AMD's New Ryzen 8040 Series Laptop Chips Put The Focus On AI

AMD's laptop APU line got a refresh on Wednesday in the form of the Ryzen 8040 series, and at least going by the announcement, AI is the priority and main dividing line from the previous 7040 series. "We continue to deliver high performance and power-efficient NPUs with Ryzen AI technology to reimagine the PC," said Jack Huynh, SVP and GM of AMD computing and graphics, in a press release. "The increased AI capabilities of the 8040 series will now handle larger models to enable the next phase of AI user experiences."

On paper, the new APUs read as very similar to the 7040 series, with the 8040 series featuring Zen 4 CPUs and RDNA 3 GPUs made using the same 4nm process as its predecessor series. The 8040 version of the AI-centric neural processing unit, or NPU, is, according to what AMD told Ars Technica, roughly 1.4x faster than its 7040 counterpart, but AMD also conceded to Ars that this was mainly a byproduct of increased clock speeds. AMD Technical Marketing Manager Donny Woligroski also told Ars that firmware and driver tweaks should be a key differentiator in generating a "real generational improvement," as well.

"It's been incredible to see AMD and Microsoft's long partnership moving into the next wave of technology, bringing AI innovation to our shared customers," Pavan Davuluri, CVP Windows + Devices, Microsoft, added in AMD's press release. "We're so excited to see Ryzen 8040 Series processor-powered devices come to life in the Windows ecosystem and can't wait to see what developers and customers do with all of this innovation."

According to the press release, the new lineup of APUs consists of the following nine SKUs:

• AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS (8 cores/16 threads, up to 5.2 GHz boost/4.0 GHz base CPU frequency, 24MB cache, 45W TDP)
• AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (8 cores/16 threads, up to 5.1 GHz boost/3.8 GHz base CPU frequency, 24MB cache, 45W TDP)
• AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS (8 cores/16 threads, up to 5.1 GHz boost/3.3 GHz base CPU frequency, 24MB cache, 28W TDP)
• AMD Ryzen 7 8840U (8 cores/16 threads, up to 5.1 GHz boost/3.3 GHz base CPU frequency, 24MB cache, 28W TDP)
• AMD Ryzen 5 8645HS (6 cores/12 threads, up to 5.0 GHz boost/4.3 GHz base CPU frequency, 22MB cache, 45W TDP)
• AMD Ryzen 5 8640HS (6 cores/12 threads, up to 4.9 GHz boost/3.5 GHz base CPU frequency, 22MB cache, 28W TDP)
• AMD Ryzen 5 8640U (6 cores/12 threads, up to 4.9 GHz boost/3.5 GHz base CPU frequency, 22MB cache, 28W TDP)
• AMD Ryzen 5 8540U (6 cores/12 threads, up to 4.9 GHz boost/3.2 GHz base CPU frequency, 22MB cache, 28W TDP)
• AMD Ryzen 3 8440U (4 cores/8 threads, up to 4.7 GHz boost/3.0 GHz base CPU frequency, 12MB cache, 28W TDP)

All but the last two will include the NPU for AI acceleration. Notebooks containing the new 8040 series APUs will ship in Q1 2024 from, according to the press release, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Razer.