At Chiphell Forums, the specifications for AMD’s Mendocino APUs, which would cover the entry-level Athlon and Ryzen 5 laptop segments, have been released. The AMD Mendocino APUs will be targeted at the entry-level thin and light notebook segment and will be announced at Computex 2022. The APU will also be used in the AYANEO Air Plus hand-held gaming console, which will be released later this year.
The AMD Ryzen 6000 ‘Mendocino’ APUs will have Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU cores, unlike the other two APUs (Rembrandt and Barcelo). These cores will be improved and optimized on the latest TSMC 6nm node and will include up to four cores and eight threads, as well as four megabytes of L3 cache.
This appears to be the same configuration as AMD’s Van Gogh SOC, which is used to power the Steam Deck (handheld) console. The new APU range, however, will have a thermal and power advantage over Van Gogh because it will be used in laptops. Despite this, these chips are expected to be extremely energy efficient, with a battery life of more than 10 hours (internally projected). According to Robert Hallock, the laptops will have an active cooling solution because passive designs require more engineering and can raise the price of the products.
The AMD Mendocino APUs will be supported by the brand new ‘Sonoma Valley’ platform, which is based on the FT6 (BGA) socket, according to the new specifications. The GPU will be based on the RDNA 2 graphics architecture and will include a single WGP (Work Group Processor) that can support up to two Compute Units or 128 stream processors. According to Angstronomics, Teal Grouper will be the codename for the RDNA 2 integrated graphics chip found on Mendocino APUs. The on-die graphics cache on the GPU will be 128 KB, which is not to be confused with Infinity Cache.
Here are the architectural details of AMD’s Mendocino APUs
- Up To 4 Zen 2 CPU Cores With 8 Threads
- Up To 2 RDNA 2 GPU Cores With 128 SPs
- Up To 4 MB of L2 Cache
- Up To 128 KB GPU Cache
- 2x 32-bit LPDDR5 Channels (Up to 32 GB Memory)
- 4 PCIe Gen 3.0 Lanes
Two 32-bit memory channels support up to 32 GB LPDDR5 memory, four display pipes (1 eDP, 1DP, and 2 Type-C outputs), and the latest VCN 3.0 engine with AV1 and VP9 decode are among the other features. Two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, two USB 2.0 ports, and a single USB 2.0 port for SBIO will be available on AMD Mendocino APUs. Four GPP PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes will be included in the I/O.
The AMD Ryzen 6000 ‘Mendocino’ APUs will be available in Q4 2022, just months after the Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7000 ‘Dragon Range’ CPUs and ‘Phoenix’ APUs. It will be fascinating to see how the newcomer performs in the market, as well as the designs that come with such a lineup of APUs. AMD hasn’t announced the new lineup’s SKUs yet, so they could hold another pre-release event to specify the product stack, prices, and particular products based on the new Mendocino Ryzen APU family. The portfolio will target the entry-level laptop market, with prices ranging from $399 to $699 in the United States.
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