AMD is planning several APUs based on Zen 4 for the coming year, which should also be suitable for gaming.
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“Dragon Rage” and “Phoenix” are supposed to put further pressure on the competitor Intel.
© amd.com
The manufacturer AMD already serves many notebooks and desktop computers with its combination processors consisting of a CPU and GPU from the “Raphael” series. A combination processor from AMD is also installed in the two consoles Xbox Series X/S and Playstation 5. With the next generation “Dragon Rage”, AMD wants to offer APUs that, according to the manufacturer, should also be suitable for “top gaming”.
Zen 4, PCI-E 5.0 and DDR5
“Dragon Rage” uses modern Zen 4 cores for the processor, which are combined with a GPU based on RDNA 3. There is also support for DDR5 memory and PCI Express 5.0. Accordingly, a mainboard with AM5 socket is required for the new APUs. However, it is still unclear how AMD intends to pack what it claims to be the fastest mobile gaming CPUs with a high number of cores and threads as well as an increased cache into one chip. The only thing that is certain is that all this should be implemented with a maximum TDP of 55 watts.
“Phoenix” for office computers
In addition to “Dragon Rage”, AMD also wants to equip home theater PCs, office computers and smaller laptops with APUs with its own series called “Phoenix”. “Phoenix” should also build on Zen 4 cores, support LPDDR5 memory and enable PCI Express 5.0. However, only 35 to 45 watts TDP are available for this. These APUs are probably not suitable for gaming with high demands. Like “Dragon Rage”, however, “Phoenix” should put pressure on Intel and its HX CPUs as well as the H and U models. It remains to be seen to what extent “Dragon Rage” will prevail in the desktop area. However, the new APUs from AMD are not to be expected before 2023.
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