 2025 is shaping up an enjoyable time for gaming.

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I’ve always associated MSI with Intel chips, because every MSI gaming laptop I’ve reviewed has come with one. It had nothing to do with what was available at the time for me to review, either; Taiwan-based MSI has long partnered with Intel for processors.

Even when MSI started using chips from AMD — the Intel competitor less than two miles away in Santa Clara, California in its gaming laptops — many of MSI laptops still only came with an Intel option.

But this year at CES in Las Vegas, an AMD chip was listed on nearly every one of the little display cards that sat next to new MSI laptops.

This was a huge departure from what MSI has done in the past — and maybe a sign that Intel may be up for a fight if it wants to continue its domination of the mobile gaming space.

MSI reps tell Laptop Mag via email it still considers Intel “the leader in the professional industry,” but now that AMD has expanded its mobile chip catalog, MSI wanted to give more options to different types of users.

The popular AMD Ryzen X3D processor, which can produce higher frame rates and smoother game play for demanding AAA games, is one example of an AMD chip that MSI wanted to utilize in its laptops.

“The X3D solution largely benefits gamers, so we brought the technology to our gaming flagship Raider series.”

MSI went beyond its Raider laptop series this year at CES, announcing the following new configurations (in addition to Intel options):

• AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D for the Raider
• AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX for the Vector
• AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 for the Pulse
• AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX for the Crosshair

Of course, none of those AMD Ryzen chips were around at CES last year. MSI debuted new Raider, Vector, Pulse, and Crosshair gaming laptops with Intel 14th-gen or Core Ultra processors — though the company released an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D version of its Raider gaming laptop later in 2024.

Still, the AMD Ryzen 8000 series existed last year, yet MSI did not include that configuration in its Crosshair gaming laptop or any of its higher-tier gaming options. Its nostalgic '90s budget Cyborg launched with only an Intel option last year, but this year it will feature up to an AMD Ryzen 7 260 chip.

The new Katana gaming laptop is listed with either an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS option or the new Intel Arrow Lake processor this year at CES, too. The Stealth is also getting a boost to an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (up from the Ryzen AI 9 365 version Laptop reviewed in November 2024).

The only gaming laptop without an AMD option is the Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition Norse Myth. As MSI tells Laptop Mag, the Dragon Edition is a special edition laptop that will be available in limited quantities.

AMD in MSI laptops is a huge win for gamers

This many AMD configurations is a huge win for gamers. Anyone who might have wanted an MSI gaming laptop but opted not to buy one because it didn’t come with an AMD chip can now include MSI in their decision process. From high-end to budget options, there’s a configuration for almost anyone. There’s no shortage of choices. But it also feels like there is a rift between gaming laptop makers and Intel, one that perhaps has been growing for a while, and we’re just now starting to see its width.

Between AMD making significant leaps in mobile gaming and Intel tripping over hurdles (remember the great 14nm saga of 2021?), a tug-of-war between the two chipmakers has been playing out in yearly laptop announcements. My own memories stretch back to MSI’s budget-priced Bravo 15 (2020), but the company has been working with AMD since before it released that laptop — yet it’s been slower to adopt a full slate of AMD-powered products, as we’ve seen from past announcements.

Now that MSI has gone the whole hog with AMD configurations, it will be the company to watch once gaming laptop reviews start flowing — not just for the quality of those products, but how they compare to their Intel counterparts.

We're only a few weeks into 2025 and it's already been a big one for chipmakers, and AMD overhauled a lot of its chip lineup for the new year. That massive overhaul included a new series of handheld gaming PC processors.

At CES 2025, I sat down with AMD's Director of Product Marketing, Adam Kozak, to chat about AMD's dominance in the handheld gaming PC space. The Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme powered most of the gaming handhelds we've seen in the last few years, and the Ryzen Z2 series is poised to do the same.

But what differentiates the Ryzen Z2 from the Z2 Go or the Z2 Extreme?

Ryzen Z2 series differences

AMD's Ryzen Z2 series includes handheld gaming PC chips for handheld gaming PCs, from the more budget 4-core Ryzen Z2 Go to the 8-core 35-watt Z2 Extreme.

You might be wondering why the Z2 series includes three generations of AMD architecture on the CPU and GPU.

Kozak tells Laptop Mag that the reason for the Z2 series structure is simply "so our partners can build different devices at different price points, different thermals, they can customize it to meet whatever they want."

If the Z2 Go and Z2 look similar to the Z1 and Z1 Extreme, well, there are some differences even if they use the same architecture. "I'd say the Ryzen Z2 is very similar to the Z1 Extreme that we had before, optimized, obviously, for 2025. The software can now do more tricks. AFMF, which is our frame generation software technology, I think some parts started using it this year, where we're trying to get them to default it automatically."

But more than just price points differentiate the Z2 series. While Kozak believes the Z2 Go will be a popular choice for handhelds in the coming year because of how economical it is, "the guys who want to kind play the latest games with the full settings... it's night and day."

So handheld enthusiasts who want the best performance will want to look out for that Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU on systems like the Lenovo Legion Go 2, while those looking to save their wallet would be better with the Legion Go S, which is just $399 for the SteamOS version.

If you'd like the best balance of price and performance, the Z2 would be the way to go.

AMD Ryzen Z2 series specs

What to expect from Ryzen Z2 handhelds

We're expecting plenty of gaming handhelds this year, between the newly unveiled Nintendo Switch 2, the Lenovo Legion Go S and Legion Go 2, Acer's Nitro Blaze line, and The Sunday Dragon 3D One from Tencent. These handhelds are going to use a ton of different chips, but the Legion Go S and Legion Go 2 will both be powered by the Ryzen Z2 series.

It's also likely we'll see Ryzen Z2 upgrades to existing AMD handhelds like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally X. So 2025 is shaping up to be quite the year for handheld gaming PC. After all, the year kicked off with the revamped MSI Claw 7 and 8 AI+.

More from Laptop Mag

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AMD's Ryzen AI Max, codenamed "Strix Halo," was our Best-in-Show winner for CES 2025, and with good reason.

Thanks to its innovative approach to x86 chip design, the Ryzen AI Max series of APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) offers incredible performance in gaming, content creation, and AI. With up to 128GB of unified memory, up to 16 cores and 32 threads, and a boost clock that ranges from 4.9GHz to 5.1GHz this Ryzen series has earned its "Max" name.

But we gave the Ryzen AI Max chips Best-in-Show for more than just its beefy tech specs.

Asus ROG Flow Z13 with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

The Asus ROG Flow Z13 features a Ryzen AI Max APU chipset onboard, designed to make this a powerful gaming tablet on its own. You can also connect it to the XG Mobile eGPU with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 or RTX 5090 to make it a gaming powerhouse.

AMD showcased the Flow Z13 at CES, running Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart on the Ryzen AI Max chipset. While Rift Apart is not the most graphically demanding game, the Flow Z13 kept up with the fast-paced teleporting combat without any frame drops or stuttering.

While the Flow Z13 was plugged into AC power for the gaming demo, so we can't say if you'll see a massive framerate dip on battery power only, the fact the Flow Z13 can provide a smooth 60+fps gameplay experience at 1080p is a solid win for the Ryzen AI Max and AMD's commitment to iGPU gaming.

HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a with DaVinci Resolve

The HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a was our Best Laptop of CES 2025. There was plenty of stiff competition for this coveted spot, but the ZBook Ultra blew us away with its powerful performance and ultra-light build, weighing under 4 pounds.

At the AMD suite at CES 2025, we watched the ZBook Ultra chew through an transcription test in just seconds utilizing its powerful AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro's 50 TOPS NPU in Black Magic's DaVinci Resolve. Editors can also make changes to the transcript, either before or after dropping it into the video, though according to reps from AMD the transcription AI is generally pretty accurate.

While a powerful desktop workstation is still going to be faster at basically any video editing workload, the easy portability of the ZBook Ultra makes it fantastic for editing in the field. Tasks that used to take hours are down to just minutes of time.

Is Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" the one chip to rule them all?

Systems featuring the Ryzen AI Max APUs are expected in Q1 2025, with the Asus ROG Flow Z13 and HP ZBook Ultra 14 being the first two products announced for the consumer and professional lines of the chip.

If the Ryzen AI Max's powerful gaming and workstation performance, and unified memory, have put Apple's M-series silicon in mind, there is a good reason for that. In an interview with Engadget, AMD's Joe Macri credited Apple for proving people will buy powerful computers without discrete graphics. Additionally, AMD compares the Ryzen AI Max chip's performance to Apple's M4 Pro silicon. So there are plenty of reasons for the Apple comparisons.

Intel's Lunar Lake chips also have unified memory, with 32GB of RAM soldered right onto the CPU package. However, AMD's Ryzen AI Max offers a truly bonkers 128GB of unified memory, of which up to 96GB can be dedicated to the GPU.

With Qualcomm gunning for MacBook users with its new suite of creative applications and AMD aiming at M-series performance, we could see an interesting shakeup in the Apple market this year.

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In the world of tech, the event that kickstarts the year is often the one that defines it, and that honor annually falls to CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) — an exhibition hailed as everything from the world's largest gadget show to the most powerful tech event in the world.

The Laptop Mag team reported directly from Las Vegas, Nevada for the duration of the show's January 7 to January 10 span. It's from here that we captured the computing reveals in consumer tech.

Welcome to Laptop Mag's CES 2025 special issue, offering you a recap of all of the highlights from Las Vegas, Nevada, and a showcase of our hand-picked Laptop Laurel winners across 25 categories.

CES 2025: Laptop Laurels

Throughout this year's showcase, we awarded products that truly stand out from the crowd with our Laptop Laurels — Laptop Mag's very own seal of approval for the best tech on show at CES 2025. Check out the winners below.

CES 2025: News recap

Laptop Mag's combined know-how covers a wide range of tech expertise, from laptops to mobile, processors, artificial intelligence, and more. Thanks to their reporting, our on-the-ground team was able to bring all of the breaking news, hands-on reviews, and consumer tech highlights from CES 2025 to our readers.

This year's outbound team included Laptop Mag Editor-in-Chief Nick Lucchesi, Managing Editor Sean Riley, Senior News Editor James Pero, Staff Writer Madeline Ricchiuto, and Contributing Writer Joanna Nelius.

CES is not usually a huge tradeshow for computing news, but 2025 is a banner year for chipset announcements from all the major chipmakers. AMD is leading the chip barrage with massive updates to its processor fleet for mobile and desktop.

AMD has launched new processors for AI PCs, gaming PCs, gaming handhelds, and workstations at CES 2025 in Vegas. While AMD also has desktop chips, because of the sheer number of announcements, we're going to focus on the laptop and gaming handheld variants.

So without further ado, here's the full list of AMD mobile processors unveiled at CES today.

AMD Ryzen "Fire Range" HX

AMD's Ryzen HX "Fire Range" mobile processors are designed for gamers and content creators, with RDNA 4 architecture which offers optimized compute units, enhanced AI computing, improved ray tracing, and better media encoding quality.

These chips will be found in gaming laptops from all the major gaming brands, plus content creator laptops designed for powerful video editing and computer design. These chips will be available in the first half of 2025.

The chips in the "Fire Range" series include:

AMD Ryzen AI 7 300 and Ryzen AI 5 300

AMD is also expanding the Ryzen AI 300 series to the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 lines, opening the AMD Copilot+ chipset to more wallet-friendly price points with the same industry-leading 50 TOPS XDNA 2 NPU.

These chips will be available on general consumer laptops as well as enterprise business machines. The consumer variant of Ryzen AI 7 and 5 chips will be available in the first quarter of 2025, while the PRO line will be available starting the second quarter.

The chips in the expanded Ryzen AI 300 series include:

AMD Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo"

AMD's flagship APU "Strix Halo" platform has also arrived. Called the Ryzen AI Max and Ryzen AI Max PRO chip, this flagship will be available for gaming, content creation, and professional workstation machines.

The Ryzen AI Max chipsets offer 16 Zen 5 performance cores, 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units for graphics, and 50 TOPS XDNA 2 NPU.

These mobile powerhouse chips will be available in the first and second quarters of the year.

The chips in the "Strix Halo" Ryzen AI Max and Max PRO lines include:

AMD Ryzen Z2

AMD has also updated the Ryzen Z series of handheld gaming PC chips with a second generation. The Ryzen Z2, Z2 Extreme, and Z2 Go.

The AMD Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme are the most popular handheld gaming PC chips, and with the second generation, AMD is also expanding its chip offerings to with a more budget-friendly version, the Z2 Go. AMD expects to continue holding a leadership position in gaming handhelds with the new Z2 generation, offering better battery life, software optimization, and performance.

The Z2 generation will be available in the first quarter of 2025.

The handheld chips in the Z2 series include:

AMD Ryzen AI 200 series

AMD has also refreshed the Ryzen AI series of laptop chips with the Ryzen AI 200 series. These chips will offer even further options for consumer and professional AI PCs.

Eagle-eyed tech enthusiasts may notice the Ryzen AI 200 series is actually the Ryzen 8000 "Hawk Point" series, just rebranded to match the new Ryzen AI naming scheme. The refreshed "Hawk Point" chips will be available in the second quarter of this year.

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On June 2, 2024, Lisa Su, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, took the stage for her keynote presentation at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan.

She would finally unveil the chip that would power some of this year's top AI-powered laptops — and set AMD up to lead the AI PC market in the near term.

Su, who has been at the helm of AMD since 2014, set the scene by looking ahead:

"We actually need much, much better AI hardware, and that’s why we’re so excited to announce today our third-gen Ryzen AI processors," she told the gathered audience of industry members and tech journalists.

Those processors were the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series chips, which would emerge as major contenders in the AI PC market this year.

Su was greeted with applause as she held up the first Ryzen AI 300 series chip for the Computex crowd to see. She didn't shy away from praising AMD's work, either, commenting, "Our new Ryzen AI series actually is a significant increase in compute and AI performance and sets the bar for what a Copilot PC should do."

See also: This year, Copilot+ PCs beat the hype — and gaming is next, AMD exec tells Laptop Mag

AMD did indeed set the bar. The Ryzen AI 300 series processors came out swinging with some seriously impressive benchmark scores and great overall performance, giving Qualcomm's Copilot+ PCs a run for their money. AMD's new chips didn't just dominate in AI performance, either.

AMD's Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Jason Banta, tells Laptop Mag, "Beyond just delivering AI capabilities, the Ryzen AI 300 Series processors were designed to deliver a great all-around PC experience, with top-shelf features and no compromises. With flawless compatibility and stability, Ryzen AI 300 Series processors deliver the same trusted Ryzen performance with the addition of next-gen AI processing power."

Did the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series chips live up to these high expectations? More importantly, were they truly able to set the bar for what a Copilot+ PC should do? After seeing these laptops in action, I think the answer is clear, but it leaves me wondering if AMD can keep its lead going into 2025.

AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series chips stole the show from Qualcomm

When Copilot+ PCs first launched in May 2024, Qualcomm was running the show. All of the laptops in that initial launch, like the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x and the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, ran on Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips. Some of these laptops really impressed us, especially when it came to battery life.

Then AMD entered the scene.

I knew Qualcomm was going to have some serious competition when I saw the benchmark results for the first few laptops running the AMD Ryzen 9 HX 370 chip. These new Copilot+ PCs knocked Qualcomm's scores out of the park by a large margin, especially in graphics tests.

For example, the Asus Zenbook S16 (AMD Ryzen 9 HX 370) averaged three times more frames per second in Sid Meier's Civilization VI than the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X (Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100). Our review for the Zenbook S16 also praised its graphics performance, with Editor Rami Tabari commenting, "I've never seen integrated graphics like this."

Sheer graphics performance wasn't the only advantage AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series chips have over their Qualcomm rivals. As AMD's Banta points out, the Ryzen AI 300 series chips feature "flawless compatibility."

Banta may not have been intentionally making a jab at Qualcomm, but AMD's AI CPUs are compatible with far more apps and games than Qualcomm's. In fact, one of the few major issues that emerged during the launch of the first Copilot+ PCs were issues with app compatibility on Qualcomm's Arm architecture. For instance, I noticed the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X couldn't run games that required anti-cheat software, like Apex Legends.

While Qualcomm will likely resolve most app incompatibilities eventually, right now it is still a potential deal-breaker that gives AMD-powered laptops an edge.

Beyond gaming, AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series chips boasted impressive overall performance far beyond their Qualcomm competitors. For instance, the Asus ProArt PX13 scored 15,203 on Geekbench 6 and 3,587 on Geekbench ML (CPU). Both scores are significantly higher than similar Qualcomm-powered laptops, indicating that AMD's AI chips offer stronger overall performance and superior AI performance.

What's next for AMD's AI-infused processors?

After the successful launch of the Ryzen AI 300 series chips this year, many are excited to see how AMD will continue to evolve its AI processors in 2025. Banta gave us a hint about what might be next.

Banta tells Laptop Mag, "Many AI PCs in the market now cater to the premium market. In the near term, we are committed to bringing AI to more price points and enabling more AI experiences for customers everywhere."

So, we could soon see more budget laptops with AMD AI chips. If AMD can achieve similar performance at a lower price point, its next generation of AI chips could dominate the budget laptop market.

There is also room for more affordable AI PCs. The first wave of Copilot+ PCs launched earlier this year started at $999, which is relatively inexpensive but still out of reach for many. Of course, you can use sales and deals to save money on your next laptop, but that isn't always an option.

Will the performance and features of AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series chips trickle down to laptops with lower price tags in 2025? If not this year, technological development shows us that affordable high-performance AI will be available in the years ahead.

A lower-priced AI laptop could also help AMD stay ahead of the competition, especially as Intel ramps its AI CPU line-up with its Lunar Lake.

Who will emerge as the leader in the AI PC rivalry: Qualcomm, AMD, or Intel? We'll have to wait and see.

If you're anything from an AI enthusiast to the average AI tinkerer (or simply seeking out some of the additional features offered through Windows Copilot+ PCs or Apple Intelligence on Macs), then you'll need a powerful and performative laptop to keep up to speed with your needs.

At Laptop Mag, we review laptops year-round to ensure we're giving you expert-backed and up-to-date recommendations on which notebook is right for you. When it comes to the best AI PC category, our top picks are the excellent Asus Zenbook S 14 (UX5406) for Windows users and the impressive Apple Macbook Air M3 for those running macOS.

So, if you're shopping for a new laptop and looking to invest in an AI PC (or just a great laptop in general), check out our current top-tier picks below.

The most powerful CPU isn't always going to be the best choice.

While AMD's Ryzen 9 series processors have double the core and thread counts of the Ryzen 7, hardware benchmark enthusiasts will notice the Ryzen 7 often outperforms its pricier counterpart.

Despite featuring the same base architecture, like Zen4 or Zen5, not all AMD CPUs have the same structure in terms of cache size and clock frequency, which can have some major advantages and disadvantages when it comes to gaming. There are also issues with core optimization in games, where having higher core counts can work against you in terms of raw gaming performance.

Opting for the Ryzen 7 build in your next laptop could save you a decent bit of money, even on the best gaming laptops.

Structural differences in the Zen5 Architecture

AMD's 9th generation Ryzen desktop chips and 3rd generation Ryzen AI laptop chips utilize the Zen 5 architecture. But not all Zen 5 chips are created equal. We haven't seen the new Ryzen 7 consumer-level chips just yet, as the first Ryzen 7 AI 300 processors to hit the market have been Pro-level workstation processors. We expect AMD to present more information about what to expect from the upcoming "Krackan Point" and "Fire Range" mobile CPUs at CES 2025. Gamers will be most interested in the "Fire Range" series chips, as those will be the more powerful variant, with the "Fire Range" Ryzen 9 chip expected to feature 16 CPU cores.

So far, AMD's 9th generation gaming desktop chips have given us the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, a popular chip that can't stay on shelves. But, we have some details on the upcoming Ryzen 9 9950x3D desktop variant expected in January 2025.

To get an idea of the overall structural differences between the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 chips, we've put together a handy reference chart for both the desktop and laptop CPUs:

Because the mobile side has fewer details so far, we'll focus a bit more on the desktop side in terms of differences in the Zen5 structure of the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 9th generation X3D chipsets.

Both chips feature the same large 3D V-Cache, allowing better optimization for gaming. While we don't have the base and boost clock speeds for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, if it's similar to the Ryzen 9 9950 chip, it would have a 4.3GHz base clock with a 5.7GHz boost clock speed. This would be similar to the Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7950X3D chip, which features a 4.2GHz base and a 5.7GHz boost clock.

While the Ryzen 9 does have a higher boost clock speed, a desktop can't always run at its highest clock speeds, even when you overclock the system. You do have thermal and power concerns to worry about. So, the higher base clock speed of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D could get you better, more reliable gaming performance without worrying about melting your silicon.

So, even within the Zen5 architecture, there is plenty of variation in each chip that could impact your gaming performance.

Core optimization in gaming

As you can see in the chart above, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D features more than double the cores and threads of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The expected "Fire Range" Ryzen 9 chipset also has double the core and thread count of its Ryzen 7 counterpart.

But having more cores doesn't always equal more gaming power.

While higher core counts and thread counts easily lead to higher multi-thread performance, multicore performance isn't everything when it comes to gaming. After all, the 32-core Threadripper isn't a gaming-class CPU.

Some games will get a performance boost from CPUs offering many cores. Cities: Skylines 2 is one of the few games where having more than 8 cores and 16 threads is crucial; the city management simulator demands a ton of CPU power. Other games like Call of Duty or Minecraft can be very demanding on a single CPU core.

However, Nvidia's Jon Kennedy reported earlier this year that most modern PC games are "designed around an eight-core console with an assumption that their software threading system 'just works' on all PCs," but there are advantages to cutting down the number of CPU threads for better gaming performance. "Many CPU-bound games actually degrade in performance when the core count increases beyond a certain point, so the benefits of the extra threading parallelism are outweighed by the overhead."

It's all about the price to performance ratio

This isn't to say you should never game on a Ryzen 9 CPU. There are advantages to having a higher core and thread count, particularly if you'll use your PC for more than just gaming. If it's also a creator machine for video and photo editing, having a more powerful Ryzen 9 processor may be worth the increased price tag.

But if you're looking for the best gaming performance, the Ryzen 7 is often the better-optimized CPU for most games. And it's also typically a few hundred dollars cheaper than the comparable Ryzen 9 variant. So, if you've been waiting on the "Granite Ridge" Ryzen 9 9950X3D to upgrade your PC, it might be worth picking up a Ryzen 7 9800X3D instead. Assuming, of course, you can find one in stock.

For laptop gamers, once we start seeing systems with the "Fire Range" Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 chips, we recommend opting for the more cost-effective Ryzen 7 when making your spec list.

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Last week, online retailer leaks pointed to multiple new gaming laptops from Asus with seemingly imminent release dates. We now have official confirmation from Asus that at least one of these unique, powerful gaming laptops will be announced at CES 2025.

In an X post, Asus writes, "New STRIX, January 6, 8PM PST." This text is accompanied by a 12-second video showing off the new ROG Strix laptop with an RGB light strip that wraps around the chassis.

Part of me thinks, "Wow, yet another laptop that screams 'I'm for gaming' by way of RGB lights." But a bigger part of me thinks it looks really cool. It'll probably be hell for the laptop's battery life, but who's using a gaming laptop unplugged anyway?

Asus doesn't specify this in the short teaser video, but the RGB lights will most likely be customizable via its Aura Sync software. In other Asus products, the software allows users to personalize colors, patterns, and "even the ability to link lighting to music, in-game action, or CPU/GPU temperatures."

Past a glowing chassis, what else can we expect from ROG Strix laptops?

In online retailer leaks discovered by VideoCardz last week, a screenshot of an Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 gaming laptop included the following specs:

• Intel Core Ultra 9 processor
• 32GB of DDR5 RAM
• Nvidia RTX 5080 GPU (codename GN22-X9)
• 2TB of SSD storage
• 18-inch FHD display

The spec combination above is just one possibility. VideoCardz says this laptop could feature up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, 64GB of RAM, an Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU (GN22-X11), and an 18-inch QXGA display with a peak brightness of 1200 nits.

Another upcoming laptop listing spotted was for the ROG Strix G16. The configuration spotted will come equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 HX CPU, 16GB of RAM, a Nvidia RTX 5070Ti GPU, an unknown amount of storage, and a 16-inch 2.5K (2560 x 1600) display.

It's unclear exactly which laptop is showcased in Asus' teaser video on X. The only piece of info we have is that it's a Strix-series laptop. Regardless, we won't have to wait too long for concrete details.

CES 2025 officially kicks off on January 7 and runs through January 10, but we'll hear many announcements on the two media days preceding the event, January 5 and 6. Asus provided a link to the ROG Strix announcement if you want to tune in live. The event will start on January 6 at 8 p.m. Pacific.

Other announcements we're looking forward to at CES include an incredibly lightweight Zenbook from Asus and a neat rolling laptop screen demo from Lenovo.

If you're in the market for a new gaming laptop, it may be worth waiting until early 2025 to upgrade. According to online retailer leaks spotted by VideoCardz, Asus may soon be launching a slew of new gaming laptops that feature truly next-gen hardware.

Upcoming gaming laptop configurations are expected to include Intel's Arrow Lake HX- and H-series chips, AMD's Strix Halo silicon, and Nvidia's RTX 50-series graphics cards. While the leaked laptop listings through VideoCardz don't explicitly name Nvidia's new GPUs, they mention the widely rumored codenames that refer to specific RTX GPUs.

Of all the leaked listings, I'm most excited to see Asus' ROG Strix G835 gaming laptop in action with Nvidia's top-of-the-line RTX 5090 GPU. That said, all leaked listings look like they'll be quite the upgrade over existing gaming laptops.

These next-gen Asus gaming laptops are worth the wait

According to a screenshot of an Asus ROG Strix SCAR 18 gaming laptop listing, at least one configuration will feature the Intel Core Ultra 9 processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a Nvidia RTX 5080 GPU (codename GN22-X9), 2TB of SSD storage, and an 18-inch FHD display.

VideoCardz notes that this particular laptop can feature up to a Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, 64GB of RAM, a Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU (GN22-X11), and an 18-inch QXGA display with peak brightness of 1200 nits.

Then, there's the ROG Zephyrus GU605 laptop, which will allegedly be available with up to the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H processor, 64GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a 16-inch QXGA OLED display, along with three possible GPU choices: RTX 5090 (GN22-X11), RTX 5080 (GN22-X9), or RTX 5070 (GN22-X6).

Other leaked listings include:

• An ROG Strix SCAR 18 configuration with an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU, 32GB of RAM, a Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU, and 2TB of storage
• An ROG Strix G16 configuration with an Intel Core Ultra 9 HX CPU, 16GB of RAM, a Nvidia RTX 5070Ti GPU, an unknown amount of storage, and a 16-inch 2.5K (2560 x 1600) display

Finally, I'm excited by the leaked Asus ROG Flow, which is supposedly a 2-in-1 tablet with an attachable keyboard. It'll reportedly feature a 13.4-inch display and come with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor based on Strix Halo silicon, which is an APU thought to give Nvidia's lower-end GPUs a run for their money.

VideoCardz writes, "The Russian retailer claims that these systems will begin shipping in spring 2025." If that shipping schedule is to be believed, then it's highly likely we'll see Asus announce these new gaming laptops at CES 2025 in January.

Asus is soon to release a new update for the Asus ROG Ally X including compatibility with AMD's Fluid Motion Frames 2 technology, which can artificially boost the fps (frames-per-second) count in games by more than double.

AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 is an AI-powered frame generation technology designed to improve smoothness. While it officially launched in October, it still hasn't made its way to certain hardware, as a specific BIOS update is necessary for the feature to work.

That's slowly changing as more hardware becomes compatible with the feature, and the Asus ROG Ally X is expected to receive this update at 11 a.m. Eastern on Thursday.

But is the feature actually worthwhile? I've been using a beta version of the update to see for myself. Let's jump into my results with AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 for the Asus ROG Ally X!

What is AMD Fluid Motion Frames and what does the second version change?

If you've ever heard of "frame interpolation," then that is essentially what AMD Fluid Motion Frames is: Frames are generated through a post-processing technology to create the appearance of a higher framerate. It's more accurate to say that your GPU is doing some work to trick your eye, and there are some noticeable drawbacks to this (especially for keen gamers), but it can be pretty effective in some cases.

AMD advertises the feature as capable of more than doubling frame rates in games like Baldur's Gate III, with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT GPU capable of turning 97 fps into 249 fps.

If this sounds too good to be true, that's because, in some ways, it is. The frames generated by this technology aren't actually "real," as the additional frames are created based on the information of the frames surrounding them.

Essentially, if 30 frames play within a second, you can more than double that framerate by inserting a blended frame between each "real" frame to make it appear smoother. The results appear smoother to the eye, but it's not without its drawbacks. This process can cause artifacts, like artificial blurriness or an awkward jitter visible within fast-moving objects on the screen.

AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 improves upon the technology with fast motion optimization, alongside AI-optimized modes called Search Mode and Performance Mode. Search Mode is designed to increase smoothness during scenes with lots of motion, with options between Auto, Standard, and High. Performance mode is best if you're okay with reducing image quality for potentially increased frames, with options between Auto, Performance, and Quality.

We used a beta version of the update in our testing, but once it's live, you can access the update through Armoury Crate by pressing the bottom right menu button on your Asus ROG Ally X. From here, select the Cog Icon at the top, then Update Center at the center-left. Then, update everything you see in this menu.

Once you do so, open the AMD Software application and head to Gaming at the top, then Graphics, and enable AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2.

Keep in mind, you might have to restart your device and update your BIOS.

But, how exactly does AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 actually work?

Is AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 on the Asus ROG Ally X worth it?

The effects of any fluid motion settings, especially AMD's Fluid Motion Frames 2, cannot be seen when tracking the performance of the game itself. Regardless of whether I had AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 on or off, I was hovering around 30 fps in Elden Ring, according to Steam.

The benefits of the feature are largely based on preference and rely entirely on your own opinion. You can track the framerate improvements through AMD Adrenalin, which takes the frame interpolation into account, but you're not actually getting a faster framerate, just a "smoothing" effect when moving from one frame to the next.

I tested AMD's AFMF technology back on the Asus ROG Ally and was largely unimpressed by how little an improvement I noticed when compared to the future being off. In particular, games like Elden Ring that were already running at 30 fps saw almost no improvements, while games running at higher frames did look a little better.

Ultimately, I recommended against using AMD Fluid Motion Frames, as the improvement was so marginal that I couldn't see it helping most gamers.

I came into my testing with all of this in mind and partially expected my thoughts on AFMF2 to sit within a similar realm of disappointment. However, after launching Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree and battling enemies across a plains area, I was impressed at how well the technology combatted the often janky look of playing at 30 frames per second.

Within the AMD Adrenalin application, my frame rate was logged as hovering between 60 to 65 fps. When I tested the original version of this feature, even though it was logging framerates nearly double what Steam suggested, I simply couldn't see the difference with my eyes.

This time, however, AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 looked like it was providing the framerates it suggested. I was shocked at how smoothly the game was performing. Even when there were slowdowns, they were quickly addressed by the frame generation and were only slightly noticeable.

Does it look as smooth as a game natively running at 60 fps versus 30 fps? Unfortunately, it does not. The frame interpolation technology is definitely present, with objects looking like they have this "smoothing" effect that can appear a bit fuzzy or blurry. Regardless, it still looks infinitely better than just playing at 30 fps, and I was shocked by how good it looks.

I did experience a bug where AMD Adrenalin would freeze up and need to be restarted whenever I tried to swap between tabs after launching Elden Ring, but hopefully, this will be ironed out with the full release.

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AMD's Ryzen AI platform may have launched just this summer, but the highest-tier variant is still a mystery.

AMD's upcoming flagship silicon, referred to by the codename "Strix Halo" has been kept well under wraps, but the chip resurfaced this week thanks to a new graphics benchmark leak. VideoCardz spotted a new Geekbench Vulkan graphics benchmark for the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 with Radeon 8060S, confirming the official retail name for the "Strix Halo" platform.

Based on the latest leaks and previous rumors around the chip, we now know what to expect from the AMD APU, and can make some guesses about potential platforms, or even when we might see an official announcement. So let's get into it.

Strix Halo benchmarks

AMD considers "Strix Halo" or the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ chip to be an APU (accelerated processing unit). Essentially these chips combine a CPU and GPU into a single unit and function as a middle ground between GPUs integrated into the CPU and discrete GPUs.

The leaked "Strix Halo" Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 does have a Radeon 8060S GPU, but because this is an APU chipset, the graphics performance won't be comparable to a desktop 7600. So while the Geekbench Vulkan score of 67,004 for the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 is pretty far behind the Radeon RX 7600's Geekbench Vulkan score of 90,570, it isn't a surprise.

Previous leaks for the Strix Halo APU indicated the chip would have graphics performance that competes with the Nvidia RTX 4060. The 4060 Laptop GPU has a Geekbench Vulkan score of 87,178 which is a far sight higher than the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395. However, some of that could be optimization differences between the chips. We only have one Geekbench result for "Strix Halo" compared to years of benchmark optimization on the RTX 4060. Additionally, the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip that ran the Vulkan benchmark is part of AMD's Pro line of professional workstation chips so may not be as optimized for a Vulkan graphics benchmark compared to a gaming-class GPU. Additionally, this is an early benchmark so final scores once the Strix Halo APU officially launches may be higher.

Strix Halo appeared on the Geekbench 5 archives over the summer with a multicore average of 13,993. Of course, the Strix Halo APUs that hit Geekbench 5 were still in deep development, so those CPU benchmarks may not be accurate compared to the completed project. Additionally, it's worth noting that Geekbench 5 hasn't been updated since the launch of Geekbench 6 in February 2023, so Geekbench 5 may not be the best indication of performance for newer processors.

Strix Halo SKUs

The AMD "Strix Halo" lineup so far appears to include three different SKUs, each featuring AMD's latest Zen5 cores and RDNA 3.5 Compute Units.

The leak from VideoCardz includes a SKU breakdown for three variants of the Ryzen AI Max APU.

The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip that ran the Geekbench Vulkan test was part of the Ryzen Pro line of professional workstation chips, there may be consumer-level variants of Strix Halo once we get official confirmation from AMD.

Outlook

Those hoping to see "Strix Halo" on gaming platforms may be disappointed by the leaks. However, there's still hope that the Ryzen AI Max chip will come to gaming or general consumer platforms.

As for the Pro series APU, we can guess that AMD is working with OEMs on professional workstation platforms. So we may see more affordable thin and light Windows workstations powered by "Strix Halo" in the near future. Potentially targeting the MacBook Pro M4 series as competition.

Obviously, we're still in the pre-announcement phase for the Ryzen AI Max APU. While we do have confirmation that the chips are out and being tested on various benchmarks, with some indication of potential SKUs, it's unlikely we'll see anything official from AMD before CES 2025 in January. After all, another leak from AMD indicates the company has big plans for laptops in 2025.

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AMD's latest gaming processor, the Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" series has seen an unexpected boom in sales. In fact, there's a shortage of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D chips in Europe right now.

While the Ryzen 9000 series has plenty of gaming power, one of the driving forces for the rush on "Granite Ridge" has nothing to do with AMD and everything to do with recent troubles over at Intel.

Since most folks aren't deep in the processor trenches, we've put together this rundown primer on the state of gaming CPUs for you. So, let's break it down.

A stellar launch for AMD's Ryzen 9000 series

AMD's Ryzen 9000 series is codenamed "Granite Ridge" and is built off the AMD Zen 5 architecture, like the Ryzen AI 300 series of "Strix Point" laptop chips.

Based on early information and leaks, the 9000X3D chipsets promised "next-gen" gaming performance with a 18-28% performance increase over the Ryzen 7000 series processors. Reviews of the Ryzen 9000 series called the processors "devestating" and "a gaming legend." And based on the data we have, those claims are absolutely well founded.

Following those rave reviews, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is flying off the shelves.

But behind AMD's powerful new processor launch, lies Intel's latest chip troubles.

Early Intel Core Ultra 200K and 200S disappointments and Raptor Lake scandal

Just a few weeks prior to AMD's CPU launch we had the Intel Core Ultra 200K "Arrow Lake" chips hit the shelves. Based on Intel's Core Ultra 100 "Meteor Lake" architecture, the chips focused more on gaming performance with a small NPU, but early reviews of the 200K series were underwhelmed. The Intel Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake" launch was similarly disappointed.

Intel's promises of high gaming performance were unfounded as reviewers noticed the chips performed similarly to last year's Intel Core 14th Gen "Raptor Lake Refresh" chips in gaming. While the Intel Core Ultra 200K and 200S chips saw boosts to general productivity and power efficiency, that wasn't quite how Intel pitched the processors in the leadup to the lauch.

Intel has also been dealing with a CPU crash scandal involving the 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" and 14th Gen "Raptor Lake Refresh" chips. The issues with the "Raptor Lake" chipsets have led to a class action lawsuit against Intel.

So its no surprise AMD's gaming CPUs are taking over the market share from Intel in the largest gaming shakeup we've seen in recent years.

Outlook

Intel still has more chipsets coming this year. The Intel Core Ultra 200H and 200HX "high performance" chipsets are expected to launch early next year for both desktop and mobile. AMD is still rolling out more iterations of the Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors and Ryzen AI 300 series mobile chips.

Intel is also expected to launch Core Ultra 200U series processors this generation as well, and the company is working on multiple different architectures for upcoming chips including "Nova Lake" and "Panther Lake" variants.

So its a bit early to say that Intel is dead in the water, but 2025 may the year to opt for an AMD-powered gaming laptop or PC. It'll all depend on the Core Ultra 200H and 200HX launch.

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Intel's new Core Ultra 200S series processors will be available in just a few days on October 24, so it's fitting that we're seeing some news from AMD about its own next-gen chips.

In a two-slide presentation, AMD officially announced its upcoming X3D desktop processors based on Zen 5 architecture. AMD and Intel have been long-standing competitors in the Windows laptop arena, but AMD clearly feels confident that it has an edge in gaming, claiming "Next-gen gaming is almost here" in its first slide.

We can't say for sure whether that's the case since the chips haven't been officially launched yet — the release date is November 7 — but we do have some leaks to sustain our interest.

What to expect from AMD's Ryzen X3D desktop CPUs

The first next-gen X3D processor to launch will likely be AMD's 9800X3D chip, which is rumored to feature 8, 12, or 16 cores, a 4.7GHz base clock, a boost clock of 5.2GHz or higher, and a 28% multi-core performance increase over the Ryzen 7 7800X3D for the 8-core variant according to VideoCardz.

Leaked results from an MSI presentation published and since-deleted by HardwareLuxx suggest that performance gains might not be that substantial for the larger 16-core variant. The 16-core 9000X3D processor may only be about 18% faster (multi-core) than the 7000X3D.

Regardless of overall performance boosts, AMD is promising an improved gaming experience with these new chips. Considering our positive gaming experience with AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 in our Asus Zenbook S16 review, we're hopeful the "next-gen gaming" claim is more than just marketing.

Intel's VP of client computing group, Robert Hallock, told The Verge "I think we'll be about five percent back versus X3D parts," speaking about AMD's existing 7800 X3D chip, so it's a safe bet AMD might be the more obvious choice over Intel for gamers building or upgrading a PC in the near future.

While AMD chose to leave off pertinent details on performance and pricing for its upcoming X3D processors, the company did use a slide to launch an early Black Friday promotion that starts on October 20.

Right now, you can pick up a 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9950X for up to $50 less, and take up to $30 off AMD's 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X, 8-core Ryzen 7 9700X, and 6-core Ryzen 5 9600X.

The battle for AI PC chip supremacy is heating up, but AMD is still firmly in the lead.

On Thursday AMD announced the launch of three new processors in the Ryzen AI 300 line, bringing that same best-in-class NPU performance to the PRO enterprise line of processors. 

The AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360, Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370, and Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 processors will flesh out AMD's current slate of Laptop processors with three additional SKUs, making for a total of six AMD Ryzen AI 300 chips. This is also the first Ryzen 7 processor in the new lineup.

One of the most talked about metrics is NPU TOPS (trillions of operations per second), and AMD is now leading the race with 50 TOPS of performance on the Ryzen AI 300 series of laptop chipsets.

Here's everything we know so far about AMD's new chips:

Ryzen AI PRO features

All three new AMD chips belong to the PRO lineup, who is designed for enterprise customers. That means we'll see these new chips primarily in business laptops. 

The PRO line comes with increased security for commercial use, so these powerful AI chips are built from the silicon up for business users. The chips use AMD PRO technologies for better manageability, allowing for easier IT streamlining.

When it comes to performance, the Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360, Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370, and Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 have three times the AI performance of the previous Ryzen 8040 series as the Ryzen AI 300 series makes the jump from 16 TOPS of NPU performance to 50 TOPS of performance.

All three processors use AMD's new Zen 5 architecture which comes with plenty of benefits to computing performance and speed. Zen 5 chips are significantly more powerful than their Zen 4 counterparts. Combined with the Ryzen XDNA 2 NPU, these are some pretty powerful business laptops with strong generative AI capabilities for text and image generation to spruce up your next presentation.

Will Ryzen AI take over the business laptop space?

We've been incredibly impressed by the performance of the Ryzen AI 300 chips in laptops like the Asus Zenbook S 16, but it was the gaming performance of the new RDNA 3.5 integrated GPU that blew us away on the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.

While business customers generally don't need great graphics rendering, the CPU and NPU performance on the Ryzen AI 300 series have been fantastic. Unfortunately, the one flaw in the Ryzen AI 300 series is its battery life. The Zenbook S 16 lasted a solid 11 hours and 35 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, but, that battery life is easily eclipsed by most of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptops and all of the Intel Lunar Lake laptops we've seen so far.

Business laptops could be the arena where a lower battery life matters less, as business users will often connect laptops to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor workstation setup. This gives AMD an edge over Intel, as the Intel Core 200V Lunar Lake series prioritizes power efficiency over performance while AMD chose to prioritize performance over efficiency.

We know that major enterprise laptop makers like Lenovo have already announced a few enterprise laptops powered by AMD's Ryzen AI PRO lineup, so we will definitely be seeing some AMD business laptops this generation. And with all of the benefits of Ryzen AI 300, this could be AMD's time to shine.

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Integrated GPUs keep improving over the years, to the point where you don't need a dedicated gaming GPU to play most games on medium settings at 1080p. 

AMD has updated the Fluid Motion Frames technology to boost frame rates and enhance gameplay on integrated AMD Radeon graphics cards. We've already raved about the gaming experience on the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chips, so of course we had to check out the technical preview of AFMF 2 to see how the new tech changes the AMD gaming experience.

Granted, some games will always be an exception, its not likely you'll be playing Red Dead Redemption II on an iGPU anytime soon. But for games like Assassin's Creed Mirage, Far Cry 6, and Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail you could get a solidly smooth gaming experience.

Cue the benchmarks

Given my previous role as a lab tester for Laptop Mag, I naturally decided to benchmark the one AMD laptop I still have on hand. While the AFMF 2 technology is designed to work best with the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processors, it is compatible with Ryzen 7000 and Ryzen 8000 series chipsets as well. My one AMD system is the Razer Blade 14, which features a Ryzen 9 8945 HS processor and an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU. To test the new AFMF 2 technology, I disabled the RTX 4070 to check the Radeon 780M iGPU performance. While I would have preferred to use a laptop without a discrete GPU, I didn't happen to have any other AMD systems around. Since the Blade 14 is designed to run a discrete GPU and has an older AMD processor than the Ryzen AI 300 series, my results could be well under what you might see once AFMF 2 gets its full launch.

To test the iGPU performance across a range of game types and optimization levels, I benchmarked the Razer Blade 14 on Assassin's Creed Mirage, Cyberpunk 2077, Far Cry 6, and Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail using the external benchmark program. The laptop was set to "Best Performance" mode in Windows 11's power settings, and I disabled all programs running in the background. I ran the benchmarks using Medium and Standard (Laptop) graphics presets at 1080p resolution and AMD FSR 2 where possible. I ran all four benchmarks three times and reported the average frame rate for a better indication of performance.

I ran the first set of benchmarks with Radeon Super Resolution and AFMF 1 enabled on the latest drivers for the Ryzen 8945HS processor and Radeon 780M integrated graphics card (32.0.11037.4004). The second set of benchmarks updated the graphics driver to the AFMF 2 technical preview build (32.0.12011.1010) provided by AMD, with Radeon Super Resolution and AFMF 2 enabled.

Our benchmarks saw a 2 fps gain on Assassin's Creed Mirage which equates to a 7% increase in performance, a 13 fps gain on Cyberpunk 2077 which equates to a 59% increase in performance,  a 1 fps gain on Far Cry 6 which equates to a 3% increase in performance, and a 0 fps gain on Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. Of course, the Dawntrail benchmark is an external .exe file, so it may not benefit from the AFMF 2 technology.

While a gain of only a few frames per second isn't a massive increase, when we're talking about framerates below 60 fps, each extra frame can do a lot to smooth out the feeling of a game from something that feels like a slideshow into something that feels actually playable. Plus, getting Cyberpunk 2077 to run above 30 FPS on an integrated graphics card is pretty darn impressive.

Hands-on testing

As much as I love a good benchmark, benchmark scores can only tell you so much about the lived experience of playing a game on an iGPU. So I spent some time noodling around in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail and Cyberpunk 2077 to see how both games handled with the updated AMD drivers.

In Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, I had fun running around the end-game hub city Solution Nine to see how well the integrated GPU handled the cyberpunk-style zone, then popped into a randomized encounter to check how the updated AFMF 2 drivers handled combat. While the iGPU did alright with Solution Nine maintaining a steady 30 fps, the Dawntrail graphics update presented a clear challenge to the integrated Radeon graphics. The combat encounter I ran was a trial from the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn cycle and was a far smoother experience. Based on the in-game framerate monitor, the new Fluid Motion Frames 2 technology presented a consistent 40-45 fps experience.

On Cyberpunk 2077, I was able to start a new character, run through the intro, and even wander around the bar with no visible artifacting, frame-rate drops, or stutters. I did have the game on medium settings still since the 3 iGPU on my Ryzen 9 8945HS doesn't have ray tracing capabilities. I did miss the slick ray-traced reflections and enhanced lighting and shadow effects, but otherwise, the game played as smoothly on the Radeon 780M as it does on modern consoles.

Outlook

I'm using a Ryzen 8000 series CPU which does have a less powerful iGPU than the current AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processors with the updated Zen 5 architecture and RDNA 3.5 graphics technology. So new AMD cards will likely get much greater increases, and AMD themselves have indicated users should expect up an increase of up to 78% on Cyberpunk 2077 with the new Fluid Motion Frames.

While most gamers aren't going to be swapping out their desktop PCs or gaming laptops for an ultrabook anytime soon, this does have some great implications for the handheld gaming PC market. All handheld gaming PCs from the Steam Deck to the Asus ROG Ally X and MSI Claw 8 AI+ use integrated graphics chips, and most of them use AMD processors. So getting the update to AFMF 2 could make your AMD-powered handheld gaming PC better than ever.

This feels especially true as AMD's Fluid Motion Frames technology was one of the reasons Acer opted for the Ryzen 7 8840HS processor on the Nitro Blaze 7 handheld PC coming later this year.

Computing company ARM, which built the architecture for Apple Silicon and many Qualcomm processors, is reportedly expanding its reach according to unnamed sources who spoke to Globes last week.

The report claims that ARM is developing a graphics card specifically for gaming. We're unsure whether or not this will take the form of something smaller scale for mobile devices like laptops, or something far grander like a desktop-level GPU. 

Considering the company has already developed smartphone GPUs, like the Immortalis GPU, this likely involves far more than just gaming on Android.

Globes' sources claim it's designed to compete with Nvidia and Intel. Suggesting that the result of ARM's development could be a powerful laptop or desktop-level GPU, ready to compete with Intel's Arc and Nvidia's GeForce family of graphics cards and discrete GPUs within the PC space.

Regardless of which way the company shifts, we have high hopes considering the massive success of ARM architecture found within modern laptop releases.

Qualcomm just took the world by storm with ARM

Qualcomm launched its Snapdragon X Plus/Elite processors based on ARM architecture back in June, and it did an impressive job fulfilling promises that most companies normally can't keep.

This includes the official Qualcomm website promising up to 22 hours of longevity, and while it didn't hit those numbers exactly, we've seen incredible longevity from Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptops. Not a single one lasted shorter than 12 hours on the Laptop Mag battery life test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits.

From the six Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptops we've reviewed, the average battery life sat at around 15 hours:

• Dell XPS 13 9345 (19:01)
• HP EliteBook Ultra (16:01)
• Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition (15:44)
• Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x (14:01)
• Asus Vivobook S15 S5507 (12:53)
• Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition (12:11)

Considering we're normally impressed when a productivity laptop can achieve 10 hours or more of battery life, it's mindblowing how consistent and efficient Snapdragon X Elite has been. Keep in mind that this is done without making sacrifices to its performance.

Yes, the Snapdragon X Elite absolutely destroyed our performance benchmarks, with all six laptops blowing our expectations out of the water.

We ran these laptops through the Geekbench 6 overall performance test (where the higher the score, the better the overall performance), and we've split them into two different categories based on processor and put their multi-core scores alongside them.

Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100: 

• Dell XPS 13 9345 (14,635)
• Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition (14,426)
• Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition (14,432)

Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100:

• HP EliteBook Ultra (12,717)
• Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x (13,750)
• Asus Vivobook S15 S5507 (14,522)

This is incredible, especially when considering the current premium laptop average is 9,726, which is far less than what these laptops are hitting. For further context, the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch powered by M3 managed a multi-core score of 12,087 on this same test.

Apple has had a stranglehold on ARM-based performance for several years now, and almost out of the blue, a shift by Qualcomm into ARM-based desktop and mobile chips to power Copilot+ PCs has seen Windows laptops catapulted to the top of benchmark results and scoring raving reviews on performance from reviewers.

Long story short, these ARM-based processors have been an absolute titan, and considering rumors are suggesting that AMD and Nvidia could also be moving over to ARM architecture, we can't help but wonder what exactly ARM could be capable of if it were to move into the GPU market.

Can ARM really compete with Nvidia?

Globes' sources specifically cite that this is based on ARM manufacturing its own hardware rather than just assisting other companies' existing graphics. This isn't the first time ARM has done this, as its technology has been used for mobile gaming in chips like the Immortalis GPU which it manufactures itself. In fact, the team responsible for the Immortalis GPU is reportedly the same one tasked with working on ARM's rumored dedicated graphics card.

Competing with Nvidia is rather ambitious. There's no company dominating the discrete graphics market like Nvidia is, featuring a GeForce revenue of $2.86 billion in Q3 2024, versus AMD's $922 million according to Q1 2024. 

Even beyond gaming, it shipped nearly 4 million GPUs in 2023 in the data center market according to TechInsights, which equates to 98% of the revenue share of the data center GPU market. Those numbers are nearly unbeatable, and for ARM to solidify itself in this market, it will need to stand out from Nvidia in some way.

While this could be by pushing for greater power, it will likely find the most success if it focuses on the budget market. It's no secret that Nvidia GeForce GPUs are pricey, but even then, the company fulfills quite a few sections of this market, whether it be the $299 RTX 4060, $599 RTX 4070, $1,199 RTX 4080, and $1,599 RTX 4090, hitting anywhere between budget and high-end.

Nvidia has been no stranger to criticism of its rising GPU costs, with the RTX 3080 launching at $699 (and the 12GB versus at $799), now rising to $1,199 with the RTX 40-series version.

ARM could find serious success in the budget market, and competition against Nvidia is sorely needed given the company's strong dominance over an entire corner of the market.

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Lately, we've seen AMD-powered laptops struggle with battery life compared to the competition — so what exactly is going on?

I recently reviewed the new Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1, powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS processor. However, I was disappointed by the eight hours and two minutes of longevity on the Laptop Mag battery life test, which involves continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits. 

Now, I would normally dismiss this as merely an inefficient laptop, but I couldn't this time.

I had just reviewed the Intel-powered version of the same laptop a week earlier, the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 (the "I" is for Intel). And with the Intel laptop, I had a far better experience. 

Those two laptops are identical in nearly every respect, yet Intel pulled ahead with 12 hours and 57 minutes of battery life, five hours longer than the AMD version. Both have the same 71Wh battery. This near-five-hour discrepancy in battery life is one any laptop user may question, too.

With this significant disparity in mind, Laptop Mag studied a larger sample size of AMD-powered productivity laptops and compared them to Apple, Qualcomm, and Intel-powered laptops. The results weren’t pretty for AMD.

Digging into AMD's lackluster battery life

Out of the six AMD-powered productivity laptops we’ve reviewed in the last 12 months that do not feature a discrete graphics processing unit (GPU), just one exceeded 10 hours of battery life. 

That one standout is the Asus Zenbook S16, which lasted 11 hours and 35 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. (The test amounts to continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits of brightness.)

Below is the full list of the six AMD-powered productivity laptops that Laptop Mag has reviewed in the last 12 months, ranked in order of battery longevity:

The average battery life of the six laptops above is 8 hours, 45 minutes. 

The worst of the bunch is the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 2-in-1, which has a battery life of 6 hours and 26 minutes, which is awful for a laptop without a dedicated GPU.

When I realized that the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 2-in-1 laptop, which has abysmal battery life, was powered by the same AMD Radeon 780M integrated graphics seen in the Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1, I wondered if something about this chip was draining tons of power from the battery. After all, this is the laptop that started me on this frantic search for answers.

It's no secret that AMD boasts the strongest integrated graphics in its chips. So Laptop Mag contacted AMD to see if the company could comment on why its battery life is so behind the competition.

We contacted AMD to figure out the cause

Stacy MacDiarmid, Senior Manager of Public Relations at AMD, says that the relatively short battery life aligns with the company's expectations for its chips.

"The Intel processor is a U series designed for energy efficiency and everyday performance, while the AMD HS processor is designed to deliver top-of-the-line performance for more demanding workloads like gaming and content creation,” MacDiarmid tells Laptop Mag via email.

As a result of the AMD chip claiming stronger integrated graphics performance, its efficiency will decrease, and battery life will be reduced faster.

“With more advanced integrated graphics, you can also expect to see a notable difference in battery consumption," MacDiarmid explains, adding that in designing the chip, the company tries "to balance benefits and tradeoffs to deliver processors that meet the needs of customers today and in the future."

MacDiarmid added that AMD's new Ryzen AI 300 series processors will deliver “the performance our customers expect, with greater efficiency than previous generations." It's an assertion Laptop Mag's own testing can confirm.

We know that Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 has a relatively short battery life because AMD says that's not the focus — the focus is on graphic performance. So, how much of an improvement does the Yoga 7 2-in-1 deliver in integrated graphics?

Graphics and its impact on battery life

Since both the Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 and Lenovo IdeaPad 5 2-in-1 share the same integrated GPU, I checked to see if their scores in the graphics category were higher than those of other AMD chips.

We played Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gathering Storm, and the Yoga 7 2-in-1 managed 48 frames per second at 1080p with its AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS. And the AMD-powered Lenovo IdeaPad 5 2-in-1 hit the same 48 fps.

The Asus Zenbook S16, a laptop with more than 11 hours of battery life, boasted 63 fps. It's powered by an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with AMD Radeon 890M integrated graphics. So, the testing data shows that impressive graphics performance and long battery life can still be achieved. It just comes down to the chip's efficiency. 

On the 3DMark Fire Strike synthetic benchmark, the Yoga 7 2-in-1 (7,729) and IdeaPad 5 2-in-1 (7,851) continued to perform similarly. But the Zenbook S16’s synthetic performance wasn’t better than either laptop, coming in at 7,468.

So, what about the graphics performance in the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1, which lasted five hours longer than its AMD counterpart? The answer is unsurprising due to its weaker integrated graphics, as it's bogged down by significantly worse game performance, achieving 26 fps on the same Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm test. Alongside its 3DMark Fire Strike synthetic benchmark score of 5,010, it's clear that AMD is far ahead in this regard.

Processors like the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 prove that you can have the best of both worlds. 

AMD pushes for stronger graphics in its chips, which negatively affects battery life. But processors like the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 prove that you can have the best of both worlds. 

For now, AMD is behind in battery life compared to Qualcomm, Intel, and Apple. But how far behind exactly? 

Let's examine each of these processors in terms of battery life and see which one comes on top.

AMD battery life vs. Qualcomm, Intel, and Apple

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite laptops are still pretty new, but we’ve already reviewed six, and even the worst performing of the bunch boasts battery life that surpasses what the best AMD has to offer. Laptop compiled an average battery life of 14 hours and 59 minutes from these six laptops:

MacBook is by far the most consistent in longevity, with us coming to an average of 16 hours and 24 minutes of battery life from the last four MacBook’s Laptop has reviewed:

Laptop staffers have reviewed many Intel laptops, so we will use a larger sample size this time. We saw an average battery life of 11 hours and 20 minutes from the 10 Intel-powered productivity laptops we’ve reviewed without a discrete GPU:

From the information above, which is exclusively limited to the laptops we’ve reviewed recently, here’s our conclusion of average battery life in non-gaming laptops from processor type:

1. Apple: 16 hours and 24 minutes
2. Qualcomm: 14 hours and 59 minutes
3. Intel: 11 hours and 20 minutes
4. AMD: 8 hours and 45 minutes

Remember, this isn’t a holistic overview of the battery life on these chips, as it is limited to what we’ve tested. Based on that, AMD is so far behind the rest of the competition in longevity, and even when compared to Intel’s pretty wide range (anywhere from 8 to 16 hours), it’s not even close.

AMD claims that its Ryzen AI 300 will deliver even greater battery life than previous generations. As the Zenbook S16 has the longest battery life of any AMD laptop we’ve tested in the last year, this is in line with the company's claims.

The culprit revolves around AMD’s stronger integrated graphics, and the consumer must decide whether to accept improved performance over weaker battery life. 

It's no secret that gaming laptops absolutely sap battery life from these machines, but when it comes to productivity laptops, the benefit of slightly superior gaming performance over significantly weaker longevity is up in the air. 

We would rarely recommend AMD integrated graphics to most gamers, so it's hard to say it's worth battery life that lasts hours less. However, that seems to be changing, and we're hoping future Ryzen processors continue to improve upon longevity while maintaining its greater power.

Intel and AMD processors have been recently receiving negative press revolving around their flaws and vulnerabilities, with some examples including AMD's Sinkclose infection susceptibility or Intel's 13th Gen and 14th Gen CPU failure rates.

With the recent onslaught of issues facing the two leading CPU manufacturers, many wonder exactly what is going wrong for Intel and AMD. Is this the result of some shared issue between modern processors, a coincidence, or just consumers overreacting? Let's jump in.

Intel is suffering from voltage problems

Towards the end of July, Intel finally addressed a frequently reported flaw in its 13th and 14th Gen desktop processors that caused failures on a hardware level, resulting in irreversible chip damage.

The company promised that it would be working on a patch in mid-August to target these issues and save future Intel CPUs from facing the same untimely doom. However, acquiring it is a bit tricky, requiring the user to go through their laptop or motherboard manufacturer to receive the relevant BIOS update. MSI and Asus are two companies that have already released information on how to receive this fix.

But what is the source of the problem, exactly? According to Thomas Hannaford from Intel, it boiled down to a microcode algorithm assigning an elevated operating voltage, and that elevated voltage is what is resulting in a fried CPU.

It even seemed as if these problems went beyond just 13th Gen and 14th Gen desktop CPUs, but also included laptop processors as well. Reddit user Matt_AlderonGames claims that while laptop processors are less likely, Intel i9-13900Hx seems to very rarely face the same voltage problem.

However, high rates of chip failure might not be exclusive to Intel.

AMD reportedly shares a high failure rate

According to Puget Systems, a computer company that distributes pre-built and custom workstations, Intel's faults are not exclusive.

Jon Bach, President of Puget Systems, responded to the recent Intel CPU instability media attention on August 2 claiming that the company has seen a greater failure rate from AMD.

According to the company's own rates based on in-shop and field tests, AMD Ryzen 5000 and 7000 CPUs reportedly feature a failure rate of around 4%, whereas Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen sit at around 2%.

Bach provides a few disclaimers on this evidence, noting that Intel Core 14th Gen numbers are likely to go up, and claims "We are definitely experiencing CPU failures higher than our historical average, especially with 14th Gen."

Bach also expects "Elevated failure rates to continue for the foreseeable future and possibly even after Intel issues the microcode patch."

Ultimately, AMD isn't doing much better according to these tests. On the other hand, Puget Systems is a single company. Bach claims that the company's "Commitment to internally developed power settings is why we have been much less impacted than others by these Intel stability issues." 

Also note that according to its tests, Intel Core 12th Gen failure rates were less than 1%, which is a huge difference compared to what we're seeing with 13th and 14th Gen.

However, these aren't the only problems AMD processors are facing.

The secret behind AMD's Sinkclose vulnerability

Seemingly AMD cannot catch a break, as shortly after Puget Systems' analysis on AMD Ryzen failure rates, a new story highlighting a core flaw in hundreds of millions of AMD chips emerged. 

According to IOActive researchers Enrique Nissim and Krzysztof Okupski, who identified the flaw, 'Sinkclose' could force users to "Throw your computer away" if hackers can access it and inject malicious code.

However, the secret is that this flaw has been present in "Almost" every AMD chip since 2006. It's not remotely new, but the recent realization of its existence and how hot it has been on the presses could give hackers even more incentive to exploit it.

Exploiting this flaw would require the hacker to already have access to a user's system. AMD claims that the ability to exploit this would be like "Accessing a bank's safe deposit boxes after already bypassing its alarms, the guards, and vault door."

Ultimately, this isn't something worth being deathly afraid of. Hackers would already need to be deep into your system to exploit the Sinkclose vulnerability. At this point, you're in trouble regardless.

The fear comes from them taking further advantage of your breached system to purposefully tank your processor, which would essentially leave your PC unsalvageable.

This doesn't mean AMD isn't seeking fixes, as it revealed on its website on Friday that it would be releasing firmware through BIOS updates to address the issue, with each user needing to go through their own OEM to acquire these updates.

AMD and Intel are victims to bad timing

The reason for AMD and Intel's recent chip woes isn't so much a common catastrophe and can mostly be explained by bad timing.

Intel's voltage issues have been ongoing for months, and as a result of the company's recent acknowledgment of it, a report revolving around AMD chips also facing high failure rates was put out. And then, a massive vulnerability in AMD's processors was revealed to the world.

Instead of a shared flaw in processor manufacturing in the modern age, this is nothing more than a coincidence. AMD's Sinkclose vulnerability has existed in processors since 2006, whereas AMD's higher failure rates could've been unveiled any time in the last few years.

News of which simply broke shortly after Intel's 13th and 14th Gen voltage issues got attention, resulting in a few weeks of publicity nightmare for these giant CPU manufacturers.

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Researchers from security firm IOActive warn that a major flaw in AMD processor firmware could give attackers access to deep control over a computer, leading to "unfixable" infections. Firmware is a type of software that helps the hardware to run as expected, essentially making this "software for hardware" a major target for hackers who want near-complete control over your PC.

As reported by Wired, the "sinkclose" flaw in AMD's firmware exists in almost every AMD chip since 2006 and presents a significant threat under the right conditions. If hackers did gain access to your laptop via the Sinkclose vulnerability, researchers indicated that "You would basically have to throw your computer away." 

IOActive researchers Enrique Nissim and Krzysztof Okupski identified the flaw, referring to the vulnerable AMD chips as "Sinkclose." The duo plans to present the vulnerability in the AMD chipsets on August 10 at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Laptop Mag contacted AMD for further comment on Sinkclose but did not receive a response in time for publication.

What does the "Sinkclose" flaw do?

The firmware vulnerability identified by Nissim and Okupski would allow hackers to run their own code in AMD's System Management Mode, which is intended to run the processor's firmware. This "Sinkclose" vulnerability would allow an attacker to infect the computer with a "bootkit" type of malware that targets the Master Boot Record. Bootkit malware can evade antivirus software and is potentially invisible to the operating system. 

A hacker must have already gained access to a PC or server to exploit the System Management Mode controls, which is one reason AMD is downplaying the concern. In a background statement to Wired, AMD company compared the Sinkclose method to "accessing a bank's safe-deposit boxes after already bypassing its alarms, the guards, and vault door." 

However, the vulnerability would allow a hacker such deep control of a PC that it would be functionally impossible to salvage it, and the vulnerability affects nearly all AMD chips manufactured since 2006, if not earlier. So while hackers would only likely attempt this on high-value targets, it should not be completely ignored.

AMD has acknowledged IOActive's findings in a statement to Wired, noting that the company had released mitigation options for the "Sinkclose" flaw in EPYC server processors and Ryzen consumer processors and that the vulnerability has been patched out of the EPYC server CPUs earlier this year. 

AMD has released a list of all affected processors on its security page, including the Ryzen 3000 through 7000 series for laptop owners. 

What this means for you

Unfortunately, because the vulnerability lies in AMD's firmware, users can only wait for a firmware update to patch it. As most affected systems will be Windows machines, those firmware updates will likely be rolled into future Windows system updates. 

Once those patches become available, any AMD PC owner should install the updates immediately.

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It's rare that Laptop Mag has the opportunity to pit two highly comparable laptops against each other, but that's exactly what has happened here.

In this corner, the Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1. And in the other corner is the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1.

Both of these models are identical in nearly every way. The most noticeable difference is that one has an Intel processor and the other an AMD processor. It's a pretty common tactic for Lenovo laptops, and the company marks its Intel models with a little "i" right after the model type.

Normally, the difference between AMD and Intel is small enough that a faceoff of this caliber isn't necessary. 

But not this time. One of these laptops is far superior to the other.

These laptops are identical in design, keyboard, display, webcam, and touchpad, so we'll focus on the categories where the inclusion of an AMD or Intel processor actually matters: Price, performance, and, most importantly for many users, battery life.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 vs Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1: Specs compared

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 (AMD) vs Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1: Price

The Lenovo Yoga 7 (AMD) we reviewed is built with:

• AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS
• AMD Radeon 780M integrated graphics
• 16GB of LPDDR5X 6400MHz RAM
• 1TB of SSD storage
• A 14-inch, 1,920 x 1,200-pixel display at a 60Hz refresh rate
• It costs $899 from Lenovo.

The Lenovo Yoga 7i is the same, except it replaces its AMD processor with an Intel Ultra 5 125U and drops down to 512GB of RAM. It also cost $899 from Lenovo.

Determining which is the victor in price is challenging, as it's not a simple question of which is cheaper. If that was all it took for one to win, the AMD-powered Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 would take this victory, as it starts at $749 versus Intel's base price of $899.

Instead, it's about what each laptop accomplishes at its price. As for the AMD-powered model, it offers superior performance but mediocre battery life. The Intel-powered model makes small sacrifices to performance but has excellent battery life. In reality, they're both worth what they ask for in price, so there's not much of a winner here.

Winner: Draw

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 vs Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1: Performance

Considering what separates these two laptops is their processor, discerning the difference in performance is vital.

On the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, the Yoga 7i's multi-core score of 9,214 is about what we'd expect out of an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U processor. It's a little worse than the category average of 10,276, but it's still pretty decent by all accounts. However, the Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1's AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS pulled quite a bit ahead with its multi-core score of 11,287.

When converting a 4K video to 1080p using the Handbrake app, it took the Yoga 7i 10 minutes and 14 seconds to complete the task, which is slower than the 8-minute,  3-second category average. AMD once again pulls ahead here, managing to be first place by completing it in 7 minutes and 3 seconds.

However, while AMD may seem like the obvious winner here, it's hard to give a definitive verdict.

It's a bit difficult to compare these two chips when the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U is the lowest-tier processor of its line, while the AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS is a mid-tier processor.

It would be more accurate to compare the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H to the AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS, as they're both mid-tier processors in their respective lines. If we took something like the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, which is powered by that processor, its 12,707 Geekbench 6 multi-core score clearly brings it back to the top of the pack.

On the other hand, the Ryzen 7-powered Yoga 7 2-in-1 is equivalent in price to the Intel Ultra 5-powered Yoga 7i 2-in-1, so we're content to give AMD this win.

Winner: Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 (AMD)

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 vs Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1: Battery life

While the AMD-powered Lenovo Yoga 7 has done well enough for itself thus far, this is where things take a turn for the worst.

On the Laptop Mag battery life test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits, the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 lasted 12 hours and 57 minutes before running out of juice. That's three hours longer than the current category average of 9 hours, 58 minutes.

As Intel, Apple, and Qualcomm have made incredible progress in power efficiency, expectations for battery life have skyrocketed. As a result, we normally recommend battery life that is at least 10 hours or longer, and the Intel-powered Lenovo Yoga 7i absolutely crushes those expectations.

However, AMD fails to maintain the lead it acquired from its higher cost-to-performance ratio, as everything fell apart when the Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 lasted 8 hours and 2 minutes after the same test.

Not only is this two hours shorter than our category average, but it's two hours below what we generally recommend for a productivity laptop.

Considering that Intel's Yoga 7i lasts five whole hours longer than AMD's Yoga 7, there's no contest. The Intel version wins in a rout.

Winner: Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 (Intel).

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 vs Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1: Overall winner

We can recommend the AMD-powered Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 to people who don't plan to rely on long battery life or expect to be tethered to an outlet frequently. If so, its lower cost-to-performance ratio than the Intel-powered model will appeal to you.

But that doesn't apply to most people, as most people looking to use a 14-inch 2-in-1 will probably want to bring it on the go. And because the Intel model has 5 hours longer battery life than the AMD model, the winner for most individuals is clear as day.

Winner: Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 (Intel)

Lenovo is a fantastic laptop manufacturer that almost never disappoints. Even if it produces something less-than-great, it’s a rarity among its wide range of success stories.

This is why it’s unfortunate to say that the Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 is a massive letdown. 

It yields an AMD-powered laptop that seems wholly disadvantaged due to its processor. I recently reviewed its Intel-powered sibling, the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1, and considering the two are identical in every way except for the processor, the alternative is almost entirely better. Keep reading to see if what the Lenovo Yoga 7 has over its sibling makes it right for you.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Specs

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1: Price and configuration

The Yoga 7 we reviewed is built with an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS, AMD Radeon 780M integrated graphics, 16GB of LPDDR5X 6400MHz RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a 14-inch, 1,920 x 1,200-pixel display at a 60Hz refresh rate. It’s available from Lenovo for $899.

The base model brings the processor down to an AMD Ryzen 5 8640HS with AMD Radeon 760M integrated graphics, 512GB of SSD storage, and 8GB of RAM for $749 at Lenovo. This price is the main avenue in which the Yoga 7 takes a win out from under its Intel sibling, as that starting cost is a good bit lower than the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1’s base price of $899.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Design

If you asked which laptop line boasts my favorite designs, I would say “Lenovo’s Yoga series” in a heartbeat. The Yoga 7 is no exception, which isn’t a surprise considering it features the same chassis as its Intel sibling, except with a lighter gray color finish.

What makes Yoga so special is its combination of a sturdy aluminum chassis, a thin but firm lid and deck, and hinges that stay strong no matter the position the 2-in-1 is in. Its focus on a minimalist aesthetic that yields a near-perfect backlit keyboard and clutter-free deck is awesome. I cannot deny that I find the reflective Yoga logo on the lid to complement the professional needs of a productivity laptop perfectly.

If I had one criticism, I would wish it came in colors other than black, gray, and silver, but that doesn’t change the fact that the minimalistic approach is stunning to behold. Even then, that criticism applies to a majority of mainstream laptops.

The Yoga 7 weighs 3.6 pounds and measures 12.5 x 8.8 x 0.7 inches, identical to the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 (3.6 pounds, 12.5 x 8.8 x 0.7 inches). This isn’t remotely shocking, considering it’s the same laptop but with a different processor. The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (3 pounds, 12.3 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches) is the lightest of its competitors, while the HP Envy x360 2-in-1 (4 pounds, 14.1 x 9 x 0.7 inches) is the heaviest.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Ports

Thunderbolt 4 is vital for any productivity laptop, and thankfully, Yoga 7 pulls through with not just one but two of them. Unfortunately, one slot is used to power the laptop, so that slot is taken up when charging. That issue can be solved with a docking station, though.

On its left side, it has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1, and an audio jack. On its right side, it has a USB 3.2 Type-A port and a microSD card reader.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Display

The Yoga 7’s panel is painfully lackluster. It is built with a 14-inch, 1,920 x 1,200-pixel display at a 60Hz refresh rate that won’t impress if you need a bright or vivid screen.

I watched the trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux and was disappointed by how colorless the world of Gotham appeared due to the Yoga 7’s underwhelming panel. When the Joker stands in a populated government building surrounded by officials and reporters, the hue of his red suit appears faded, and it was clear the display was struggling to translate its complete luster.

The Yoga 7 did terribly in our color tests. It reproduced 42 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is practically half the 83 percent mainstream laptop average. The Zenbook 14 (80%) and Envy x360 (128%) are far more vivid, while the Intel-powered Yoga 7i (46%) wasn’t much better.

Its 320 nits of peak brightness is underwhelming and results in a dim panel that is quite below the 391-nit mainstream laptop average. The Zenbook 14 (339 nits) and Envy x360 (378 nits) were brighter, although they still couldn’t match the category average. Unsurprisingly, the Intel Yoga 7i (312 nits) was in a similar ballpark with the same panel.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Audio

When watching the trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux, I was disappointed by how quiet the trailer was throughout, even at full volume. There were moments when I could barely hear characters while they were singing or talking, and frankly, I would not enjoy watching movies with these built-in speakers. While it does lack punchiness, it’s at least pretty clear when it’s not terribly low in volume.

I put the Yoga 7 through a difficult test. I listened to one of my all-time favorite songs: The experimental rock epic “The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra” by Anna von Hausswolff, but I was not particularly pleased. The whirring electric guitar was accompanied by unpleasant haziness, as if the speakers couldn’t fully understand the sound. I could barely hear the ambient droning in the face of the guitar in the foreground. Even beyond wanting it to be far louder, the muffled sound quality is disappointing. It’s not necessarily awful, as it’s at least mostly clear, but we’d recommend an external audio solution.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Keyboard and trackpad

Considering this is identical to its Intel sibling but with an AMD chip, it has the same fantastic keyboard that I adored on the Yoga 7i. It yields an excellent typing feel with clicky keys.

I took the 10fastfingers typing test and managed 116 words per minute with 95 percent accuracy. As I wrote this review, I felt comfortable typing away on the Yoga 7 and had no issue jumping between keystrokes. My only real gripe with the keyboard is that the up and down arrow keys are half-sized, which is frustrating for someone like me, who often uses these to navigate documents.

The 4.7 by 2.9-inch trackpad is smooth as butter, making it easy to move files between folders and browse the web. However, a very thin portion at the top isn’t clickable, which is frustrating and will result in failed dragging motions.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Performance

Lenovo built the Yoga 7 with an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS processor, 1TB of SSD storage, and 16GB of RAM, which is more than enough to perform demanding tasks and yield a powerful productivity laptop.

On the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, the Yoga 7’s multi-core score of 11,287 is solid and appropriate for its price point, pulling slightly ahead of the category average of 10,276. The Envy x360 (AMD Ryzen 7 7730U, 8,196) similarly has an AMD processor but couldn’t quite compete, while the Intel-powered Yoga 7i (Intel Core Ultra 5 125U, 9,214) is also a good bit behind. The Zenbook 14 (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 12,707) is miles ahead with its i7 processor, though.

While converting a 4K video into 1080p using the HandBrake app, the Yoga 7 completed this task in 7 minutes and 3 seconds, which is exactly a minute quicker than the 8-minute and 3-second category average. While quite good, the Zenbook 14 (6:36) is just a bit ahead. The Envy x360 (7:30) isn’t too far behind either. However, the Yoga 7i (10:14) is far slower.

The Yoga 7 duplicated 25GB of multimedia files in 27 seconds at a transfer rate of 1,345 megabytes per second, which pulls ahead of the 1,144MBps category average. The Zenbook 14 (1TB SSD, 1,236MBps), Envy x360 (1TB SSD, 1,245Bps), and Yoga 7i (512GB SSD, 1,002MBps) were all behind.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Graphics

It’s no secret that AMD is primed in a far better position for gaming than Intel. Even though the Yoga 7 is not a gaming laptop, AMD’s integrated graphics are decently capable. We ran it through a few tests to see how it fared and were pretty impressed.

We played Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm at 1080p, and it achieved an average of 48 frames per second. That’s nowhere near as good as a dedicated GPU can manage, but it surpasses the category average of 44 fps. It also crushes the Zenbook 14 (31 fps), Envy x360 (42 fps), and Yoga 7i (26 fps).

On the 3DMark FireStrike synthetic graphics benchmark, the Yoga 7 scored 7,729, which unsurprisingly pulled ahead of the 6,867 category average. However, it was just slightly behind the Zenbook 14 (8,064). The Envy x360 (3,872) and Yoga 7i (5,010) couldn’t quite keep up.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Battery life

Battery life is the key avenue where AMD completely fails the Yoga 7, and it’s why it’s difficult to recommend this over its Intel alternative. Longevity is vital for a light 14-inch laptop, as you’ll likely be taking it on the go and will need it for school or work. On the Laptop Mag battery life test involving continuous web browsing over wifi at 150 nits, the Yoga 7 survived 8 hours and 2 minutes.

This is two hours shorter than the category average of 9 hours and 58 minutes, and generally, we consider battery life good if it’s around 10 hours or more. All of its competitors did far better, ranging from the fantastic Zenbook 14 (15:52) to the still amazing but less-so Yoga 7i (12:57) to the decent Envy x360 (9:17).

The Yoga 7 and its Intel sibling boast the same 71Wh battery, yet the former is five hours behind the latter. It’s hard to recommend a laptop like this to most people when the battery life is far behind the competition, especially because it’s much better than the Intel version.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Webcam

The Lenovo Yoga 7's 1080p webcam is dreadful, and I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy. I snapped photos of myself in my office, and it looked like I had been transported into an old western where the editor turned the saturation down, resulting in a faded representation of my usually vibrant pink office. 

You might want to invest in one of the best webcams if you’d rather not have to deal with a webcam this grainy and unappealing. 

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Heat

You won’t have much of a problem with heat regarding the Yoga 7, but it can still get a bit warm in places. The touchpad and G/H keys stayed cool at 81 and 88 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively, but the vents on the underside near the hinge were at 97 degrees. That’s not awfully hot, but it is above our 95-degree comfort threshold.

Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9: Software and warranty

The Yoga 7’s operating system is Windows 11, obviously, but Lenovo’s software offers plenty of additional features. This is all handled through Lenovo Vantage, which features information on the laptop’s warranty, required updates, product details, general settings, security, and support services.

The Yoga 7 comes with a one-year limited warranty. You can see how Lenovo did in our Tech Support Showdown special report.

Bottom line

Intel and AMD have been in a tight battle for many years, and there have always been convincing cases to make for one or the other, depending on the situation. As for the Yoga 7, very little can be said about the AMD version.

The Yoga 7 is a decent laptop thanks to solid productivity performance and the sturdy Yoga chassis we love, but you’re better off investing in the Intel alternative, considering it boasts the same benefits but significantly better battery life. We’re not just talking about an hour or two difference here: The Yoga 7i lasted five hours longer than the Yoga 7.

The result is a laptop that works fine in a vacuum, but we highly recommend spending the extra money on the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1, as you won’t regret how much extra juice it brings. If you’d rather not dish out the extra cash, the Yoga 7 is worthwhile in enough avenues.

Microsoft was the happy center of the AI universe at Computex 2024, but it got a little offputting eventually. Microsoft partners with most major chipmakers, Windows is the largest computer operating system after all, representing about 68% of the market share per Statista. So it was no surprise to see Microsoft's Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella send videos for AMD, Qualcomm, and Intel's Computex keynote speeches this year.

AMD kicked off Computex 2024 with the first official keynote speech at 9:30 am local time in Taipei, Taiwan on Monday, June 3rd. Qualcomm's keynote followed later the same day at 1:30 pm local time. Intel's keynote kicked off the second day of Computex at 11 am local time on Tuesday, June 4th.

What made Nadella's virtual appearances at Computex noteworthy is the similarity between the videos submitted for all three computing partners. Visually they are identical, as depicted in the image above, it's a spliced image combined from all three presentations. However, the content of the videos was also close enough that it started to tickle the uncanny valley detectors in my brain.

Live. AI. Repeat.

If you watch all three Microsoft videos from the various chipmaker keynotes back-to-back (courtesy of YouTube), you'll get a pretty severe case of déjà vu. Nadella must have felt like he was trapped in Groundhog Day or Live. Die. Repeat, just keep doing it until you get it perfect and can escape the time loop. 

Starting with the AMD keynote, it seems like a very general supporting statement by Nadella with nothing particularly out of the ordinary. With the Qualcomm video, the similarities start to stack up, and by the time you get to the Intel keynote, it almost seems like Microsoft just swapped out partner names in the videos.

Of course, that's not entirely true. The videos do have their differences, but shooting the videos at the same spot, on the same background, with Nadella in the same sweater, with the same "It's great to be with you at Computex" greeting was perhaps not the right decision.

The AMD video includes more specific information about Microsoft's partnership using the MI300X accelerator but the early focus on AI and Copilot+ becomes a template for the later keynote appearances. The Intel and Qualcomm videos are even more alike, as both focus heavily on AI and the Copilot+ platform.

While the words are different, the content is very similar, and the near identical openings with swapped names for the three CEOs do not help.

Why send similar videos to all three chipmakers?

Microsoft works closely with all three companies, so avoiding any partisanship is the smart move. Especially as AMD and Qualcomm have both joined the Copilot+ program and Intel is sure to follow suit with the Lunar Lake chipsets.

However, those of us not trapped in the loop with Nadella were treated to basically the same video clip for all three manufacturers within 26 hours at the start of a major tech conference. On the surface it's not a great look, but Microsoft is at the center of potentially the biggest shift for computing and laptops in at least a decade. One that every chipmaker is naturally heavily invested in as well, so Nadella probably could have just done a Mad Lib-style script with [Insert valuable partner here] and all would have been forgiven. 

Every one of these companies wants to see the AI PC movement succeed and Microsoft has pushed more chips in than anyone (well, metaphorical chips, the chipmakers definitely have more physical chips). All of its branding is focused on AI, even as it faces harsh criticism for some of those features, so we'll cut Nadella some slack. Maybe next time just tell the AI to come up with some slightly more varied presentations and move the camera around the room a little bit.

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AMD announced the Ryzen AI 300 series processors at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan today. These next-gen AI laptop processors come with major NPU upgrades and access to Microsoft's new Copilot+ platform. 

AMD revealed the Ryzen AI 300 series processors alongside the Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" series desktop processors during a keynote at Computex. Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and MediaTek are also expected to make major hardware and software announcements at the conference.

As part of the Copilot+ program, new laptops with the Ryzen AI 300 series chipsets will gain access to Windows 11 Recall, live captions, real-time translation, and Co-Creator. The new chips also offer up to 50 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of NPU performance, giving them a leg up on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chipsets. Based on the specs, these are the AMD Strix Point processors we've been expecting, but they've been rebranded as the AMD Ryzen 300 series.

AMD Ryzen AI 300 laptops

Along with the announcement of their new silicon, AMD has also given us a quick look at some laptops that will launch with the new Ryzen AI 300 processors with XDNA 2 NPUs.

These laptops include productivity, creator, and gaming laptops by Asus and MSI.

• Asus Zenbook S16
• Asus Vivobook S14
• Asus Vivobook S15
• Asus Vivobook S16
• Asus ProArt P16
• Asus ProArt PX13
• Asus ROG Zephyrus G16
• Asus TUF Gaming A14
• Asus TUF Gaming A16
• MSI Summit A16 AI+
• MSI Prestige A16 AI+
• MSI Stealth A16 AI+

The NPU arms race continues

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips had the most TOPS of any AI CPU at their official unveiling earlier this year. The Intel Core Ultra chips offer 11 TOPS of NPU performance and 34 TOPS across NPU, CPU, and GPU. AMD's Hawk Point chipsets offer 16 TOPS of NPU performance and 39 TOPS across NPU, CPU, and GPU.  With 45 TOPS of NPU performance, the Snapdragon X chips had the most AI processing power of all the AI chips to date.

However, AMD has closed that gap to overtake Qualcomm. But that lead isn't expected to last long, as Intel is expected to hit over 100 TOPS with the announcement of the Lunar Lake chipsets later this week. So the cycle of one-upmanship is likely to continue as long as AI PCs are still profitable.

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On April 25, an alleged 144-page internal AMD document was leaked on X (archived by HKEPC), giving a wealth of information on the chipmaker's upcoming Strix Point and Strix Halo silicon. If accurate the leaked info suggests AMD could be in a prime position to dominate the cheap gaming laptop market and could leapfrog its competitors in AI PC performance.

Strix Point and Strix Halo are the names of AMD's next-generation Ryzen 9000 series CPUs. These chipsets are a direct follow-up from AMD's Ryzen 8000 series Hawk Point processors, which launched in mid-April.

Strix Point vs Hawk Point — What you need to know

Based on the leaked document, the Strix Point chipsets (STX on the chart) will be based on the Zen 5 CPU architecture and RDNA 3.5 GPU architecture. This is a solid upgrade from the Hawk Point chipset (HPT2 on the chart) which was based on AMD's Zen 4 and RDNA 3.1 architecture. 

Strix Point will continue to use a single-chip design with 12 Zen 5 cores and 24 threads, a sizeable upgrade from the Hawk Point chipset's 8 Zen 4 cores with 16 threads. The accelerated processing unit (APU) will also feature 8 WGP (workgroup processors) using RDNA 3.5 architecture, translating into 16 compute units, as the Hawk Point APU featured only 8 RDNA3 compute units. The processor is also slated to utilize the XDNA2 AI accelerator, offering up to 50 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of AI performance, which is more than 3 times faster than Hawk Point's 16 TOPS. Notably, that would also put AMD's chip over Microsoft's next-gen threshold of 40 TOPS to be considered an AI PC. 

The Strix Halo chipset (STX Halo on the chart) will feature 16 Zen 5 cores and 32 threads, while the Strix Halo APU will feature two charged-couple devices (CCDs) with 8 Zen 5 cores and will support an XDNA2 AI processor which offers up to 60 TOPS. That's nearly 4 times the AI performance over the current top-tier Hawk Point CPUs.

Strix Halo GPU could outperform the Nvidia RTX 4060

AMD's Strix Halo specs also include information on the APU's 32MB MALL cache on the system on a chip (SoC), which will function similarly to the Infinity Cache on current models. The cache is designed to reduce the use of memory bandwidth and improve GPU performance.

According to HKEPC, "A Taiwanese manufacturer revealed that the Strix Halo GPU The performance is even comparable to the RTX 4060 Laptop, and the NPU computing power can reach up to 60 TOPS." The word of an off-record Taiwanese manufacturer can't be taken as fact, but it does give us some information to speculate on while waiting for the Strix Halo CPUs to launch. If an integrated GPU is capable of outperforming the RTX 4050 or 4060, it could change the budget gaming laptop market as we know it. After all, if the Strix Halo's integrated GPU is capable of keeping up with a lower-tier discrete GPU, that would save a decent amount of space and money on the manufacturing end. So you could find a sub-$1000 gaming laptop that actually hits the 1080p 60 FPS gaming minimum standard.

Of course, this is just speculation. We'll have to hold off on any grand claims of budget gaming superiority until we can get the Strix Halo chipset into our lab and put the performance claims to the test in our series of gaming benchmark tests.

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AMD is already launching the second generation of its AI PC laptop and desktop chipsets with the AMD Ryzen Pro 8040 series mobile processors and AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 series desktop processors.

As our focus here at Laptop Mag is laptops, we're mostly interested in the AMD Ryzen Pro 8040 series mobile processors. What you may not know is that the AMD Ryzen Pro 7040 series processors are fully functional AI PCs. So the 8040 series chipsets are actually AMD's second generation of AI silicon.

The Ryzen Pro 8040 offers 30% greater performance compared to competition, integrated AMD Ryzen AI, RDNA 3 graphics, and WiFi 7 technology. They're ideal chips for both workstations and business laptops.

AMD Ryzen 8040 series laptops — What you need to know

Boasting up to 16 TOPS on the AMD Ryzen AI NPU, these new processors will be the most advanced x86 processors. So they'll be competing directly against the Intel 14th Gen and Intel Ultra chipsets. Intel's 14th gen CPUs don't have a dedicated NPU, while the Intel Ultra platform offers only 10 TOPs of NPU performance. So the Ryzen 8040 series will give AMD an early edge against Intel.

As an ARM processor, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite is not part of AMD's comparison. That makes sense, as Qualcomm boasts a total of 45 TOPs on its upcoming ARM chipsets. Of course, while the Snapdragon X Elite can run Windows x86 programs, it does so through an emulator. So there will be a bit of a performance slowdown in that case, but not quite enough to close that TOPs gap between the Snapdragon X Elite and the Ryzen 8040. Depending on when Qualcomm gets its new silicon out the door and into people's hands, AMD may just need to focus on Qualcomm as its main AI competition instead of Intel.

And when it comes to getting your hands on the new AMD AI silicon, AMD Ryzen 8040 series laptops will be available from manufacturers like HP and Lenovo starting in Q2 2024. Which could be as late as June of this year.

Microsoft released a new feature for Direct X 12 that could drastically increase frame rates, and AMD is showcasing that technology on the RX 7900 XT at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) this week. For those of us not at the conference, AMD has also released information on the new tech as well as a tech demo on their GPU Open site (via TechRadar).

Direct X 12's Work Graphs feature aims to reduce CPU bottlenecking on games by offloading some heavy 3D rendering tasks onto the GPU instead. Work Graphs also decreases communication between the processor and graphics card, which helps streamline tasks there as well.

AMD's tech demo includes work graphs for mesh nodes, which feed directly into mesh shaders. Which removes some of the CPU-GPU communication overhead, resulting in a faster and smoother gaming experience. The more 3D rendering tasks integrated to Work Graphs, the more frame rate gains we can expect to see.

But what does that mean for gamers?

With frame rate increases of up to 64% (via Tom's Hardware), this technology will do a lot to smooth out the CPU bottlenecking we often see with high-end GPUs running at lower resolutions. Essentially, the CPU is unable to render as fast as the GPU and so you see a sharp frame rate drop-off at 1080p while using a high-powered GPU like the 7900 XT or 4090. 

One solution to the CPU bottleneck is to game at higher resolutions like 1440p or 4K. But now we have another with Work Graphs. Of course, as a Direct X 12 technology it won't help if your PC game is running on another API like Vulcan or Open GL, though the majority of PC games use DX 12 or offer it as an option. 

This is also still early days for Work Graphs, and new 3D rendering tasks are being offloaded to the GPU as Microsoft continues working on the technology. And as AMD and Nvidia work on optimizing their GPUs for the tech. Of course, this isn't a free frame rate boost so there will be a limit to how much rendering Direct X 12 can offload to the GPU, but for now there's still room to grow.

And of course, the total increase in frame rate will come down to your PC's specs. That 64% increase in frame rates is based on AMD's demo PC unit. Your actual FPS gains will depend on your PC configuration so we'll need more benchmarking to see exactly what kind of performance boost the average gamer is likely to see.

Acer has announced two new Swift laptops leveraging AMD's new Ryzen 8040 series processors and Ryzen AI for increased performance and access to Acer's new AI software suite including Acer PurifiedVoice, PurifiedView, and LiveArt photo editing. 

The Acer Swift Edge 16 and Acer Swift Go 14 will deliver premium AI experiences and reliable performance for day-to-day productivity. Thanks to Ryzen AI's efficient distribution of AI workloads between the NPU, GPU, and CPU both mainstream users and creative professionals can expect fast, efficient computing and longer battery life.

Acer Swift Edge 16

The Acer Swift Edge 16 is an ultra-thin, lightweight laptop in a magnesium-alloy chassis for maximum screen space and maximum portability. Configurations for the Swift Edge 16 will feature an AMD CPU and GPU combination up to a Ryzen 7 8840U octa-core processor with integrated Radeon 780M graphics and Ryzen AI. The laptop can support up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and up to 2TB of SSD storage space.

With a 16-inch 3.2K 120Hz OLED display panel, the Swift Edge 16 pairs amazing visuals with narrow bezels for as much screen real estate as possible. Rated for 100% coverage on the DCI-P3 color gamut, it's ideal for photo and video editing tasks that require high degrees of color accuracy.

Plus, with WiFi 7 support and secured-core PC features like Microsoft Pluton, the Swift Edge 16 is an ideal laptop for keeping your intellectual property safe and secure.

The Acer Swift Edge 16 will be available in North America in March, starting at $1,299.99.

Acer Swift Go 14

Despite its name, the Acer Swift Go 14 is a workhorse of a machine in a highly-portable form factor. The Swift Go 14 features an AMD CPU/GPU combo of up to a Ryzen 9 8945HS octa-core processor, Radeon 780M graphics, and Ryzen AI for 60% improved AI performance. The laptop supports up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and up to 2TB of SSD storage. The Swift Go 14's processors are integrated with a Microsoft Pluton security processor to increase protection over any sensitive data and information stored on the laptop.

All that hardware is paired with a 14-inch 2.8K 90Hz OLED display panel or an FHD+ (1920 x 1200) touchscreen IPS LCD display. The Swift Go 14 also sports WiFi 6E connectivity, a 100W battery with quick-charge capabilities, and a 1440p QHD webcam for full remote-work flexibility.

The Acer Swift Go 14 (SFG14-63) will be available in North America in April, starting at $699.99.

Outlook

These two AMD systems are designed to take on Acer's Swift Go series with Intel AI lineup from CES earlier this year. In the case of the Swift Go 14, it will be a full one-on-one competition between the two AI-powered chipsets. It will be interesting to see how the AMD Swift Go 14 and Intel Swift Go 14 compare once we can finally get both laptops into our labs.

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One of the joys of PC gaming is compatibility. When you buy or build a gaming PC or laptop, you can safely expect to get access to the widest array of modern games, dodging the minefield of console exclusivity on the Xbox and PlayStation. But what if the wide compatibility of PC games died?

We’re beginning to see hints of this with a growing divide over optimization for NVIDIA or AMD hardware. "Exclusive partnerships" between the big chip manufacturers and game developers are leading to new releases tailored far more for one hardware brand over others. 

From GPU optimization to competition between DLSS and FSR, here’s how exclusive partnerships could damage the entire PC gaming landscape – and how it could still get better going into 2024. 

Exclusive partnerships: “Console exclusives” for PC gaming

Optimization has been a growing issue in PC gaming for years now. Big releases like “Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor” and “Elden Ring” were infamously poorly optimized upon release, leaving many PC gamers frustrated. AAA games are also getting more hardware-intensive, pushing PC gamers to invest in increasingly powerful and expensive gear. 

The solution to these challenges seems obvious: more collaboration between hardware manufacturers and game developers. That’s where “exclusive partnerships” throw a wrench into things. 

The first PC game to use the term “exclusive partner” for one of the chip manufacturers was “Starfield.” Eight years in the making, it was one of the biggest games of 2023. Shortly after its release, reports started rolling in about surprisingly poor performance on NVIDIA and Intel-based PCs. Testing from Digital Foundry confirmed this, revealing noticeable performance gaps between AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. 

A few months before its release, a video dropped on the official AMD YouTube channel announcing it as the game’s “exclusive PC partner.” This explains why “Starfield” performed so much better on AMD hardware than NVIDIA or Intel – it was designed to. If you have an AMD-based PC, you’re in great shape, but if you’re team NVIDIA or Intel, not so much. 

This sounds unnervingly similar to the console exclusives system. If more developers take the route of “Starfield” and optimize specifically for one brand’s chips, gamers might end up having to consider “exclusive” PC support when they choose new gear. 

How exclusive partnerships could cripple PC gaming

Is it really that bad if games are optimized for certain GPUs over others? After all, if the game still runs well enough to enjoy, is it that big of a deal if the FPS is a bit low? Unfortunately, the issue isn’t that simple. PC gaming has always involved carefully choosing and upgrading equipment to run newer games. What’s happening now is a divide over hardware support. 

One of the main battlegrounds between NVIDIA and AMD right now is the competition between DLSS and FSR. Both technologies improve FPS in supported games, but their performance can drastically differ. They also vary in terms of hardware support with DLSS available on only NVIDIA RTX GPUs while FSR is available on virtually any GPU. 

It’s not uncommon for some games to have support for DLSS or FSR at launch, then add the other later on. However, exclusive partnerships could make that lack of support intentional or even permanent. “Starfield,” for example, only had support for FSR at launch. DLSS support wasn’t added until a few months later. Some games, like “Far Cry 6” or “Resident Evil 4,” never add support for a second graphics upscaling technology or only get it through mods. 

If divisions like this gain ground, what we end up with is a PC gaming market where players have to decide which games they care about most when they buy new hardware, just like in console gaming. That’s a big decision for people across the spectrum from budget to high-end gamers. 

Say you just dropped $1,000 on an NVIDIA RTX 4080 Super. When you invest that much into one of the best GPUs on the market right now, you should be able to get flawless performance on any modern game you want to run. It would be rightfully frustrating to get stuck with mid-range performance just because a game doesn’t support DLSS or was optimized for AMD GPUs instead of your top-notch NVIDIA card. The same goes both ways. 

On the other end of the spectrum, budget gamers are now in a really tight spot because they simply don’t have the funds to pivot to a new GPU if a game they want is “exclusively” optimized for another brand. Instead, performance on budget hardware goes from lackluster but acceptable to downright unplayable. 

Exclusivity just worsens the existing hardware headache in PC gaming. It makes it more confusing and expensive for new players to get into the niche and creates unnecessary complications for veteran players looking to upgrade their laptop or desktop. In a world of exclusive optimization for one brand at the expense of others, PC gaming will lose the wide-open game support that makes it great.

What comes next?

It remains to be seen if the “exclusive partner” system will catch on in PC gaming. Fans certainly weren’t happy about it when Bethesda made AMD its exclusive partner on “Starfield.” So, you would think that incident might act as a cautionary tale for other games going into 2024. I sure hope it does. What this market needs right now is more collaboration, not less. 

So, what can we expect as we look ahead at 2024’s slate of game releases? One thing to watch for is support for DLSS and FSR. Ideally, big games should support both at launch whenever possible. If we start seeing more games only support one or the other, that could be cause for concern. 

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Recent releases show signs of hope. For example, “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora” is an AMD partner game but includes support for both FSR and DLSS. Also, if AMD’s graphics upscaling tech performed on par with DLSS, it might not be such a big deal if players only had the option for one or the other. Improvements to FSR might help in this regard.

Plus, modding communities are already creating mods to add support for DLSS into titles without it. Hopefully, this combined with pushback from fans will dissuade developers from continuing the “exclusive partner” trend. The PC gaming market will be better off for it.

Gaming's DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) options already feel like a checkbox cheat to unlock smoother experiences in demanding titles.

However, as Nvidia continue to push DLSS' capabilities, AMD are taking things up a notch by cutting out the middleman and  making this tech more accessible than ever before with AFMF (AMD Fluid Motion Frames).

AMD Fluid Motion Frames: A universal frame generation solution

Nvidia's AI-powered DLSS tech has done wonders to improve visual fidelity and performance in a wide range of titles, but there's one problem — it requires developers to implement the frame generation tech into their titles. This means most older titles can't benefit from this tech as development has long since shifted to other projects.

Enter AMD's Fluid Motion Frames, a driver-level frame generation technology that works right out of the gate with all DirectX 11 and 12 titles — no questions asked. No developer implementation is required for gamers to enjoy the higher interpolated frames-rates that AFMF has to offer.

Outlook

According to the release notes of a recent preview driver (as reported by VideoCardz) AFMF will be support 700M integrated GPUs like the Ryzen 7040, 8040, 8000G, and Z1/Z1 Extreme-series of APUs. This means that not only is this tech arriving to laptops, but gaming handhelds too.

This could result in a solid boost in smoothness across handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go, though by how much remains to be seen. Especially as AFMF works best in titles that are already running at 60+ FPS in the first place.

However, it won't be long until we can say for sure, as AMD Fluid Motion Frames' launch is right around the corner, expected to arrive January 24.

In the past, buying one of the best 17-inch laptops meant a big, bulky monstrosity, but slimmer bezels, new materials, and more efficient cooling systems helped these once-mammoth laptops slim down.

Content creators, in particular, will appreciate the expansive canvas provided by a 17-inch display. Whether editing photos and videos or designing graphics, the extra screen real estate can make a big difference. However, a 17-inch display is a significant advantage, even if you multitask, work with spreadsheets, or immerse yourself in streaming entertainment.

No matter your priorities — power, weight, or budget — there's a 17-inch laptop that perfectly suits your needs.

Here are our current picks for the best 17-inch laptops.

The Quick List

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Best overall 17-inch laptop

The LG Gram 17 is a featherweight laptop that punches like a heavyweight. This powerful laptop is geared toward creative professionals like photo editors, graphic designers, and illustrators. The Intel Core i7-1360P processor won't keep up with the latest Intel 14th gen CPUs, but it was ahead of the class last year with its Geekbench 5.5 score of 9,945, handily beating out the then premium laptop average of 7,048. The SSD was a speedster then, and now, its 1,669.29MBps transfer rate is blowing away even the current premium laptop average of 1,181MBps.

If the battery life and productivity performance didn't have you looking around the outside of the laptop and figuring out how LG fit everything in there, wait until you find out there's also an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card. It's not going to replace your gaming laptop, but for casual gamers or content creators using apps that leverage a dedicated GPU, this is an incredible option for frequent travelers. Be sure to check for that feature if it's important to you; there are numerous configurations with just Intel Iris Xe graphics. This option will be acceptable for productivity and other fundamental computing tasks, but those gaming and content-creation apps will take a hit.

The display will be the other most significant selling point for content creators considering the LG Gram 17. It covers 115 percent of the DCI-P3 color space and delivers an impressive 438 nits of brightness. Both marks exceed the premium averages of 90 percent and 384 nits, respectively. Even a gaming laptop like the Acer Nitro 17 can't match these scores, coming in at 84.3% and 348 nits in the two tests. The LG Gram 17's scores translate to vibrant and realistic colors, crucial factors for creative work.

Additionally, unlike the MacBook Pro, the LG Gram 17 features a wider variety of ports, eliminating the need for dongles and making it more convenient for connecting to various peripherals. Overall, the LG Gram 17 impresses with good battery life, capable graphics performance, and high-quality audio, making it a serious contender against established players like Apple and Lenovo.

See our full LG Gram 17 2023 review

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Best budget 17-inch laptop

You won't find a cheaper 17-inch laptop than the Acer Chromebook 317. Available for under $500, this is a large screen living on a small budget. Now beyond its size, the 17.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) display won't blow you away, but it is a massive viewport into Chrome or whatever Google Workspace-powered productivity task you may have slotted in for today.

You need to set your expectations properly for this laptop; it is not a secret performance beast; it has an Intel Pentium Silver processor, which will allow you to browse the web and watch streaming videos. If possible look for the model with 8GB of RAM, but it scored below the Chromebook averages for Geekbench and JetStream 2.0, which test overall performance and web browsing performance, so again stick to this laptop for single tasks. The 64GB of eMMC storage means that you'll need to stick mostly to cloud storage, but it's a Chromebook, so you were hopefully already planning on that.

That seemed like a lot of negatives. What else is there to love about the Chromebook 317? The build quality is outstanding, the keyboard is massive with a full number pad, and the chiclet keys are surprisingly comfortable and responsive. You won't find these features on another laptop in this price range.

The 9 hours and 30 minutes of battery life it achieved in our battery test won't win awards, but it's more than enough for a typical day's usage and just shy of the average Chromebook battery life of 9 hours and 50 minutes.

The Acer Chromebook 317 is intriguing as the world's first, and only, 17-inch Chromebook. While it isn't the best 17-inch laptop for everyone, it is a fine choice for users with minimal needs outside of a big screen.

See our full Acer Chromebook 317 review

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Best 17-inch laptop for gaming

"Affordable" and "17-inch gaming laptop" aren't terms that typically go together, but the Asus Strix G17 is available for under $1,500. This laptop won't disappoint productivity hounds and gamers looking for a powerful 17-inch laptop at a reasonable price.

Asus opts for AMD's Ryzen 9 7845HX CPU paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. This blend of AMD and Nvidia repeatedly hit it out of the park regarding affordable gaming laptops, so it's no shock to see it doing well here again. On our Geekbench 6.0 test it crushed the category average of 7,185 with a score of 13,430. That was also enough to beat the MSI Katana 15 (Intel Core i7-13620H, 12,562) and Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX, 13,063).

Considering it's an RTX 4060 it fared reasonably well against RTX 4070 competitors. In the Assasin's Creed Valhalla test at 1080p with maximum graphics settings it gave a steady 103 frames per second. That was just behind the MSI Katana 15 (RTX 4070, 106 fps), Origin EON16-S (RTX 4070, 106 fps), and the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (RTX 4070, 113 fps).

Our review configuration featured 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It maxes out at 32GB of RAM, but don't buy the 8GB model, which is woefully insufficient for a gaming laptop. Adding up all these specs equates to smooth gameplay and the ability to handle demanding tasks, all on a gorgeous 17.3-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) display with a buttery-smooth 240Hz refresh rate.

Are you looking for a large screen without breaking the bank? The Asus Strix G17 is a great choice. This budget-friendly option delivers more than enough performance for everyday tasks. Its AMD processor and Nvidia graphics card make it a capable gaming or content-creation laptop. It offers a well-rounded package with good productivity power, high frame rates in games, and impressive speakers.

See our full Asus ROG Strix G17 review

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How to choose a 17-inch laptop

Step 1 is to make sure it has a 17-inch display, beyond that the features we look for to choose the best 17-inch laptop are the same qualifications we would look for in any laptop. It's also worth noting that 17-inch laptops are a bit of an endangered species, which is why you'll only find three entries on this list currently. We are seeing more laptop makers turn to 18-inch or 16-inch displays for their larger screen offerings.

Screen Resolution: Don't settle for anything less than a 1920 x 1080 (aka 1080p or full HD) resolution, particularly on a 17-inch laptop. You may want a QHD (2560 x 1440), 2K (2048 x 1080) resolution panel, or even a 4k laptop if you're a content creator. Gamers should pay attention to the refresh and response rate. We recommend at least 144Hz and 3-millisecond, respectively.

CPU: An Intel Core i5 or Core Ultra 5 provides good mainstream performance. Some budget systems will come with Core i3, which is good enough for basic tasks, but avoid it for a . Get a Core i7 or a quad-core processor (serial number ends in HQ or HK) for gaming or high-end productivity tasks such as video editing and 3D modeling. AMD is enjoying a renaissance with its Ryzen line of processors. Ryzen 7 is the middle-of-the-road chip that will bring mainstream performance, while Ryzen 5 and 9 cover your entry-level and power user needs.

RAM: 8GB is the minimum we want to see in a laptop in 2024, but if it's within your budget, spring for 16GB, as it will ensure better performance over your laptop's life. Professional power users, content creators, and gamers will look for 32GB and beyond, but that is overkill for most people. While we would not recommend 4GB systems in general, if it is a secondary laptop that will see use predominantly for light web browsing and steaming, it will suffice.

Storage: 256 GB of internal storage is probably enough unless you're a gamer, content creator, or power user. On budget laptops, look out for eMMC memory; while still flash memory, it is much slower than an SSD.

Graphics Chip: Gamers and creative professionals should get either one of the latest Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 or 40 series GPUs or an AMD Radeon 7000 series GPU. Everyone else will be happy with the CPU's built-in integrated graphics, which have improved considerably in recent years.

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How We Test 17-inch Laptops

Over the course of a year, we review over 100 laptops, covering every price point and use case. Whether you’re looking for a productivity workhorse, a badass gaming system, or a multimedia machine to kick back and watch a movie or two, we can help you find your ideal match.

To make our best 17-inch laptops list, the system needs to score at least 4 out of 5 stars on our reviews and deliver on the things shoppers care about most. Our evaluations focus on design, comfort, display quality, keyboard and touchpad, performance, battery life, and value.

Our expert reviewers also test each product to see how it looks, feels, and performs in everyday situations. Because we see so many different notebooks, we can compare each to its direct competitors and give you an idea of how it compares to the average laptop in its price band.

When we bring a laptop into our laboratory, we aim to see how it would work if you brought it into your home or office. While we use industry-standard benchmarks such as Geekbench and 3DMark, we focus heavily on real-world tests that we have developed in-house.

To test endurance, the Laptop Mag Battery test surfs the web at 150 nits of brightness until the system runs out of juice. We use a giant spreadsheet macro that matches 65,000 names with their addresses to judge pure processing power, a video transcoder that converts a 4K video to 1080p, and the Geekbench 5 synthetic test. We measure graphics prowess with both 3DMark Ice Storm / Fire Strike and a series of games, including Assassin's Creed: Mirage, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Red Dead Redemption 2, just to name a few.

We use a colorimeter to measure screen brightness and color gamut, while other instruments help us determine a laptop's key travel and ambient heat. For more details on our benchmarking procedures, see this page on how we test laptops.

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Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops yearly, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.

We are 100 percent independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades and continues to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.

One of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing, enforces our editorial trustworthiness. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.

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AMD has just dropped their new Ryzen 8040 Series mobile processors, and they're serious game changers. These bad boys boast best-in-class performance, next-level AI capabilities, and power-efficient design, making them perfect for creative pros, gamers, and everyday users. 

I, for one, have been privy to some early examples of what AI-infused laptops will be capable of and it looks to be a brighter future for consumers, one where they'll experience smoother workflows too. If you want more work-life balance, your AI-infused PC will help you with that and more. If you are a content creator looking to get a little crazier and funkier with your work, then you'll love AI-infused PCs and applications. 

Here's what to expect

• AI Powerhouse: Select models from your favorite makers (Lenovo, Acer, HP, Asus, MSI, and Dell) will pack the Ryzen AI NPU, offering a 1.6x boost in AI processing compared to previous AMD models. That's right, your laptop is now an AI powerhouse!
• Ryzen AI Software: Now widely available, developers can build and deploy machine learning models on Ryzen AI-powered laptops. Get ready for AI-powered applications in minutes!
• Blazing Performance: From video editing to 3D rendering, the Ryzen 8040 Series delivers up to 64% faster performance than the competition. That's a game-changer for creators and professionals.
• Gamer's Dream: Enjoy silky-smooth gameplay with up to 77% faster performance than competitors. Level up your gaming experience with the 8040 Series.
• Powerful and Efficient: Designed with "Zen 4" architecture and LPDDR5 memory support, the 8040 Series offers long battery life and power-efficient performance. Work longer and play harder without worrying about battery.
• AI-Ready with Windows 11: Get out-of-the-box AI with Windows Studio Effects Pack, enabling privacy features like background blur and eye gaze tracking.

The AMD Ryzen 8040 Series more than just a processor

Think of it as a portal to a smarter, faster, and more immersive future. I’m very excited about what’s about to happen in the PC space thanks to the infusion of AI. Here's what software and tools developers can expect to take advantage of. 

• Ryzen AI Software 1.0 is here! Build and deploy machine learning models on Ryzen AI-powered laptops with ease. Get started with ONNX Runtime applications and pre-optimized models from the Hugging Face zoo.
• Build innovative AI applications: Take advantage of advanced gesture recognition, biometric authentication, and other accessibility features.
• Get early access support: Build natural language speech interfaces and unlock Natural Language Processing features with models like Whisper, OPT, and Llama-2.
• Join the Pervasive AI Developers Contest: Create innovative AI applications for a chance to win exciting prizes.

Final thoughts

The future of AI is here, and the AMD Ryzen 8040 Series is part of powering it. Soon, Intel will unveil its own Intel Ultra CPUs with an AI infusion. In the upcoming weeks and months, we will review many different PC laptops with AI and applications specifically developed to take advantage of NPUs.

I have seen brief examples of what AI can do, like in Adobe Creative Suite and other apps I cannot yet divulge. The average user can look forward to creating everything from images to documents in record-breaking time, freeing them up to do other things, like spending more quality time with family and friends or sipping bourbon alone after getting out of work on time.

Cyber Monday offers up some great deals on gaming laptops, including this deal on Dell's G15 gaming laptop with an AMD Ryzen 5000 Series processor. Right now, the G15 is discounted to $699 — that's a savings of $300.

The G15 isn't a top-tier gaming laptop that can run extremely graphically intense games at max settings, but it can run most casual games at max settings, like Hollow Knight, Terraria, and My Time at Sandrock. You can even run games like The Witcher 3 on this laptop, but you'll need to take some settings down a notch for it to run well.

Be sure to check out our other Cyber Monday laptop deals, including $600 off the Alienware m16 laptop and over $400 off the Asus TUF gaming laptop.

Today's best Dell G15 gaming laptop deal

The 13-inch laptop is a wonder of modern design.

It's often so light you'll barely notice it in your bag while still delivering plenty of performance. Students breeze through campus with these lightweight wonders, while pros tuck them into briefcases for on-the-go productivity (or just conquering emails from the couch). You'll love the convenience and portability they bring, making them the perfect companion for busy, on-the-move individuals.

But just because they're small doesn't mean you should underestimate their bite. These aren't the underpowered thin and light laptops of yesteryear; 13-inch laptops are available to handle almost any workload. They make for the best travel-friendly laptops available, with a sturdy chassis, enchanting display, and long battery life. So ditch the bulk and embrace the possibilities — 13-inch laptops are where extreme portability meets powerhouse.

If you want the thinnest and lightest laptop possible while still offering enough power to handle most tasks easily, a 13-inch laptop is the answer.

If you need a laptop today, these are the best 13-inch laptops based on our extensive testing and reviews.

The Quick List

Best 13-inch laptops in 2024

Best 13-inch overall laptop

Apple's MacBook Air M3 is staggering, asserting itself as one of the best overall laptops. If you need a 13-inch, most people would not go wrong with it, as its excellent performance and miraculously long battery life are impossible to deny.

The MacBook Air M3 towers above the premium laptop's average performance with its Geekbench 6 overall multi-core score of 12,087. Its SSD speeds are also hyper-fast, hitting an average of 3,031 megabytes per second in our file transfer test. Plain and simple, there are very few scenarios in which you can go wrong with the MacBook Air M3.

On the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits, The MacBook Air M3 lasted 15 hours and 13 minutes. No, you didn't misread that. Its battery life goes above and beyond reason, and it is one of the longest-lasting laptops you can buy today.

It's also impressive that this is a whole hour longer in longevity when compared to the M2 MacBook, meaning there's no better time to invest in the latest model. MacBooks are also famous for their great-feeling keyboards, and if you want a springy and quiet one to keep your fingers happy while typing the day away, look no further.

Otherwise, its 13.6-inch, 2560 x 1664 Liquid Retina display is crisp enough to perform in-depth work. Its 77.8 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut is solid, but what sets it apart is an average brightness of 476 nits. The brightness is enough to handle even the sunniest days, as there's nothing worse than intense glare, making it impossible to see what's happening on-screen.

See our full MacBook Air M3 review.

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Best 13-inch business laptop

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 3 is the perfect business laptop for those who need a quality ultraportable. Its total weight of 2.2 pounds is as light as a feather, and if you need something truly capable with solid performance and a bright display, look no further.

Our configuration costs $1,599, and Lenovo built it with an Intel Core i7-1360P processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage space, and a 13.3-inch 2K IPS touchscreen. While it's important to remember that it's using a last-generation processor, its Geekbench 5.5 multi-core performance of 9,268 is good enough to handle a heavy workload.

We were pretty disappointed by its longevity, though. In the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits, its subpar 8 hours and 28 minutes of battery life is enough to sustain an entire workday. Still, depending on how demanding your workflow is, you might need an outlet nearby. This is also worse than the original's 12 hours of battery life and is significantly below the 9-hour and 45-minute ultraportable average.

The laptop can also get bright enough to survive blinding sunlight, with an average brightness of 483 nits. That's even higher than the MacBook Air M3, which hits 476 nits. However, its color depth leaves much to be desired, coming in at a 70.9 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

We also wish it had more ports, but considering it's a thin and lightweight laptop, it's typical for these products to have a small selection. At the very least, its two Thunderbolt 4 ports will allow for the best laptop docking stations to be attached. You also get an audio jack, so there's that.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 3 review

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Best 13-inch 2-in-1 Laptop

Counting the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i as a 13-inch laptop might be cheating, as it features two 13.3-inch 2,800 x 1,800-pixel displays, but this adds to the diversity of its use cases. How does it work, you ask? Pop the lid open and use it as a standard laptop, but detach its Bluetooth keyboard and get to work when you want to use two screens at once. You can even use an included external mouse and Lenovo Digital Pen.

It is absolutely worth considering its price, though, as you'll be paying $1,999 for this beast. Beyond just its incredible foundation, its 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1355U is solid, with a Geekbench 5.5 score of 7,765. While this is slightly below our 7,767 premium laptop average, it's not drastic enough of a drop for us to avoid recommending the product.

The dual OLED displays are also a glorious sight, covering 136.5 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut on the top display and 136.7 percent on the bottom display. This isn't a surprise, as they're identical panels, and it pulls ahead of competitors like the MacBook Air M3 (77.8 percent) without issue.

It also sports battery life within our recommended range, lasting 9 hours and 18 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits. While that's not quite as impressive as the MacBook Air M3's 15 hours, it's still great for a 2-in-1 laptop.

The brightness could be better, though. It is 335 nits on the top display and 344 nits on the bottom display, which is lower than the 392 nits average for this category.

See our full Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review.

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How to choose the best 13-inch laptop

Do your intensive daily workloads require more RAM than the average Joe? Are you a video editor who needs extra storage? Are you a gamer who wants a powerful GPU? Sorting through the best laptops to fit your lifestyle is a tricky business.

Budget: What you get for your money

You can find decent Windows laptops and high-quality Chromebooks for under $500. However, better mainstream laptops usually cost more than $700 and premium Ultrabooks can run over $1,000. The best gaming laptops can cost $2.000 and up, but you can play the latest titles at decent frame rates on gaming laptops under $1,000.

Design: 2-in-1 or clamshell?

More and more of today's laptops are 2-in-1s with screens that either bend back 360 degrees or detach so you can use them as tablets. If you like the idea of using your laptop in slate mode for drawing, media consumption, or just standing up, a 2-in-1 could be for you. However, you can often get better features or a lower price by going with a traditional clamshell-style laptop.

Battery Life: 9+ hours for portability

Battery life matters unless you plan to use your laptop only on your desk. Even in the home or office, having plenty of juice enables you to work on the couch or at the conference table without being chained to the nearest outlet. We recommend getting a laptop that lasted over 9 hours on the Laptop Mag Battery Test for the best portability. The longest-lasting laptops endure anywhere between 10 and 15 hours.

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How we test the best 13-inch laptops

Over the course of a year, we review over 150 laptops covering every price point and use case. Whether you’re looking for a productivity workhorse, a badass gaming system, or a multimedia machine to kick back and watch a movie or two, we can help you find your ideal match.

In order to make our list, the system needs to score at least 4 out of 5 stars on our reviews and deliver on the things shoppers care about most. In our evaluations, we focus on design and comfort, display quality, the keyboard and touchpad, performance, battery life, and especially value.

Our expert reviewers also use each product to see how it looks, feels, and performs in everyday situations. Because we see so many different notebooks, we can compare each to its direct competitors and give you an idea of how it stacks up to the average laptop in its price band.

When we bring a laptop into our laboratory, our goal is to see how it would work if you brought it into your home or office. While we use a number of industry standard benchmarks such as Geekbench and 3DMark, we focus heavily on real-world tests that we have developed in-house.

To test endurance, the Laptop Mag Battery test surfs the web at 150 nits of brightness until the system runs out of juice. To judge pure processing power, we use a giant spreadsheet macro that matches 65,000 names with their addresses, a video transcoder that converts a 4K video to 1080p, and the Geekbench 5 synthetic test. We measure graphics prowess with both 3DMark Ice Storm / Fire Strike and a series of games including Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Metro: Exodus, Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption just to name a few.

We use a colorimeter to measure screen brightness and color gamut while other instruments help us determine a laptop's key travel and ambient heat. See this page on how we test laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.

Back to the top ⤴

Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.

We are 100 percent independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades and continues to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.

One of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing, enforces our editorial trustworthiness. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.

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