AMD Ryzen 7 8840U tops the charts in 10W benchmarks
Even better than Steam Deck’s Van Gogh.
AMD has recently updated its mobile portfolio with Ryzen 8000 series. The “Hawk Point” APUs are more or less the same as “Phoenix”, given that they have the same core count and clocks, but there is a 60% improvement in the AI-space thanks to the faster XDNA processor.
AMD also offers its Phoenix processors as Ryzen Z1 series, the Z1 Extreme is nearly identical to Ryzen 7 7840U with changes to the officially supported TDP settings (7840U is 15-30W while Z1E is 9-30W). Furthermore, the Z1 does not have XDNA processor enabled. Overall, the Z1 series were designed for gaming handhelds where low-power operation is crucial. They also serve as an alternative to the Van Gogh APU for Steam Deck, which is specifically designed to operate at low power but offers fewer and older GPU cores.
According to Cary Golomb, tech reviewer focusing on handheld and Mini-PC systems, the Ryzen 7 8840U appears to perform better than Ryzen 7840U and Van Gogh at 10 watts. AMD made no comments or announcements regarding Hawk Point improvements for low-power operations, but this would suggest that the APU performs better than Van Gogh, which was previously always true with Phoenix.
SteamDeck low TDP perf finally dethroned.
GPD continues to make the best AMD devices. 8840U shouldn't be better, but everywhere I'm testing, it is consistently better across every TDP.
TSP measuring similar.
Three other GPD 7840U devices behaving somewhat consistently. pic.twitter.com/NS6pl2rqlT
— Cary Golomb (@carygolomb) February 18, 2024
AMD Ryzen 8000 series for mobile system has only started shipping to reviewers, with some companies already claiming to have stock of next-gen products with Hawk Point. Thus far we have only heard from GPD about the planned upgrade from 7840U to 8840U SKU and the upcoming AYANEO system . Minisforum is also working on an AMD-based tablet with this APU.
Currently, it is unclear if AMD has plans to introduce Ryzen Z2 series based on the updated Hawk Point processors. Perhaps it is more probable that the series will be based on Strix Point, utilizing a newer CPU and GPU architecture (Zen5+Navi3.5).
Source: Cary Golomb