AMD's first hybrid CPUs heading for laptops later this year
It looks like AMD will soon be joining Intel in offering hybrid processor designs with more than one type of CPU core. According to Videocardz, images of a smaller variant of AMD's excellent Phoenix APU, as seen in laptops and also handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally, have emerged. The scuttlebutt is that this new «Phoenix 2» chip packs multiple CPU core designs.
Said to be significantly smaller than the existing Phoenix APU at 137mm2, down from 178mm2, Phoenix 2 reportedly drops from 12 graphics CUs to just 4 CUs. That's a pity in terms of gaming performance, but it's the CPU side of the chip where things get interesting.
In the Ryzen 7 7840U and also the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, Phoenix is offered in its full eight-core configuration. That's eight full-fat Zen 4 cores. However, for Phoenix 2, the rumour is that it will come in two flavours, one with two Zen 4 cores and four Zen 4c cores, the other with two Zen 4 cores and two Zen 4c cores.
Those Zen 4c cores are supposed to be smaller and more efficient than full Zen 4 cores. But as we've explained previously, AMD is taking a different approach to Intel with its efficient cores.
Intel's Efficient cores as seen in its Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs are dramatically smaller than its full Performance cores. Roughly, four Intel Efficient cores can be squeezed into the same die space as one Performance core. In short, Intel's Efficient cores are based on a very different architecture. Most obviously, they lack Hyper-Threading and can only process a single thread per core.
By contrast, AMD's Zen 4c cores are about half the size of a full Zen 4 core. In other words, two Zen 4c cores fit in the same die space as a Zen 4 core. Functionally and architecturally, Zen 4c is essentially the
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