AMD’s Smartshift technology is used in only one laptop this year

Last year featured double major launches from the red team, which during the summer released the Ryzen 3000 series on the processor side and the “Navi” family of graphics cards. Since the beginning of 2020, the competent processor hardware is also available for laptops, but under the Ryzen 4000 “Renoir” flag. Dedicated Navi graphics are also available in portable format.

AMD thus has a unique position in the market, through the ability to provide both a modern processor and powerful graphics for laptops. In connection with the Renoir launch, the company presented a way for computer manufacturers to cream out more performance by choosing an AMD combo, in the form of the dynamic power budget Smartshift. Now it appears that the technology in reality has not been embraced by manufacturers on a broad front, more specifically only in one case.

► Read more about Smartshift technology

Smartshift is based on the fact that different applications require different amounts of processor and graphics card, so the components can share a fixed power budget and distribute it based on area of ​​use. In situations where processing power is of paramount importance, available power can be borrowed from the graphics card to allow the processor to reach higher clock frequencies, and vice versa. AMD believes that the implementation of the technology entails a non-existent cost in the hardware route, but that manufacturers need to validate the system and use special firmware.

It’s a brand new technology and to @dell credit they jumped on it first. I explained reasons why during my interview with @pcworld @Gordonung @BradChacos No more SmartShift laptops are coming this year but the team is working hard on having more options ASAP for 2021.

— Frank Azor (@AzorFrank) June 4, 2020

Since the release of the Ryzen 4000, however, Smartshift computers have been happy with their absence, which has raised questions. In a twitter post, the company’s Frank Azor, chief architect for gaming solutions and Alienware founder, confirms that Smartshift is only available in a single computer on the market at present and will remain so for the rest of the year.

Specifically, this is a Dell-signed G5 Special Edition that can be configured up to the Ryzen 7 4800H and Radeon RX 5600M, but at the time of writing there are a number of models that still combine the Ryzen 4000 and Radeon RX 5000 series. In the Swedish market, however, the combination of AMD processor and Nvidia graphics seems to be more frequent.

In the podcast “The Full Nerd”, which is run by the technology site PCWorld, Azor says that the plans for laptops are set out at least a year in advance, and that is why it is so thin with Smartshift support. For the same reason, more models will not accompany the G5 Special Edition in 2020, but according to information, AMD is working hard for Smartshift to appear on a broad front next year.

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