AMD boasts 18-hour laptop life on Ryzen 4000

With each passing year, PCs are becoming more and more power-efficient. They squeeze more computation-per-watt out of each new generation of CPU and GPU. Now, AMD is saying we can look forward to a whopping 18 hours out of its next-gen Ryzen 4000 APU on at least one laptop model.

AMD's VP of computing and graphics, Rick Bergman, dropped the nugget of information at a recent financial analyst briefing, according to PCWorld. Bergman said that "we've moved all the way up to as much as 18 hours with our new Ryzen product."

There's a lot missing from that statement. Bergman didn't specify which make or model of laptop and didn't specify battery capacity. Bergman also didn't talk about the methodology used to determine that runtime.

All of those details are crucial in determining whether this is useful information or not. For example, Intel's Project Athena initiative requires that certified laptops get at least 9 hours of battery life, but specifies that those 9 hours must be real-world usage. For Intel, that means things like browsing the web over Wi-Fi at a 250-nit screen brightness. Here, it's impossible to know which Bergman means; it could be real-world usage or a laptop with the brightness down and Wi-Fi off.

While AMD has shown strong performance in the desktop and HPC spaces in recent years, the company has struggled to gain footing in mobile and GPU spaces. If AMD's Ryzen 4000 APUs are competitive, it could mark the beginning of a shift in mobile computing for the company in a space where Intel has traditionally remained dominant.

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