Unleashing the Power of Ryzen 9 7940HS (8c/16t) and GeForce RTX 4070 About two years ago, Razer introduced the Blade 14 series, a collection of laptops with 14 inches that are made to be portable without compromising performance. The series uses AMD Ryzen processors (as an option), a departure from the usual use of Intel Core. This is a distinctive feature. The initial models used AMD Ryzen 5000 processors (Cezanne APUs), which were later upgraded to the more advanced Ryzen 6000 processors (Rembrandt APUs) the following year. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 Ampere generation graphics were installed simultaneously on the laptops, with plans for a significant upgrade in the near future. We now have a new Blade 14 laptop from Razer that uses the brand-new AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS (Phoenix APU) processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4000 Laptop GPUs, with the GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU available as an option. The GPU’s power limit is anticipated to be capped at 140 W, assuming Razer maintains the same TGP (Total Graphics Power). There is also positive anticipation for more affordable versions with other Zen 4 processors, such as the Ryzen 5 7640HS and Ryzen 7 7840HS, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU or the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU. To effectively manage heat dissipation, Razer Blade 14 models have traditionally utilized cutting-edge cooling technology like steam chambers. Notably, Razer laptops have received praise for successfully achieving a balance between battery life and mobility, absent the use of a dGPU. Naturally, the performance of the platform and processor is the primary focus of this review. You probably won’t buy a 140 TGP-based integrated GPU for gaming and expect great battery life.

AMD’s power management systems, which are derived from the Ryzen 6000 Rembrandt mobile processors, are incorporated into the Ryzen 7940HS series, including Phoenix. According to tests conducted on the Razer Blade 14, notebooks using the 7940HS series can sustain up to 9 hours of video playback on a single charge, despite falling within the 35-54 W TDP range.

The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS is a 45-watt class CPU with a flexible TDP (more on this later). In terms of hierarchy, it is below HX CPUs like the Ryzen 9 7945HX. The technical specifications of these CPUs vary significantly. Zen4 cores are utilized in both versions; However, the HX variant features a chiplet design (Dragon Range, 5 nm), which requires the processor components to be individually manufactured and then assembled. The most recent iGPU Radeon 780M, based on the RDNA3 architecture, is integrated with AMD’s most recent Radiance Display Engine in the HS chips, which are made using a 4 nm process. DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1a are now supported by this engine in addition to other hardware. Additionally, AMD’s most recent media acceleration features, including a Dual Media Accelerator, are added to the iGPU. This accelerator extends support for the AV1 format by incorporating two hardware accelerators, each of which is equipped to handle encoding or decoding tasks.

A hint of Ryzen AI Ryzen AI functions independently of the CPU and iGPU as a piece of hardware. Image manipulation, video conferencing enhancements, local media sorting, and locally-based GPTs like Office Co-pilot are just a few of the AI-optimized tasks that can be carried out by software thanks to its role as an on-chip AI accelerator. Microsoft is currently integrating Ryzen AI-accelerated features into Office and Windows 11. AMD predicts that a slew of OEMs, ISVs, and major third-party software developers will join an ecosystem that makes use of Ryzen AI’s capabilities by the end of 2023. The accelerator is currently compatible with TensorFlow and ONNX models. In addition, AMD is working on the AMD Unified AI Stack, a collection of APIs that enable software to make use of the AI-relevant ISA that was introduced with Zen 4 and includes AVX-512, bfloat16, and VNNI. By utilizing the AI Accelerators embedded within the iGPU’s RDNA3 compute units, this method implements a comprehensive strategy for AI acceleration. Utilizing Ryzen AI lessens the need for cloud-based AI services.

According to AMD, the HS computer chips are inside a TDP (Warm Plan Power) section of 35-54 watts. The test revealed a power draw of up to 90 watts. We’ll get into the implications of this discrepancy in a moment. In single-core benchmarks, the Ryzen 9 7940HS has eight full Zen4 cores running at a base clock rate of 4.0 GHz and a maximum Turbo clock rate of 5.2 GHz. AMD’s Phoenix processor’s I/O configurations are very similar to those of its flagship Dragon Range series. Phoenix has four sub-channels for DDR5 and LPDDR5 memory with dual channels. Phoenix’s PCI-Express interface, on the other hand, operates at Gen 4. The CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slot operates at Gen 4 x4, and the primary PEG interface conforms to PCI-Express 4.0 x16.