AMD has announced that they have exceeded their goal set in 2014 to improve the energy efficiency of their mobile processors by 25 times in 2020. The new AMD Ryzen 7 4800H mobile processor improves on the energy efficiency of the 2014 baseline measurement by 31.7 times, and offers leadership performance and extraordinary efficiency for laptop PCs. Greater energy efficiency leads to significant user benefits including improved battery life, better performance, lower energy costs and reduced environmental impact from computing.
We have always focused on energy efficiency in our processors, but in 2014 we decided to put even greater emphasis on this capability.Our engineering team rallied around the challenge and charted a path to reach our stretch goal of 25 times greater energy efficiency by 2020. We were able to far surpass our objective, achieving 31.7 times improvement leading to gaming and ultrathin laptops with unmatched performance, graphics and long battery life. I could not be prouder of our engineering and business teams.”
Mark Papermaster, Chief Technology Officer/Executive Vice President, AMD
The efficiency of a processor is determined by the amount of workload that can be performed per unit of energy consumed. In order to achieve the 25×20 goal, AMD focused improvements on developing a highly integrated and efficient system-on-chip (SoC) architecture; improved, real-time power management features; and silicon-level power optimizations. AMD reduced average compute time for a given task by 80% from 2014 to 2020, while also achieving an 84% reduction in energy use. That means an enterprise that upgrades 50,000 AMD laptops from 2014 models to 2020 models would achieve five times more computing performance and reduce associated laptop energy consumption by 84%, which over a three-year service life amounts to saving approximately 1.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 971,000 kg of carbon emissions, equal to 16,000 trees grown for 10 years.
Achieving this goal not only delivers a stronger user experience, but also solidifies AMD’s leadership in sustainability. AMD was the first semiconductor company to have its climate protection goals, including 25×20, approved as a “science-based target” by the Science Based Targets initiative — deemed aggressive enough to help mitigate the impacts of computing on climate change.
“Stewardship of our planet can go hand-in-hand with developing powerful technology and helping our customers achieve their aims. The power efficiency improvements we have made within our laptop processors make a difference in the world around us. Reporting publicly each year on progress and ultimately achieving, and surpassing, the 25×20 energy efficiency goal reflects AMD’s commitment to sustainable technology.”
Susan Moore, Corporate VP for Corporate Responsibility and International Government Affairs at AMD
Some of the delivered features of their 25×20 goal:
- Leadership CPU and GPU architectures tightly integrated into a common SoC, including multiple generations of the award-winning “Zen” architecture
- Innovation in real-time power management
- Continued evolution of the AMD Infinity Fabric architecture
- Silicon-level power optimizations
- Rapid adoption of cutting-edge process technology
From an industries perspective, the performance improvements and reduced power consumption of the Ryzen 7 4800H processor outpaced the historical efficiency trend predicted by Koomey’s Law — a Moore’s Law analog describing energy efficiency improvement trends — by 2x from 2014 and 2020.
Six years ago, AMD challenged itself to dramatically improve the real-world energy efficiency of its mobile processors.I have reviewed the data and can report that AMD exceeded the 25×20 goal it set in 2014 through improved design, superior optimization and a laser-like focus on energy efficiency. With a chip 31.7 times more energy efficient than its 2014 predecessor, AMD has far outpaced in real-world efficiency gains what would be expected from a traditional Moore’s Law pace as embodied in Koomey’s Law.”
Dr. Jonathan Koomey, industry expert on energy efficient computing
Learn more about the outgoing lineup of AMD’s Ryzen processors here.
