AMD’s Mendocino APUs promise over 10 hours of battery life for budget laptops
AMD’s new APUs could deliver double the battery life for affordable laptops.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
What you need to know
AMD announced its new Mendocino mobile APUs today at Computex 2022. The new processors are designed to power thebest budget laptops, ranging from $399 to $699. According to AMD, devices running the new chips will get over 10 hours of battery life.
Mendocino APUs are made on AMD’s Zen 2 microarchitecture and RDNA 2 technology. As noted byTom’s Hardware, this is a similar approach to how the company built its Van Gogh APU, including the processor inside theSteam Deck.
AMD’s Mendocino APUs are built with TSMC’s 6nm processor. They’ll feature four Zen 2 cores with eight threads. Specific benchmark and performance figures weren’t shared by AMD at its keynote. Tom’s Hardware suspects that the chips could deliver similar performance to AMD’s Ryzen 4000 processors.
RDNA 2 support in the new APUs means that systems will support more video encoding and decoding.
The biggest takeaway from AMD’s announcement is its promise of over 10 hours of battery life. This is a projected figure, and AMD didn’t share the specifics of its mixed-usage testing, but it’s quite the lofty claim. Most budget laptops deliver between four and six hours of battery life. If systems running Mendocino APUs come anywhere near 10 hours of real-world usage, they’ll stand out from competing devices.
“Most people are used to four, five, six hours on a notebook in the $399 to $699 space,” said AMD technical marketing director Robert Hallock. “At a minimum, we want 10 hours out of these notebooks.”
AMD is expected to ship its Mendocino APUs starting in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Get the Windows Central Newsletter
All the latest news, reviews, and guides for Windows and Xbox diehards.
Sean Endicott is a tech journalist at Windows Central, specializing in Windows, Microsoft software, AI, and PCs. He’s covered major launches, from Windows 10 and 11 to the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT. Sean’s journey began with the Lumia 740, leading to strong ties with app developers. Outside writing, he coaches American football, utilizing Microsoft services to manage his team. He studied broadcast journalism at Nottingham Trent University and is active on X @SeanEndicott_ and Threads @sean_endicott_.
