Razer has been exclusively using Intel mobile processors on its laptops to date, but that could soon change. Even though the notebook maker hasn’t confirmed plans to diversify its gaming laptop lineup, we are seeing leaks that could indicate future models may ship with AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series mobile CPUs.
Given how strong AMD’s game has been with recent Ryzen releases, adding Ryzen 5000 to Razer’s mobile mix will be a good thing for Team Red gamers.
According to leaks posted by Twitter user @_rogame, Razer may be working on at least two different laptop configurations with AMD Ryzen processors. Given that these are gaming notebooks, Razer will pair AMD’s Ryzen processors with discrete mobile GPUs — in this case, it seems that Razer will be using Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards.
From the leaked 3DMark benchmark listings, we know that the first model will pair a Ryzen 9 5900 HX processor with a GeForce RTX 3070 GPU in a Max-Q configuration. According to the benchmark, the laptop will have a GPU with a base frequency of 780 MHz with 80W of power. This will be Razer’s more premium AMD configuration of the two leaked models.
The listing noted that the Razer laptop comes with a Razer PI411 motherboard, which, according to HotHardware, suggests that Razer could be returning to the 14-inch screen size and that this notebook could launch under the Razer Blade 14 branding, though that remains unconfirmed.
The second configuration utilizes the same eight-core, 16-thread Ryzen 9 5900 HZ processor as the more premium configuration, but it swaps in an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card instead of the midrange RTX 3070.
According to the listing, the GPU on this second model is set at 80W of power, which means that it will be a Max-P full-power design rather than the Max-Q design on the RTX 3070 model. The Max-Q requirement for the RTX 3060 is set at 60W.
The 3DMark Time Spy score for the RTX 3060 model is in the 7,300 range, which places the performance of this mobile GPU in the range of the GeForce RTX 2070 and GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q, according to HotHardware.
To date, Razer hasn’t announced any partnerships with AMD nor any plans to launch a Ryzen-powered Blade laptop, so we don’t know when this laptop could potentially debut.
Historically, AMD-powered systems command a price advantage over a similarly configured Intel system, and we expect the trend to continue here. The Blade 14 with an older Intel Core i7-4720-HQ processor, for reference, retails for $1,799 on Newegg.