JULY 2020 PCWorld 13AMD’s Frank Azor said don’t expect any more
SmartShift laptop announcements this year.SmartShift laptops are, AMD’s Frank Azor
responded with bad news for AMD fans.
“It’s a brand new technology and to Dell’s
credit, they jumped on it first,” Azor said. “No
more SmartShift laptops are coming this year
but the team is working hard on having more
options ASAP for 2021.”
Azor, who currently works as AMD’s
Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions,
explained the challenge when he appeared
on PCWorld’s The Full Nerd (go.pcworld.
com/flnd) podcast recently. Laptop
roadmaps are planned at least a year in
advance, Azor pointed out. Vendors have to
make design choices based not only on what
the part maker claims, but also what the
vendors think customers will want.
Azor said a lot of PC vendors didn’t
expect the game-changing
performance from Ryzen
4000 that we’ve seen from
its H-class CPUs (go.
pcworld.com/hcls) and its
U-class CPUs (go.pcworld.
com/ucls), so it’s
understandable they’d dip a
toe into the Ryzen pool
rather than jump in with
both feet.
With the performance of
the CPU now proven, we
expect to see more laptop
vendors adopt Ryzen and
Radeon parts. But that takes
time, and that’s where we are today, Azor said.
The vast majority of the new AMD-based
laptops aren’t focused on gaming either,
Azor said. Expect about 20 percent of the first
100 Ryzen-based laptops to be gaming
laptops.Azor said a lot of PC vendors didn’t expect the game-changing
performance from Ryzen 4000 that we’ve seen from its H-class CPU.