AMD took the stage at yesterday’s CES 2021 keynote to announce the laptop versions of its latest Ryzen 5000 CPUs. The newly announced chips also include 35-watt versions which will directly compete with Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake H35 CPUs announced this week.
The 35-watt version CPUs are aimed at thin and light gaming laptops, whereas the low power U series is meant for mainstream laptops with a lightweight design. Just like Intel, the H series includes high-powered processors, and there is also an HX series that can be overclocked to go beyond their base 45W power rating for better performance.
| Cores/threads | TDP | Base clock | Single-core boost clock | |
| Ryzen 9 5980HX | 8/16 | 45+w | 3.3 | 4.8 |
| Ryzen 9 5980HS | 8/16 | 35w | 3.0 | 4.8 |
| Ryzen 9 5900HX | 8/16 | 45+w | 3.3 | 4.6 |
| Ryzen 9 5900HS | 8/16 | 35w | 3.0 | 4.6 |
| Ryzen 7 5800H | 8/16 | 45w | 3.2 | 4.4 |
| Ryzen 7 5800HS | 8/16 | 35w | 2.8 | 4.4 |
| Ryzen 5 5600H | 6/12 | 45w | 3.3 | 4.2 |
| Ryzen 5 5600HS | 6/12 | 35w | 3.0 | 4.2 |
| Ryzen 7 5800U | 8/16 | 15w | 1.9 | 4.4 |
| Ryzen 7 5700U | 8/16 | 15w | 1.8 | 4.3 |
| Ryzen 5 5600U | 6/12 | 15w | 2.3 | 4.2 |
| Ryzen 5 5500U | 6/12 | 15w | 2.1 | 4.0 |
| Ryzen 3 5300U | 4/8 | 15w | 2.6 | 3.8 |
It is worth mentioning that not all processors in the list are based on AMD’s new Zen 3 architecture. Out of all the U series chips, only the Ryzen 7 5800U and Ryzen 5 5600U are based on Zen 3, whereas the rest of them feature Zen 2, which featured on last year’s Ryzen 4000 mobile CPUs.
There are a number of differences between Zen 2 and Zen 3, the biggest one being better performance per watt on Zen 3, which means better battery life. Zen 3 chips are also much more efficient than their Zen 2 counterparts.
As for performance compared to Intel chips, we will have to wait until actual models start coming in and third party benchmarks surface. Stay tuned for updates.
