In keeping with a report by Phoronix, patch notes from open-source mission Coreboot have confirmed AMD’s mysterious Sabrina mission – destined to energy Chromebooks – was simply an alias for AMD’s just lately introduced Zen 2 Mendocino SoCs. These new chips have already been confirmed to drop into mainstream Home windows laptops and Google Chromebooks by This autumn this 12 months.
These chips will give Chromebooks entry to a newly enhanced Zen 2 core shrunk right down to 6nm, RDNA2 built-in graphics, and LPDDR5 reminiscence.
For the uninitiated, this story began in February when a brand new Google mainboard referred to as Skyrim gave the impression to be outfitted with a mysterious new AMD SoC codenamed Sabrina, in response to Phoronix. Sadly, not a lot was identified about this new processor lineup, with the one exceptions being LPDDR5 help and Coreboot help code similarities between Sabrina and AMD’s Cezanne Ryzen 5000 APUs.
However due to the newest patch notes from Coreboot, we now know that Sabrina was simply an alias for the Mendocino mission – which AMD already talked about at Computex this 12 months. Mendocino is an offshoot of AMD’s extra highly effective Rembrandt Ryzen 6000 cell processors, packing the identical RDNA2 graphics structure and 6nm node as these chips however downgrading the CPU structure from Zen 3+ to Zen 2 (it’s much like the Steam Deck’s Van Gough APU).
Because of the structure change, these chips are destined for mainstream notebooks and Chromebooks as an alternative of the mid-range and high-end cell markets, with a most configuration of 4 cores and eight threads. These chips prioritize good video efficiency and excessive battery life as an alternative of uncooked CPU horsepower. For instance, one in all AMD’s official slides for Mendocino marketed a 10-hour “mixed-usage” battery life with the Lenovo Ideapad 1.
Mendocino will arrive anytime now, with a launch window of This autumn for each Home windows and ChromeOS units.
We do not know why AMD went to all this hassle to make an alias for the brand new Zen 2 elements, however at the very least now we all know the reality.
