HP Rolls Out The First "Raven Ridge" Zen+Vega APU Notebook

[schmidtbag]

Interesting how the APU is called the 2500U, rather than 1500U. I can't imagine AMD made that many changes to the CPU architecture to bump it up as a next-gen product.

[Guest]

Interesting how the APU is called the 2500U, rather than 1500U. I can't imagine AMD made that many changes to the CPU architecture to bump it up as a next-gen product.

Ryzen is a new CPU architecture written from scratch, instead of improvement of the previous one from AMD. (if I'm not mistaken)

So, it pretty much makes sense. There should be a lot of space for improvement. Also, Ryzen didn't have any APU version, and no low power variants. So, few (or lots of) changes might have been needed.

[wdb974]

An ultrabook with an AMD CPU! Can't wait to see the future models!

I do agree about the lack of dual channel though. It really makes a difference nowadays.

Make it dual channel, and preferably 13-14", and you've got a sale.

I'm still rocking a 2009 macbook pro 13", and I just discovered yesterday that the aluminum shell on back of the screen is coming off. I'll probably epoxy it back on, but I've been waiting for raven ridge to replace it anyway.

I'm sick of being stuck with 4GB RAM and a GeForce 9400M on the binary drivers. Whatever I get will be running an AMD graphics chip, I just hope it gets decent battery life as well.

The website everymac.com lists the following Macbook Pro: MB990LL/A - MacBookPro5,5 - A1278 as supporting 8 GB of RAM.

[schmidtbag]

Ryzen is a new CPU architecture written from scratch, instead of improvement of the previous one from AMD. (if I'm not mistaken)

So, it pretty much makes sense. There should be a lot of space for improvement. Also, Ryzen didn't have any APU version, and no low power variants. So, few (or lots of) changes might have been needed.

I'm aware, but Raven Ridge is not a complete re-write of Summit Ridge (the AM4 non-APU Ryzens), whose series is currently in the 1000s, hence my point. I am not referring to Bristol Ridge APUs, which are based on the old Excavator architecture.

Historically, I don't recall either Intel or AMD bumping up the number when creating mobile chips of the same generation. For example, you can find Haswell parts that are in the 4000 series for both laptops and desktops. The mobile parts are still a bit different in architecture but they're similar enough that they're considered the same generation.

[nomadewolf]

That's very good news. But the question is why the AMD-version gets 1x8GiB Single Channel while the Intel equivalent seems to have a 2x4GiB Dual Channel configuration.

I might be alone in this, but i like that it's a single memory chip, cause that way, i can double the ammount of memory and bandwidth by adding a second memory stick. Otherwise, it'd be more expensive.
I like this approach:
If your budget is tight, than you can make a little compromise. Otherwise you can go all the way and get performance and size...

[Veerappan]

The website everymac.com lists the following Macbook Pro: MB990LL/A - MacBookPro5,5 - A1278 as supporting 8 GB of RAM.

It does, and that laptop used to run with 8GB, which was the minimum I needed to do a single VM for working from the couch in the evenings.

But a few years ago one of the DIMM slots started getting flaky, and the laptop would no longer wake from sleep with that slot populated. So I pulled one of the 4GB sticks, and the laptop has been stable since then.

Really, a 2.5Ghz Core2Duo, 256GB SSD, a GF9400M, and a 13" LED-backlit screen are pretty decent for browsing and light work... But Nvidia shunted the GPU off to legacy driver status years ago, which made OpenCL stuff a PITA to develop on it (dual-boot Mac and Linux, I used to triple-boot with windows as well), and Apple officially killed support starting with Sierra. There's a 3rd-party hack that lets you upgrade it anyway, but that causes iCloud sign-in issues from what I can tell.

I dumped my iPhones a few years ago, and I'm planning on retiring my macbook soon. I'll probably leave windows installed on the new laptop, but it'll get a minimum amount of drive space allocated to it, and a Linux install will get the majority, since that's what my machines spend most of their time running in these days.

[wdb974]

It does, and that laptop used to run with 8GB, which was the minimum I needed to do a single VM for working from the couch in the evenings.

But a few years ago one of the DIMM slots started getting flaky, and the laptop would no longer wake from sleep with that slot populated. So I pulled one of the 4GB sticks, and the laptop has been stable since then.

Really, a 2.5Ghz Core2Duo, 256GB SSD, a GF9400M, and a 13" LED-backlit screen are pretty decent for browsing and light work... But Nvidia shunted the GPU off to legacy driver status years ago, which made OpenCL stuff a PITA to develop on it (dual-boot Mac and Linux, I used to triple-boot with windows as well), and Apple officially killed support starting with Sierra. There's a 3rd-party hack that lets you upgrade it anyway, but that causes iCloud sign-in issues from what I can tell.

I dumped my iPhones a few years ago, and I'm planning on retiring my macbook soon. I'll probably leave windows installed on the new laptop, but it'll get a minimum amount of drive space allocated to it, and a Linux install will get the majority, since that's what my machines spend most of their time running in these days.

I feel your pain, my friend.

[vein]

Interesting how the APU is called the 2500U, rather than 1500U. I can't imagine AMD made that many changes to the CPU architecture to bump it up as a next-gen product.

Isn't Raven ridge on Zen+ that is anyway going to be released in q1?

[schmidtbag]

Isn't Raven ridge on Zen+ that is anyway going to be released in q1?

I have no idea. You could be right (in which case I suppose it should be called the 2500U) but it seems weird to me that AMD would already push forward a next-gen part without even completing their current gen, especially in such a short amount of time. If Zen+ (or Zen 2; whatever the correct term is) is in fact implemented in these APUs and the forthcoming AM4 APUs, I hope they made enough adjustments to overclockability and made the RAM less picky. If not, the Ryzen 2000 series might not be too successful, unless there is a significant boost in IPC (which I don't expect). Now that Intel has been adding more physical cores across their product lineup with a minimal price increase, Ryzens are starting to look less attractive.

[Nille_kungen]

Isn't Raven ridge on Zen+ that is anyway going to be released in q1?

What do you mean.
There's mobile (laptop) och there's desktop, mobile is released the year before like BR was on mobile last year and on desktop this year.
Mobile might take a bit longer after release before it can be seen in final products since that's up to the notebook manufactures.
RR will come to laptops this year and desktops next year.