Saying AMD has had a great 2018 is an understatement after all the victories we’ve seen them with. They’ve successfully regained double digit market share in a lot of markets worldwide, stocks at record high values and regained consumer trust after more than 5 years of not being competitive.
There was one segment, however, that AMD was not yet able to take by storm – and that’s the Gaming Notebook market. This certain market is arguably the single fastest growing market in terms of consumer retail sales and AMD surely does not want to miss out.
We’ve seen brands try to do something about this themselves by outfitting laptops with 1st generation Ryzen CPUs but the problem there was that they were desktop chips and we’re not optimized for battery. Sure it crushed every H series CPU available from Intel, namely the i5-7300HQ and i7-7700HQ – and even the 8th generation 8300H and 8750H but mediocre baattery life and over-heating plagued those laptops and we’re not recommended for those who truly want a portable device.
AMD changes all that though by introducing their own line of H series CPUs, rated at 35W TDP versus Intel’s 45W H series CPUs. What’s important to note here, though is that Intel is poised to introduce 9th Gen laptop CPUS in the near future given that their 9th gen desktop CPUS have also just been announced.
| Mobile APU | Cores/Threads | Process Node | L2 & L3 Cache | Base/Boost Frequency | Vega GPU Cores | GPU Frequency | TDP |
| Ryzen 7 3750H | 4/8 | 12nm | 6MB | 2.3/4.0GHz | 10 | 1,400MHz | 35w |
| Ryzen 7 3700U | 4/8 | 12nm | 6MB | 2.3/4.0GHz | 10 | 1,400MHz | 15w |
| Ryzen 5 3550H | 4/8 | 12nm | 6MB | 2.1/3.7GHz | 8 | 1,200MHz | 35w |
| Ryzen 5 3500U | 4/8 | 12nm | 6MB | 2.1/3.7GHz | 8 | 1,200MHz | 15w |
| Ryzen 5 3300U | 4/4 | 12nm | 6MB | 2.1/3.5GHz | 6 | 1,200MHz | 15w |
| Ryzen 3 3300U | 2/4 | 12nm | 5MB | 2.6/2.6GHz | 3 | 1,200MHz | 15w |
| Athlon 300U | 2/4 | 14nm | 5MB | 2.4/2.4GHz | 3 | 1,000MHz | 15w |
Either way, if Ryzen’s 3000 series H series cpu we’re atleast as powerful as the 1st Gen Desktop CPUS – then Intel is in big trouble and their 9th gen has to be nothing short of spectacular. It’s interesting to note though that, while Intel is using a 6core/12thread design on their I7-8750H, Ryzen’s competiing Ryzen 7 3750H is only 4C/8T.
We don’t have benchmark numbers to run as of this point but if AMD can pull off an upset, then they’re out to prove that they can compete on a single core performance game too – and not just on number of cores. We’ll have to wait for further updates from AMD this week and brands to unveil their own takes on the Ryzen H series cpu to see how they truly fare. Not to forget, AMD is using 10-12nm while Intel is still stuck on their 14nm architecture so this puts AMD way ahead in terms of effiency.
It’s interesting to note, though, that AMD has only given us details of 1 brand who will be releasing their Ryzen H series based gaming laptop – i.e ASUS’ TUF GAMING. We can only assume that ASUS has gotten privilege of 1st dibs, or atleast – a 1 quarter exclusivity just like the Ryzen 1700X on the ROG GL702 line of gaming laptops.
Going into further details, the first laptop to inherit the Ryzen H series CPU is the ASUS Tuf Gaming FX505 and FX705 series – coming in with atleast the Ryzen 5 3550H paired with an RX560X. Other features include ASUS’ exclusive NanoEdge thin bezel LCD with 120hz refresh rate and, ofcourse, FreeSync technology.
Historically, AMD tends to be priced a little lower than their Intel counterparts so if the basic Intel i5-8300H + Nvidia GTX1050 variant is priced at roughly 49,995 in the Philippines, we expect it to ATLEAST be priced at the same range but blow the Intel-8300H performance out of the water – or if a little cheaper if the performance just matches it squarely.