AMD chips aren’t the energy hogs they used to be

AMD’s mobile processors met a goal for energy efficiency that AMD set back in 2014. Six years ago, AMD set a goal for its mobile processors to be 25 times more efficient by 2020. According to AMD, the Ryzen 7 4800H beat its baseline measurements for efficiency by 31.7 percent (via Tom’s Hardware).

AMD didn’t specify the results fully, but states that the tests were performed on April 15. They used the AMD FX-7600P as the baseline chip and tested several processors since then, including the Ryzen 7 4800H. Testing utilized Energy Star revision 6.1, 3DMark 2011 P-Score, and Cinebench R15 nT.

In a statement from AMD, Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at TIRIAS Research said “The 25×20 goal required major changes to architecture, design and software, and did not rely solely on silicon process technology advancements. Achieving and surpassing this challenging goal is a testament to the hard work the AMD team put into its products and it catapulted AMD to a leadership position in mobile processors.”

In addition to improvements in energy efficiency, between 2014 and 2020 system-on-chip power management features reduced average compute time for “a given task” by 80 percent, according to AMD.

AMD earned a reputation for power-hungry processors in the past, though most jokes were about desktop efficiency, not mobile processors. This improvement over the last six years greatly improves the efficiency of AMD’s mobile processors.