AMD's Ryzen Mobile Faces an Uphill Battle

Following the launch earlier this year of the desktop variants of Ryzen, Advanced Micro Devices' (NASDAQ: AMD) latest generation of CPUs, the first products powered by the mobile variants are starting to hit the market. AMD officially unveiled Ryzen Mobile in October, announcing the Ryzen 7 2700U and the less powerful Ryzen 5 2500U. These chips feature AMD's Vega graphics, providing substantially improved graphics performance compared to the company's previous generation of mobile processors.

The HP Envy x360 is the first Ryzen Mobile laptop to become available, powered by the Ryzen 5 2500U. The Tech Report ran it through its paces, comparing it to a few configurations of the Acer Swift 3, all powered by Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) CPUs and one featuring a discrete NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) MX150 GPU.

One thing is clear from the review: The success of Ryzen Mobile will depend on pricing. The Envy x360 configuration tested was $760, a bit more than the current $719 price tag on Amazon for the Swift 3 with NVIDIA graphics. Priced in the same ballpark, the Intel-NVIDIA option is the clear winner for gaming.

Source: Fool.com