AMD Ryzen 6000: Everything you need to know

Ryzen 6000 is AMD’s next swing at the mobile market, launching in over 200 laptops designs throughout 2022. The new generation moves to a smaller manufacturing process for higher clock speeds, as well as brings unmatched integrated graphics in laptops.

To get you up to speed, we rounded up Ryzen 6000 specs, pricing, and benchmarks. If you’re a desktop user, you’ll have to hold tight until AMD’s Ryzen 7000 launch, which we expect in late 2022.

Pricing and availability

Ryzen 6000 CPUs released in laptops in February 2022, with AMD showcasing designs from Razer, Asus, and Lenovo, among others. As usual, it has been a slow trickle of Ryzen 6000 laptops as vendors move to update their catalogs. Asus is one of the first companies to embrace Ryzen 6000 with machines like the ROG Zephyrus G14.

For pricing, we only know about the more expensive Ryzen 9 machines now. The ROG Zephyrus G14 clocks in at $1,650 for the Ryzen 9 6900HS and RX 6700S, scaling up to $1,900 if you want the more powerful RX 6800S GPU. Premium machines like the Razer Blade 14 are much more expensive, with Razer’s latest model running for $3,500 with a Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU and RTX 3080 Ti GPU.

We don’t have any cheaper options right now, though we expect Ryzen 5 machines to land around $800-900. Last-gen’s Lenovo Legion 5 with a Ryzen 5 processor started at $900, for example. Ultrabooks, such as the Lenovo Z13, will likely sell above $1,000 with Ryzen 6000 processors thanks to their more premium design.

Architecture and specs

Ryzen 6000 CPUs are based on the Zen 3+ architecture, which is an enhanced version of the Zen 3 architecture featured in Ryzen 5000 processors. The enhancements come from a smaller manufacturing process. Ryzen 6000 uses chipmaker TSMC’s 6nm process, while Ryzen 5000 used the slightly larger 7nm process.

That leaner process node is what’s helped unlock higher clock speeds of up to 5GHz on some designs, and freed up some space for the additional GPU cores on the higher-end models. Previously AMD mobile CPUs have been limited to just eight GPU cores, but with 12 onboard using the new RDNA 2 design, there’s massive potential for capable mobile graphics on these new CPUs.

Here are the Ryzen 6000 processors AMD is currently offering:

Performance

AMD made bold claims about Ryzen 6000’s performance when it announced the range at CES. The combination of new process nodes and enhanced clock speeds reportedly give the Ryzen 6800U a huge performance uplift over the last-generation favorite, the 5800U. In video encoding, it’s said to perform as much as 70% faster, and more than 130% faster in 3D rendering.

Some of this will come from the higher clock speeds, but it’s possible that the added support for DDR5 and LPDDR5 with Ryzen 6000 mobile CPUs has removed some of the memory bottlenecking that we’ve seen with previous Ryzen designs — something that AMD is fixing on desktop with its refreshed line of Ryzen 5000 3D VCache CPUs, and its upcoming Zen 4 chips, with their own DDR5 support.

Compared to the last generation’s options, Ryzen 6000 is a solid upgrade. PC Gamer found about an 18% increase with the Ryzen 9 6900HS in the ROG Zephyrus G14 in Cinebench, compared to last gen’s Ryzen 9 5900HS. Although impressive gen-on-gen improvements, Ryzen 6000 still falls short of Intel’s 12th-gen Alder Lake options like the Core i9-12900HK.

XDA Developers found that the Ryzen 9 6900HX was about 16% slower than the Core i9-12900HK inside the Asus ROG Strix G15 in single-core testing. AMD’s part was able to match Intel’s in multi-core tests, however. Although Ryzen 6000 doesn’t quite stack up to 12th-gen Alder Lake, the less powerful HS parts deliver much higher battery life.

Outside of raw performance, Ryzen 6000 is exciting with the inclusion of RDNA 2 integrated graphics — the same architecture behind AMD’s RX 6000 graphics cards. AMD claims that its 6800U can deliver up to two times the gaming performance of its Ryzen 5000 counterpart. That helps it outstrip not only some of Intel’s best onboard graphics solutions but even entry-level GPUs like Nvidia’s MX450 — a popular choice in stealth gaming machines.

AMD also showed a demo of a Ryzen 6000 CPU playing Far Cry 6 at medium settings, 1080p resolution, and holding an average frame rate of 59 FPS. That’s impressive, but it’s important to remember that it did use FidelityFX Super Resolution to achieve it, and was likely running under ideal circumstances.

USB 4, Wi-Fi 6e, Microsoft Pluton

Alongside the improvements in raw performance, Ryzen 6000 also brings with it some much-needed quality of life improvements from added feature support. Intel’s recent generations have held a notable advantage there, partly thanks to its monopoly on Thunderbolt technology. Ryzen 6000 helps to level that playing field a little with support for USB 4, which while not mandating the same high bandwidth as Thunderbolt 4, can support everything up to and including it.

Ryzen 6000 also adds support for Wi-Fi 6e for the fastest networking and is the first CPU line to integrate Microsoft’s Pluton technology for much-improved security against hardware attacks on encryption keys and login credentials.

AMD Ryzen 6000 laptops you can buy now

There aren’t too many Ryzen 6000 laptops at the moment, despite AMD launching the range in February. The majority of laptops are expected to arrive in summer, such as the Acer Nitro 5 and Alienware m17 R5. At the moment, here are the Ryzen 6000 laptops you can buy:

Several more machines have been announced, and AMD says that over 200 Ryzen 6000 designs will eventually make their way to market. Early adopters have a limited selection, at least from reputable sources.

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