Just as we were bragging that we had the world's best gaming CPU, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, AMD announced a host of advanced new processors that will be available in new laptops starting early next year.

Led by the flagship Ryzen 9 8945HS (an 8-core/16-thread monster), Team Red will begin shipping nine new CPUs based on the "Zen 4" architecture. The even lower-end 6-core Ryzen 5 8540U, for example, is much kinder to deposit balances, and expect to see this silicon in affordable laptops for 2024.

The new line is codenamed "Hawk Point," as revealed in a recent press release. But wait a minute. They will be available on Windows 11-powered laptops from major manufacturers such as Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Razer. And AMD is not hanging around either. These new chipsets will be available in a variety of new portable PCs in the first quarter of 2024.

AMD claims that its latest Ryzen processor series "delivers the highest performance available in an ultra-thin PC laptop and long battery life with innovative power management features." The company also claims that the Ryzen 8040 series' support for advanced LPDDR5 memory allows these new chips to "maximize virtual experiences, gaming, and streaming."

New forms of AI are also a big part of the equation when it comes to the latest stack of Ryzen silicon.

Some 8040 series laptops can benefit from "ready-to-use AI with Windows Studio Effects Pack. What this means in the real world. Enhanced privacy features, eye tracking, noise cancellation; all handled by the chip itself thanks to "local AI". Essentially, laptops with Ryzen AI software can offload AI models to the neural processing units (NPUs) of these new chipsets.

What are the consumer benefits to such a technological story: local AI capabilities that reduce CPU power consumption have the added benefit of extending battery life. Having witnessed shocking battery life tests on a number of gaming laptops recently at Tom's Guide, we are all for advanced features that help extend battery life. [This is clearly an exciting time for AMD, and as a new convert to Team Red, I never thought I'd be typing this after 20 years of using Intel processors in some of the best gaming PCs, but AMD is It is refreshing to see that they seem to have regained their best as a pioneer. [Let's be honest, AMD needs to attack Intel. Because with Nvidia's fangs in the GPU market, a processing war with Intel is the only battle the company has a chance of winning.