At CES 2020, AMD unveiled its new 7nm Ryzen 4000 series of mobile processors, and they are pretty darn impressive. Not only are they fabricated on a 7nm process – making them more power-efficient than Intel’s offerings – the performance level of these new chips are said to be superior too.

The new Ryzen 4000 processors are divided into two categories: 15W and 45W TDP. The former, which are dubbed U-series, will be found in productivity-focused laptops, while the 45W H-series processors are made for gaming notebooks. Notice how AMD’s naming convention matches that of Intel’s equivalent mobile processors.

Let’s start with the 15W chips. As many as five different processors are available across the most affordable Ryzen 3 4300U chip to the highest-end Ryzen 7 4800U. According to AMD, the latter is the first processor in the market to offer an eight-core, 16-thread design for ultraportable laptops.

Performance level of the Ryzen 7 4800U is particularly impressive too. Against the comparable Intel Core i7-1065G7 processor, AMD’s offering is 4% better in single-thread performance, 90% faster in multi-thread tasks, and even the integrated graphics perform 28% better in 3DMark’s Time Spy synthetic benchmark.

As for the Ryzen 4000 series in general, the fact that they’re 7nm chips give them an edge when it comes to power consumption. AMD claims that the new processors are twice as power-efficient compared to their predecessors, which were built on a 12nm process.

And then there are the 45W chips, consisting of the Ryzen 5 4600H, Ryzen 7 4800H, and the Asus-exclusive Ryzen 7 4800HS. Basically, the 4800HS offers similar performance as the 4800H, but in a 35W envelope, making it more power-efficient. However, it’s worth noting that even the regular 4800H’s TDP can be set to 35W, so the difference between the two chips isn’t crystal clear.

But what is made clear is Asus’ exclusivity on the Ryzen 7 4800HS processor that’s used in the recently announced Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. The Taiwanese company will be the only manufacturer that can use this particular naming / chip for the first six months. After that, other laptop makers are free to use it.

So how does AMD’s H-series processors compare to Intel’s counterpart? Well, looking at AMD’s own benchmarks, very favourably. The chipmaker compare the Ryzen 7 4800H chip to Intel’s Core i7-9750H processor (which are found in most gaming laptops right now), and the 4800H performs 39% better in 3DMark’s FireStrike Physics test.

Processing power of the Ryzen 7 4800H is said to be better than the Core i7-9750H as well. The former is 5% better in single-thread performance, and it’s also 46% faster in multi-thread tasks. Evidently, the 4800H looks to be a very capable chip, not to mention the fact that it’s also 7nm in size, compared to the 14nm i7-9750H.

Expect laptops featuring AMD’s new Ryzen 4000 processors to hit the market in the next few months. If you’re in the market for a new productivity laptop or gaming machine, you may want to wait for the arrival of notebooks with the new chips – they’re very promising.