AMD has officially revealed its lineup of entry-level mobile processors, the 7020 series, formerly known as Mendocino when they were first revealed at CES 2022. These processors follow AMD's new naming scheme for mobile CPUs, and so they make up the new 7020 series, but it's important not to mix them up with the Ryzen 7000 series on desktops, which uses AMD's brand-new Zen 4 cores.

As a quick refresher, the 7 in 7020 means these are part of AMD's 2023 portfolio (though they're actually launching this year), and the 2 means they're using Zen 2 cores. These are much older cores from AMD compared to more recent offerings, but there's still an interesting value proposition here, and AMD is aiming to "redefine the everyday laptop" with the 7020 series. The AMD 7020 series is comprised of the AMD Ryzen 5 7520U. Ryzen 3 7320U, and Athlon Gold 7220U.

CPU performance is still solid

The AMD Ryzen and Athlon 7020 series comes with up to four cores and eight threads based on AMD's Zen 2 architecture, but with some enhancements since their original models. These processors are built on a 6nm process, and they come with up to 4 cores and eight threads, capable of boosting up to 4.3GHz.

AMD compared the performance of the AMD Ryzen 3 7320U to an 11th-generation Intel Core i3-1115G4, and as you'd expect with these kinds of official comparisons, it came out on top. AMD touts up to 31% faster performance in PCMark 10 productivity tests, 58% faster multitasking in Cinebench R23, and 80% faster file compression in 7-Zip. The company also boasts 31% faster app startup based on the PCMark 10 benchmark.

Of course, these numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt. AMD is comparing to Intel's 11th-generation processors, when 12th-generation models have already been available for a few months. Plus, it's using a quad-core AMD Ryzen 3 processor against a dual-core Intel processor, even though Intel also had a quad-core Core i3 model in its lineup. Still, this should give you solid entry-level performance for everyday tasks. However, it's also worth mentioning that all these tests are based on Intel machines with 8GB of RAM, while the AMD machine only has 4GB.

Even though it's using an older core architecture, AMD still packed some modern features into this lineup, including support for LPDDR5 memory and the Microsoft Pluton security processor, so it's not like these processors are completely stuck in the Zen 2 era.

Another big focus for these processors is battery life, with AMD touting up to 12 hours of video playback on machines powered by these processors. This is based on estimates from laptops with battery capacity around 40 to 45Wh, and that's not an extremely large battery, so those are solid numbers. The processors support modern power management features and modern standby, too.

RDNA2 graphics for the entry level

The big news with the AMD Ryzen and Athlon 7020 series is that they bring AMD's RDNA2 graphics architecture to entry-level laptops, and that's where you'll probably find the most interesting differentiating factor in these processors. All the models in this lineup - even the Athlon Gold 7220U - come with AMD Radeon 610M graphics based on RDNA2, promising solid performance and battery life.

On the Athlon Gold 7220U, AMD claims you can get up to 97 frames per second in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, 84 FPS in League of Legends, and 61 FPS in DOTA2, all while running at 720p resolution. For integrated graphics on an entry-level processor, that's pretty good, and it should make gaming that much more accessible.

Additionally, AMD touts support for up to four displays, along with AV1 decoding support for high-resolution video streaming.

Specs and availability

As we've mentioned above, the AMD 7020 series lineup includes three processors - the AMD Athlon Gold 7220U, the Ryzen 3 7320U, and the Ryzen 5 7520U. You can find the spec sheet for each of them below.

The AMD Ryzen and Athlon 7020 series processors will be available in laptops starting in the fourth quarter of 2022, with the AMD Ryzen 3 7320U being the first to make it to market. You'll be able to find them on multiple entry-level laptops such as the Lenovo Ideapad 1, the Acer Aspire 3, and HP 17-inch Laptop. There will be others, including Ryzen 5 and Athlon models shortly after the Ryzen 3 launches.