What just happened? As AMD’s recently launched Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs dominate sales charts and mobile users anticipate the company’s next-gen APUs, news regarding Zen 5’s Fire Range laptop CPUs has been scant. A mysterious Asus gaming notebook benchmark that appeared on Christmas might be the first hint of an impending Dragon Range successor.
An Asus ROG laptop with an unnamed AMD engineering sample processor was recently discovered on Geekbench. An established leaker believes it might be one of the earliest sightings of a CPU from the company’s upcoming Fire Range lineup.
The device’s Geekbench AI scores don’t offer a clear picture of real-world performance. However, it is the first ROG Strix G-series laptop with an AMD processor to appear since the 2023 editions, which featured Zen 4 Ryzen 7000HX Dragon Range chips. The 2024 variants, including the most recent G16, exclusively use Intel Alder Lake CPUs.
Fire Range 16 Corehttps://t.co/ITOKZox955
– Everest (@Olrak29_) December 27, 2024
AMD announced Fire Range alongside the other Zen 5 variants earlier this year, but the laptop processors have received much less attention than their desktop and integrated brethren. The socketable Ryzen 9000 Granite Ridge chips launched in August to a positive reception, with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D taking the gaming CPU throne.
Meanwhile, the Ryzen AI chips and their larger AI Max cousins recently began appearing in mobile gaming devices. The AI 9 370 and closely related Z2 Extreme are expected to power a new generation of portable PCs, while the AI Max appeared in a recently leaked Asus 2-in-1.
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The new ROG Strix chip is labeled with a nondescript sample number, but its specs suggest it might be a high-end Ryzen 9 model. Its 16 cores, 32 threads, and 2.5GHz base frequency indicate a follow-up to the 7945HX or 7945HX3D.
Fire Range will likely compete against Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200HX CPUs. Little is known about them, but the top-end model might feature 24 cores and a 5.5GHz boost clock. Intel is set to unveil Core Ultra 200H and 200HX during the first quarter of 2025.
At the other end of the laptop stack, AMD has also remained silent on Krackan Point, its upcoming lineup of budget laptop APUs. A Geekbench AI test for an engineering sample appeared in November, and the company is expected to unveil devices using the chips sometime next year.
