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AMD Preps Cheaper 12, 16-Core Ryzen CPUs for Laptops: Leak

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AMD’s Ryzen 9 7845HX and Ryzen 9 7945HX processors are among the fastest gaming CPUs for laptops, and since these are the company’s ultra-high-end offerings, they ought to be quite expensive, which somehow limits their adoption by PC makers. In a bid to capture some additional market share, AMD is reportedly prepping Ryzen 9 7840HX and Ryzen 9 7940HX CPUs that will offer similar core count, but will run at slight slower clocks.

“How come AMD slapped me in the face again [crying hard], they just said that Dragon Range will not be updated next year, and then they told me that they are releasing 7940/7840HX, the specifications are almost the same as 7045HX, with just a slightly lower frequency,” wrote Golden Pig Upgrades, a renowned hardware leaker who tends to have accurate information. “However, it is still called Ryzen 7000, which indicates it is a 2023 U-series, so it does not count as a slap in the face.”

It is expected that AMD’s Ryzen 9 7840HX will retain its 12 Zen 4 cores, whereas Ryzen 9 7940HX will feature 16 Zen cores, just like the higher-end counterparts. Meanwhile, the new CPUs will run at lower clocks, which will enable AMD to address more price conscious buyers among mobile gamers without decreasing prices of its Ryzen 9 7845HX and Ryzen 9 7945HX processors and therefore preserve margins.

It is unclear when exactly AMD intends to launch the new Ryzen 9 7840HX and Ryzen 9 7940HX processors. It is reasonable for the company to release them shortly and ensure that laptops based on the new CPUs are on the market by holiday season, but this is our speculation at this point. The good news is that the new processors will be drop-in compatible with AMD’s higher-end parts, so PC makers will not have to redesign their notebooks. 

What remains to be seen is how AMD will position these new parts in 2024. On the one hand, these will remain very high-performance offerings. But on the other, they will belong to the previous-generation Ryzen 7000-series processors, which will make it slightly harder to promote.