AMD rocks CES 2024 with our 3 favorite Ryzen 8040-series laptops
We’re getting a lot of exciting announcements out of CES 2024, including a slew of new gaming laptops with AMD’s new Ryzen 8040 series mobile CPUs. AMD partnered with some top brands to launch this new line of mobile chips, including Acer, Asus, Lenovo, HP, and Razer.
The Ryzen 8040 chips are spearheading AMD’s AI PC technology on the mobile front, bringing their Ryzen AI NPU (neural processing unit) to laptops.
Here are the top laptops with Ryzen 8040 chips announced so far.
We’re on the scene in Las Vegas to check out the latest tech at this year’s CES 2024 showcase. Be sure to tag along on our CES 2024 journey by following Laptop Mag on TikTok, Twitter/X, Instagram, Flipboard, and Facebook for the most up to date hands-on impressions and news coming from the convention floor.
1. ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14
(Image credit: Asus)
First up is ASUS’s 2024 ROG Zephyrus G14. The latest iteration of ROG’s premium gaming laptop has a couple of processor options, including a Ryzen R9 8945HS configuration. You can pair it with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU to max out the performance boost from AMD’s AI-integrated CPU.
This year’s Zephyrus models are also the first ROG laptops to get an OLED edition of the ROG Nebula display. It’s also HDR and features an incredible 0.2ms response time. The chassis is thin and slick, as well, a perfect exterior for this premium gaming laptop.
The only drawback to the G14 so far is the somewhat limited storage, which maxes out at just 1TB (compared to a max 4TB on the larger G16, although that one is running on an Intel chip). You do get 32GB of RAM, though.
2. Lenovo Yoga Pro 7
(Image credit: Lenovo)
In the creator laptop space, Lenovo’s new Yoga Pro 7 includes the speedy Ryzen 7 8845HS processor with GPU options up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050. You get a couple of display options, including the PureSight Pro LCD or, for a bit of an upgrade, an OLED 3K panel.
The Yoga Pro 7 has a planned release window for April 2024 with pricing starting at $1349.99. That’s noticeably more expensive than the more budget-oriented Yoga 7 announced in March 2023, but the Pro 7 does boast some more advanced hardware, including one of AMD’s new Ryzen 8040 series processors. If you want the flexible, compact form factor of the Yoga 7 with more premium components, this is the way to go.
3. Lenovo IdeaPad 5 2-in-1
(Image credit: Lenovo)
You can try out AMD’s Ryzen 8040 series chips on a budget-friendly laptop with Lenovo’s 2024 IdeaPad 5 2-in-1. Both the 14-inch and 16-inch models have an AMD configuration featuring the Ryzen 7 8845HS CPU. You can pair it with a 2K OLED display, which has a 16:10 aspect ratio and a peak brightness of 400 nits. That’s a bit dim, but considering the low price on the IdeaPad 5, that’s not a bad trade-off.
The IdeaPad 5 has a planned release window for April 2024. The 14-inch model starts at just $729 and the 16-inch model is only slightly more expensive at $749. Of all the laptops featuring a Ryzen 8040 series CPU announced so far, that’s the lowest starting price we’ve seen.