AMD Ryzen and Athlon 7020 "Mendocino" 6nm Processors Launched for Entry-level Notebooks

[btarunr]

AMD today launched the Ryzen 7020 and Athlon 7020 lines of entry-level mobile processors that pack a unique combination of AMD processor, graphics, and I/O technologies that promise a superior experience and battery-life in the entry-level notebook segment that's usually forsaken by processor manufacturers. Based on the 6 nm "Mendocino" monolithic silicon, these SoC pack a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on an enhanced version of the "Zen 2" microarchitecture; an entry-level iGPU based on the latest RDNA2 graphics architecture, with modern display I/O and media-acceleration features; and a modern I/O that includes support for LPDDR5 memory. Processors in the series offer TDP in the range of 8 to 15 W, making them "U-segment" chips but in "H-segment" form-factors. AMD is promising battery-life of up to 12 hours on the full charge.

The 6 nm "Mendocino" silicon packs a single "Zen 2" CCX with four CPU cores, each with 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache, and 4 MB of shared L3 cache. Infinity Fabric connects it with the iGPU, which AMD markets as Radeon 610M. This iGPU packs two RDNA2 compute units (128 stream processors). AMD feels this is enough for everyday computing, web-browsing, and online videos. Its display engine is contemporary, with support for modern notebook display types; while the media engine offers hardware-accelerated decode for H.265 (HEVC), H.264, and AV1, among several older video formats. There are several platform features that Windows 11 can take advantage of, including modern standby, wake-on-voice, including Cortana and Alexa support; Microsoft Ink, and Microsoft Modern Device power-management. Its hardware security features include Pluton, and secure bio channel, making the chips fully capable of running Windows 11 in a commercial environment.



There are three processor models AMD is launching today, these include the Ryzen 5 7520U, the Ryzen 3 7320U, and the Athlon Gold 7220U. All three feature the same Radeon 610M iGPU, and TDP in the range of 8 to 15 W, with the same platform and I/O features. The Ryzen 5 7520U leads the pack with a 4-core/8-thread CPU clocked at 2.80 GHz with 4.30 GHz boost. The Ryzen 3 7320U is clocked slightly below, while retaining the core-configuration. It comes with CPU clock speeds of 2.40 GHz, and a boost frequency of 4.10 GHz. The Athlon Gold 7220U is a dual-core chip, with a 2-core/4-thread CPU clocked at 2.40 GHz, boosting up to 3.70 GHz.



AMD is working to improve the device experience of entry-level mainstream notebooks, and worked with at least three notebook manufacturers to ensure the user gets faster boot times, faster application performance, contemporary I/O, and most importantly, the 12-hour battery life. Lenovo, HP, and Acer are onboard with AMD on this, and are ready with three products—Lenovo Ideapad 1 (around the 14-inch mark), an unnamed HP 17-inch notebook, and the Acer Aspire 3 (around the 15-inch mark). These devices should start launching in Q4-2022.



In its performance benchmarks for the chips, AMD compared the Ryzen 3 7320U with the Intel Core i3-1115G4 "Tiger Lake-U," 2-core/4-thread albeit at a comparable price-point. The 7320U was shown with 31% higher scores in PCMark 10; 58% higher scores in Cinebench R23, and 80% higher performance in 7-zip. The PCMark 10 "app start" test shows the 7320U score 31% higher. AMD is recommending its partners to include at least an entry-level BGA NVMe SSD with their notebooks, which could be playing a major role with app-launch times.


AMD in its presentation also confirmed that 2023 will be when the company debuts "Phoenix," its next-generation mobile SoC that packs "Zen 4" CPU cores, and RDNA3 graphics; as well as the 7045-series "Dragon Range" enthusiast mobile processors with up to 16 "Zen 4" cores.

The complete slide-deck follows.


View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[BrainCruser]

4GB RAM in a laptop in 2022?
It will be crashtastic.

I wouldn't buy anything below 8GB ram below 500$, and 16GB in the 600$ range.

 

[Denver]

The last slide mentions something about games running on the Athlon 7220U, nothing impressive... but hey, it runs something besides 3D chess.

 

[progste]

"What you experience in today's notebooks: old platforms!
Also here is Zen 2!"

Oh come on AMD -.-

 

[bob3002]

Mendocino seems to be in the same generation as the semi-custom APU that powers Valve's Steamdeck, but with the GPU units pared down to save power/cost.

Steamdeck APU: 4C/8T Zen 2 CPU, 8 CU RDNA2 GPU, LPDDR5 memory
Mendocino: 4C/8T Zen 2 CPU, 2 CU RDNA2 GPU, LPDDR5 memory

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

I think it'd be cool if they threw one of these SoCs in a tablet...I don't own a laptop, nor am I in the market for one, if I need to use the internet on the go, I use my phone, but an affordable, but capable tablet with x86 instead of ARM with a 14"-16" screen would be nice to have to browse websites while on the couch or watch youtube/video while traveling. I need to travel basically every week for work, and a product like that would be great as long as they could get it around $500 or less...think of a Microsoft Surface competitor, maybe some corners cut on materials to keep the price down, this 4 core Zen2/RDNA2 SoC, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD (at least PCIe 3.0x2, but it doesn't need to be some 4.0x4 heater, I'd be happy with 1500MB sequential R/W's,) an SD or MicroSD slot (256GB microSDs are cheap and 100MB/s is good enough to store media on and play movies from, the internal SSD can house the OS and apps), and a 14" to 16" 1440p display, but I'd be willing to accept 1080p if it's necessary to keep the cost around $500. Something like that with a Zen2 processor would be awesome.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

That 2nd image makes it sound like those experiences are what to expect with that new chips, the wording is not enough to differentiate todays laptops from theirs . unless you comprehend it carefully... well.

 

[Valantar]

For AMD's stated target market of $300-700 laptops, these seem pretty decent, even if that 2c4t chip is going to be slow. I just hope nobody saddles them with 4GB of RAM, and I hope they either skip the BGA SSDs or at least find some that aren't utter crap.

 

[Denver]

4GB RAM in a laptop in 2022?
It will be crashtastic.

I wouldn't buy anything below 8GB ram below 500$, and 16GB in the 600$ range.

I just saw 3 laptops in this price range with ryzen 5 5xxx(Hexa-core) and 16Gb... I really don't understand what AMD's intention is releasing Zen2 APUs with such a weak iGPU(2CU)..

It will only make sense on really really cheap laptops(Less than $400) or chromebooks.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

"What you experience in today's notebooks: old platforms!
Also here is Zen 2!"

Oh come on AMD -.-

What should they do differently? In my opinion, an old platform is perfect for budget options....Zen2 is still perfectly capable for a browsing machine

 

[Valantar]

That 2nd image makes it sound like those experiences are what to expect with that new chips, the wording is not enough to differentiate todays laptops from theirs . unless you comprehend it carefully... well.

That slide seems quite clearly intended as part of a progression, a "here's today - here's tomorrow (with our stuff)" type of thing. Viewing it in isolation you're not wrong, but I can't imagine many people will ever be exposed to that slide and only that slide.

 

[progste]

What should they do differently? In my opinion, an old platform is perfect for budget options....Zen2 is still perfectly capable for a browsing machine

sure, zen2 is great, but selling it as a new platform is somewhat misleading.

 

[Valantar]

"What you experience in today's notebooks: old platforms!
Also here is Zen 2!"

Oh come on AMD -.-

sure, zen2 is great, but selling it as a new platform is somewhat misleading.

"Platform" doesn't necessarily mean CPU core. They seem to be talking about non-CPU features - video decode, hardware accelerators, power saving mechanisms, etc. Performance wise, Zen2 is plenty good enough for this segment - heck, it's plenty good enough for most uses for most people still. Battery life, connectivity, I/O, acceleration of common workloads etc. are more important than pure CPU horsepower.

 

[r9]

I think it'd be cool if they threw one of these SoCs in a tablet...I don't own a laptop, nor am I in the market for one, if I need to use the internet on the go, I use my phone, but an affordable, but capable tablet with x86 instead of ARM with a 14"-16" screen would be nice to have to browse websites while on the couch or watch youtube/video while traveling. I need to travel basically every week for work, and a product like that would be great as long as they could get it around $500 or less...think of a Microsoft Surface competitor, maybe some corners cut on materials to keep the price down, this 4 core Zen2/RDNA2 SoC, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD (at least PCIe 3.0x2, but it doesn't need to be some 4.0x4 heater, I'd be happy with 1500MB sequential R/W's,) an SD or MicroSD slot (256GB microSDs are cheap and 100MB/s is good enough to store media on and play movies from, the internal SSD can house the OS and apps), and a 14" to 16" 1440p display, but I'd be willing to accept 1080p if it's necessary to keep the cost around $500. Something like that with a Zen2 processor would be awesome.

I don't think anything based on this APU can beat my Lenovo 10e Chromebook that I bought for $69 from Microcenter.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

but I can't imagine many people will ever be exposed to that slide and only that slide.

I have to agree, I didnt take that into consideration until you mentioned it.

 

[bug]

Mendocino, really? https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/codename/26586/products-formerly-mendocino.html

 

[ZoneDymo]

anyone know why this is being compared to the 1115g4 ? (horrible name btw)

 

[john_]

Having played for a period with an Athlon 3000G on the desktop, both the CPU cores and the iGPU in the Athlon 7020 model will be more than enough for simple tasks. Ryzen models will be even better.

 

[Space Lynx]

@btarunr Do you know if any of these 6nm APU's will be in a Chromebook? That would be cool. I'd like a nice Chromebook like that.

 

[defaultluser]

this sounds like a good upgrade for AMD 's Pentium competitor (first, they forced Intel's i5 and i7 u-series to quads - now, they enforce that on Pentium Raptor Lake!)

I'm sure nobody else using these cut Mendocino cores means there must be a huge supply of Steamdeck rejects

 

[Valantar]

anyone know why this is being compared to the 1115g4 ? (horrible name btw)

My guess would be that it's a widely used CPU in this product segment currently.

 

[Dragokar]

Everything is better compared to the widely sold N4020/4120 and so on.....

 

[trparky]

I know that this post I'm making here is going to go off on a bit of a tangent but why do I think that Apple may have made a deadly mistake when it comes to going with their own in-house designed desktop and mobile chips? Because the way I see it, AMD is proving the x86-64 still has a lot of gas left in the tank while still keeping power usage low. Couple that with how the M2 is really an iterative design of the M1 chip which really presents not much of a performance boost while thermal throttling much like how they made fun of Intel for. Yeah, Apple may have very well made a mistake and I don't think they'll ever admit that because to do another platform change in less than five years would be a disaster of epic proportions.

 

[JoniISkandar]

Celeron 5000 series already become quad core, why they release 2core4T in 2022

Especially now windows 10/11 become more bloated, i hate really hate when working with dual core celeron and atlhon they almost useless

While the core i3 laptop is become very cheap, i can buy i3 10th/11th gen laptop for just 370$

 

[TechLurker]

I feel a part of this is more recycling of bad bins that came from a different source; much like how they recycled bad PS5/Series X into usable, if niche, development boards. Many claim possibly bad SteamDeck bins, which could be valid, and there were also many who'd like a SteamDeck SoC detuned for portability/work (even a few comments across the web of some users using their SteamDeck as a portable work tablet). On the other hand, being able to leverage existing semi-custom SoCs for other market entries is a great option, and lets AMD really reach into underserved/niche markets. Even competing in the ultra-low end would benefit AMD, and make Intel further sweat.