THE NEWS
the beginning of the magazine, where the articles are small8 MAXIMU MPC MAR 2022
quickstart
Two new generations of chips, two approaches
Mobile Wars
Below the H-series are a
set of 28W P-series chips.
This new category powers
high-end ‘ultrabooks’ that
would have previously used
15W U-series parts. At the top
is the i7-1280P, which carries
14 cores (six performance,
eight efficiency), a base clock
of 1.8GHz, and a maximum
boost of 4.8GHz. At the bottom
sits the i3-1220P with two
performance cores.
The U-series is split into 15W
and 9W varieties. All bar the
Celeron and Pentium-branded
chips have two performance
cores and nearly all have the
full eight ‘E’ cores. Previous
generation chips had four, but
we’ll have to see how the 2+
core configuration plays out.
Lastly, we have the 9W
chips for the thin and light
kit. These generally mirrorthe 15W chips, but with lower
base clocks. Virtually all this
new silicon gets an impressive
maximum boost, while none
drop below 4.4GHz.
Over in the red corner,
AMD’s new 6000-series Ryzen,
with new RDNA2 graphics, will
take on Alder Lake directly.
There are eight new H-series
and two U-series chips. AMD
keeps things simpler and
doesn’t spread itself as thin as
Intel. All the chips have either
eight or six cores, coupled to
12 or six GPU Compute units.
The top example is the
Ryzen 9 6980HX, with a TDP of
45W, a base clock of 3.3GHz,
and a boost of 5.0GHz (single-
core). The bottom of the range
is the 15-28W Ryzen 5 6600U
with a base clock of 2.9Ghz and
a 4.5GHz boost. Apart from the
three versions with cut-down
GPUs, the only metric that
moves significantly down the
range is power consumption.
The 6000-series uses a
new Zen 3+ core, which AMD
claims has enhanced power
management features, such
as deep sleep states. There
are no efficiency cores topass across the simple jobs
though. The RDNA 2 graphics
engine is a step up from the
Vega engine—AMD claims it
produces around twice the
frame rates at 1080p. There’s
also an improved memory
controller, featuring DDR5,
while PCIe and USB jump to
version 4.0, while the process
drops from 7nm to 6nm.
AMD says there will be more
than 200 “premium” systems
powered by AMD this year, up
from last year’s 150. It has
signed deals with Lenovo
for the ThinkPad Z, aimed
at corporate users—an area
where Intel has dominated.
The laptop market has
grown to become a big slice of
the PC world, with everybody
from students to hardcore
gamers a potential customer.
AMD’s assault began in
earnest three years ago and
has gathered momentum. This
new generation takes the fight
right into Intel’s home turf.
The mid-market has Intel’s
P-series, while AMD has a
new graphics engine and is
confident its 6000-series
works for 1080p gaming. Intel
has better memory support,
with cheaper DDR4. Both offer
good connectivity, with a pair
of x4 NVMe SSD connectors.
Intel has Thunderbolt 4, AMD
has USB 4.0.
Laptop processors were
once Intel’s domain, but it is
now in a highly competitive
match with AMD. The red
team has a mountain to climb
in sales but has the chips to
make it a contest. –CLBOTH AMD AND INTEL have
launched batches of new
laptop chips into a highly
competitive market. Intel has
a whole basket of new Alder
Lake silicon, which it divides
into enthusiast, performance,
and ultra-portable categories,
corresponding to H, P, and
U-series naming.
The 12th generation H
chips consume a base power
of 45W, and there are eight
new models, from the Core
i9-12900H which has 14
cores (six performance, eight
efficiency) and a 5GHz clock.
Below that are two slower
versions, the i7-12800 and
i7-12700, plus the i7-12650 that
loses four efficiency cores.
There are three i
versions, which boast four
performance cores. Intel
claims a 20 percent boost
for single-thread operations
over the previous generation,
thanks to an IPC hike from
the Golden Cove cores. Add
in those efficiency cores and
that jumps to 40 percent on
multi-threaded tasks. Early
benchmarks have shown
that the i5-12500H overtakes
the previous generation
i9-11980H. The i7-12700H,
meanwhile, manages to
dispatch the Ryzen 7 5800H.AMD’s new generation
of chips takes the fight
right into Intel’s home turf.
It’s Team Red vs Team Blue in the laptop space.© AMD, INTEL