AMD introduces Ryzen 8000HX “Dragon Range” mobile chips for gaming laptops

Two years after introducing the Ryzen 7045 "Dragon Range" line of mobile chips for gaming laptops AMD is back with four new processors with new names and… very similar features.

The new Ryzen 8000HX series processors are 55+ watt chips with up to 16 Zen 4 CPU cores, CPU frequencies up to 5.4 GHz, and 80MB of total cache. They don't have the AI capabilities of AMD's Ryzen AI processors or the Zen 5 CPU cores of the new Ryzen 9000HX Fire Range chips. But they could be slightly more affordable options for gaming laptops that rely more on discrete GPUs for performance than the latest CPU technologies.

The MSI Vector A18 HX was announced in January and supports Ryzen 9 9955HX "Fire Range" or Ryzen 9 8945HX "Dragon Range" processor options

With that in mind, Dragon Range chips lack powerful integrated graphics since these chips are designed to be paired with discrete GPUs. But some chips do feature notable improvements over the previous-gen Ryzen 7045HX models.

AMD's most powerful new Dragon Range processor is nearly identical to its predecessor in all but name. The Ryzen 9 8945HX is basically just a rebranded Ryzen 9 7945HX processor. But AMD has retooled other members of the Dragon Range lineup by phasing out its entry-level Ryzen 5 models (with 6 cores and 12 threads) so that all of the new chips feature at least 8 CPU cores.

Ryzen 8000HX Series "Dragon Range" for gaming and content creation (April, 20225) Model CPU Gen & node Cores / Threads Base / Boost CPU freq Cache Graphics TDP Ryzen 9 8945HX Zen 4 (5nm) 16 / 32 2.5 GHz / 5.4 GHz 80MB Radeon 610M(2 x RDNA 2) 55 – 75W Ryzen 9 8940HX Zen 4 (5nm) 16 / 32 2.4 GHz / 5.3 GHz 80MB Radeon 610M(2 x RDNA 2) 55 – 75W Ryzen 7 8840HX Zen 4 (5nm) 12 / 24 2.9 GHz / 5.1 GHz 76MB Radeon 610M(2 x RDNA 2) 45 – 75W Ryzen 7 8745HX Zen 4 (5nm) 8 / 16 3.6 GHz / 5.1 GHz 40MB Radeon 610M(2 x RDNA 2) 45 – 75W

Like their predecessors all of the new processors support up to 64GB of dual channel DDR5-5200 non-ECC memory, have 28 lanes of PCIe 5.0, and support up to four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports.

They also feature Radeon 610M graphics with 2 RDNA 2 GPU cores supporting speeds up to 2.2 GHz, which should be good enough to let you watch videos and play some very casual games without switching to integrated graphics. But for anything more advanced you're most likely going to want to use a dGPU.

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