AMD Launches 2nd Gen Ryzen Pro & Athlon Pro APUs
by Anton Shilov on April 9, 2019 9:15 AM ESTAMD on Monday introduced four new processors aimed at commercial laptops. The new AMD Ryzen Pro 3000-series as well as AMD Athlon Pro 300-series processors pack up to four x86 cores as well as AMD’s Radeon Vega integrated graphics. Because of improved power efficiency, AMD says that laptops powered by its latest Ryzen Pro APUs will work for up to 12 hours when used for general office workloads.
AMD’s new Pro-series processors are essentially the Ryzen Mobile 3000-series APUs and made using GlobalFoundries’ 12LP process technology. The parts have numerous features supported by AMD’s Pro-series products, such as a built-in TrustZone security processor, DASH manageability, Secure Boot, Content Protection, per-Application security, fTPM 2.0, Transparent Secure Memory Encryption (TSME), and some other technologies are they key feature which differentiate AMD’s Pro from the company’s regular processors for client PCs.
Furthermore, AMD uses wafers with highest yields/least amount of defective parts to build the Ryzen Pro in a bid to meet long term reliability. These CPUs are covered by a 36-month limited warranty, up from 12-month warranty for consumer processors. AMD also guarantees that its Pro-series products will be available for at least 24 months after initial launch and also provides 18 months of planned software stability.
The family of AMD’s 2nd generation Ryzen Pro Mobile processors includes four models: the Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U, the Ryzen 5 Pro 3500U, the Ryzen 3 Pro 3300U, and the Athlon Pro 300U. The Ryzen Pro-branded parts feature four cores with or without SMT, whereas the Athlon Pro device has two cores. All of the APUs have an integrated Radeon Vega GPU, yet with a different configuration. The new APUs feature a TDP of up to 15 W and are therefore aimed at ultra-portable laptops.
AMD's 2nd Gen Ryzen Pro Specifications | |||||||
Cores Threads |
Frequency | Cache L2 + L3 |
GPU | TDP | |||
Base | Boost | ||||||
Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U | 4/8 | 2.3 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 6 MB | Vega 10 | 15 W | |
Ryzen 5 Pro 3500U | 2.1 GHz | 3.7 GHz | Vega 8 | ||||
Ryzen 3 Pro 3300U | 4/4 | 2.1 GHz | 3.5 GHz | Vega 6 | |||
Athlon Pro 300U | 2/4 | 2.4 GHz | 3.3 GHz | 5 MB | Vega 3 |
When compared to AMD’s 1st generation Ryzen Pro Mobile parts, the Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U and the Ryzen 5 Pro 3500U offer slightly higher base as well as turbo clocks. By contrast, the Ryzen 3 Pro 3300U features a lower base frequency, yet a slightly higher turbo frequency, when compared to the Ryzen 3 Pro 2300U.
(For those interested, it should be noted that the Athlon Pro 300U is a full 12nm chip, built on the Zen+ Picasso design, whereas the non-Pro version is a 14nm chip, and a second iteration of Raven Ridge.)
AMD’s own tests show that its Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U is ~1% better than the 8650U in PCMark and up to double in performance when graphics comes into the mix.
Obviously, GPU-intensive workloads are the ones where AMD’s APUs outshine Intel’s CPUs. Meanwhile, general-purpose performane of AMD's and Intel's processors for commercial laptops is very close, according to AMD.
AMD has already started to ship its Ryzen Pro 3000-series and Athlon Pro 300-series processors to its partners among PC makers. HP and Lenovo are expected to be the first to offer commercial laptops based on the new APUs. Other manufacturers are projected to follow later in 2019.
Related Reading
- HP Unveils ProDesk 405 G4 Desktop Mini PC: An SFF Ryzen Pro Desktop
- Two New 35W Raven Ridge Parts: AMD Athlon 200GE and Athlon Pro 200GE
- AMD Launches Ryzen Pro with Vega: Mobile APUs and Desktop APUs
- AMD Launches Ryzen PRO CPUs: Enhanced Security, Longer Warranty, Better Quality
Source: AMD
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Samus - Wednesday, April 10, 2019 - link
65w is on-par with many Intel solutions using a 15w CPU and a discrete 50w GPU.Intel's Cannon Lake has such a configuration.
What's important is AMD's solution has superior CPU and GPU performance at the same power envelope, but that has yet to be established so we will have to see...
albert89 - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
People are upset that AMD is doing great. Sothey call AMD's new release at a lower lithography
a rebrand. While apparently Intel's 5th or 6th
generation on 14nm are not rebrands according
to the same Intel fangirls. Give me a break.
Spunjji - Tuesday, April 9, 2019 - link
These are no more a re-brand than the change from Ryzen 1000 to Ryzen 2000 series was - it's the same changes (process and architecture tweaks) trickling down to their mobile parts. Based on early evidence from other sites, it looks like they may have substantially reduced their idle power problems, too.gijames1225 - Tuesday, April 9, 2019 - link
If they tidied up the idle power then these will be great. The first generation where solid in performance, but the battery drain kept them out of the high-end.neblogai - Tuesday, April 9, 2019 - link
But MatebookD with 2500U has great battery life (in addition to great performance). So, the fault was not on APUs, but on laptop manufacturers and their lazy designs.Irata - Wednesday, April 10, 2019 - link
Have the same and concur, however I usually do not let it idle on battery for hours. Since it boot up really fast, there is no need for that.But yes, battery life is great - can use it over several days (not the whole day obviously) without the need to recharge which is a fist for me with AMD based laptops.
bug77 - Tuesday, April 9, 2019 - link
I was thinking the same thing: they clearly had a power issue before and they don't talk about power draw at all. Which can only mean they didn't fix it.And tbh, I really, really, really don't care about Vega being faster. For workloads that don't need a dGPU, Intel has enough HP already. Sure, I'll take better encoding/decoding capabilities, better outputs and whatnot. But all this "oh, look, Vega is so much faster" talk, does nothing for me.
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
Sounds like youa re not the market for Ryzen then.I really, really, really care about Vega being faster. For workloads that use GPUs in more then a passing fashion, a more capable iGPU is always welcome. Some of us dont want to have to shell out $700 for a bottom tier "gaming" laptop just to have more power then intel was putting in their chips in 2013.
Irata - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
With this regard, the Matebook with the 2500U is really great - my kid can play Fornite @ Full HD resolution with Medium details.The sad thing is it runs smoother than on a "four" core Trinity based Desktop with a 4 GB RX550, SSD and 16 GB RAM...I think it's really about time I upgrade my Desktop PC, as well.
Intel999 - Tuesday, April 9, 2019 - link
AMD announced months ago that they would be expanding the powergating properties on Picasso.In the first gen of mobile processors the iGPU never completely powered down when not in use. They have addressed that with Picasso along with other less efficient properties of the first generation.