In 2020, AMD won the gaming laptop category for the first time ever. We’d never seen a laptop with an AMD CPU and AMD GPU run circles around the competition until the Asus Zephyrus G14. Since then, we’ve seen that “AMD laptop” is no longer synonymous with “low-cost.” But AMD is now aiming higher than mid-range gaming computers, revealing that it is developing a new CPU geared at the “pinnacle of gaming performance” with the “highest core, thread, and cache ever.”
AMD says Dragon Range will adopt the “HS” suffix for CPUs but warns that the higher TDP shouldn’t be interpreted as a complete abandonment of power economy in favor of performance.
AMD hasn’t offered any other information, and it’s unclear what the new CPUs would bring to the table that gaming laptops require, given that graphics chips, not CPUs, are generally where most of the gaming oomph comes from these days. Still, CPU performance matters, especially when trying to feed a high refresh rate panel with lower-resolution frames — and the type of player who buys an “extreme gaming laptop” could worry about even a modest FPS advantage.
AMD also announced today to journalists that, beginning next quarter, it will separate gaming into its own financial sector, with revenue from semi-custom parts such as PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam Deck chips joining desktop and laptop Radeon graphics – all part of distinct gaming business. However, it appears that Ryzen will not be part of that category, but rather a “Client” one: the company will explain more during an analyst day in June.
