AMD revives 7-year-old chip designs for budget laptops
Summary created by Smart Answers AI
In summary:
- PCWorld reports AMD is reintroducing three mobile processors from 2019-2020, including Ryzen 3 3100U, Ryzen 5 3501U, and Ryzen 4700LE for budget laptops.
- This strategy addresses rising PC prices by offering significantly cheaper alternatives to current Ryzen AI 400 series chips through select OEMs in limited volumes.
- Intel is also rumored to pursue similar re-releases, highlighting industry-wide efforts to provide affordable computing solutions for cost-conscious consumers.
AMD has resuscitated three mobile chips from 2019 and 2020 to ship to PC makers asking for cheaper processors for budget PCs, the company confirmed.
AMD is now offering the AMD Ryzen 3 3100U and the the Ryzen 5 3501U, based on the Zen+ (Ryzen 3000 Mobile / Picasso) architecture it launched in 2019. It also added the Ryzen 4700LE, built on the Zen 2 (Ryzen 4000 / Renoir) architecture introduced in 2020.
The reason is a simple one: not all customers can afford a new PC.
“The Ryzen 3100U and Ryzen 3501U are additional SKUs based on AMD’s existing Picasso architecture that were developed to support specific OEM requirements in the value segment,” an AMD representative said in an emailed statement.
“These processors are intended to address targeted customer demand for lower-cost solutions and will be available in limited volumes through select OEMs,” the representative added.
Because the processors are being sold directly to laptop makers, AMD didn’t disclose prices. However, all three chips will certainly cost far less than the current Ryzen AI 400 series, AMD’s latest generation of laptop processors.
The Ryzen 3 3100U, for example, ships with just two CPU cores and two threads and fits into the FP5 socket. The Ryzen 3510U includes four cores and the Ryzen 4700LE includes eight. It’s unclear what memory type will accompany the new chips.
Looking to the past can make sense as PC prices skyrocket amid chip shortages. In my own tests of a seven-year-old PC, the differences in performance between the older PC and a new one were significant in some cases, such as decompressing a compressed file. But performing other tasks differed in just a few tenths of a second. Intel, too is rumored to launch a “Raptor Lake Next” chip in 2027, pushing an older processor and the cheaper DDR4 memory in a bid to keep the PC market humming.
It might be a cheap productivity hack, but AMD’s decision doesn’t make it a poor choice. It’s still ironic that old laptops being stored on a shelf might be the next big thing in 2026, however.
