Gaming? On an ultrabook? That sounds absurd as we all know that ultrabooks has its sacrifices to enable its thin form factor. But what if it can not only run the usual esports title well, but even older AAA games like Skyrim?
That was what we see at the Malaysian launch of AMD Ryzen Mobile yesterday. AMD took the time to introduce the first two new laptops utilising the Zen-based CPU + Radeon Vega GPU combo all in one dye, which not only will provide better performance than comparable discrete CPU+ GPU combos, but more power efficient and cheaper too.
The Lenovo Ideapad 720S is the latest from the ultrabook line, which will retail at RM3,299. With the Ryzen 5 2200U powering it, it should provide similar, if not better, gaming performance than the rest of the Ideapad ultrabook line. It is also really, really small with only 13.3 inch wide display. It comes with 4GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB SSD storage.
The Acer Swift 3, also an ultrabook, will also get a variant powered by the same APU. The 15.6 inch laptop will have 8GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB SSD. It will be launching later this year.
AMD also took the opportunity to showcase its upcoming plans for Ryzen APUs line. The Ryzen 5 2200U is on the lowest tier of the five available APUs, so what we saw here was just the tip of the iceberg.
For now, we won’t be recommending anyone to just buy these ultrabooks to play the latest games, but the potential is there. If what AMD is showing is all true, these Ryzen Mobile APUs could open the floodgates for more affordable PC gaming.
Gaming laptops are still starting around RM5,000 for a good spec that can run the latest games, and anything below that are just not suitable for gaming due to thermal issues.
Ryzen Mobile could shake up the market, and for that we will keeping our eye on them and see if they can pull it off.