AMD Ryzen Pro Now Comes With Built-In Radeon Vega Graphics

Onboard graphics chips have earned a not so good reputation for being near useless beyond basic display capabilities. That reputation is partly thanks to Intel who, until recently, hasn't exactly given its built-in GPUs much love. AMD, in contrast, is playing up its Radeon property, acquired from old NVIDIA rival ATI, to boost both its images and its graphics chops. It is putting those chops to work on the second gen Ryzen PRO processors for notebooks and desktops. And this time, AMD made sure it has some OEMs to cheer it on.

AMD Ryzen CPUs that come with Radeon Vega GPUs aren't exactly new, with the first non-Pro batch announced last February. In fact, these second gen AMD Ryzen Pro processors aren't completely new either. They're still based on AMD's first gen Zen architecture, which means four cores with four or eight threads versus the 6 to 8 cores of the new Zen+ architecture announced last April.

What makes these new Ryzen Pro chips "Pro" is mostly the increased security and supply guarantees. Think of it like the new Ryzen with Radeon Vega GPU for corporate customers. That is, in fact, the Ryzen Pro's primary target market. But since the first gen required businesses and companies to buy a separate graphics card, the Ryzen Pro didn't really make for an appealing option.

That's the second thing that's different with this second gen Pro processors. This time, AMD made sure that there are OEM partners that will be putting its new CPU/GPU combos in their products. Dell, HP, and Lenovo, have announced new variants of several computers, both notebook and desktops, powered by these new AMD Ryzen Pro chips.

AMD has ben aggressively pushing into Intel's strongholds, reclaiming its title of being a more affordable alternative to the status quo. But with its integration of Radeon Vega GPUs for both consumer and enterprise computers, it may have just gotten an edge over its long-time rival.