AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs Take Flight In ASUS TUF Gaming FX505 And FX705 Laptops
ASUS in January announced new TUF Gaming FX505DY and FX705DY laptop lines built around AMD's Ryzen 3000 series of mobile processors with Vega graphics, and now a little over a month later, those new systems are starting to show up in retail. The ones we have seen so far are in Europe, though we imagine a US launch is not far behind.
As far as we can tell, these are the first laptops to use AMD's Ryzen 3000 series processors. Only recently announced themselves, the Ryzen 3000 line combine AMD's newest-generation Zen CPU cores with Vega graphics. AMD unveiled half a dozen Ryzen 3000 CPU models, plus an Athlon chip. Here's a look at the full lineup:
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The new TUF Gaming laptops from ASUS feature the Ryzen 5 3550H. It sports four physical cores and eight threads clocked at 2.1GHz to 3.7GHz, along with a combined 6MB of L2 and L3 cache. On the graphics side, it wields eight Vega GPU cores with 512 stream processors, clocked at 1,200MHz. The entire package has a TDP of 35W. It is not the top mobile chip in the Ryzen 3000 series, but should offer serviceable performance.
Both the TUF Gaming FX505DY and FX705DY utilize Full HD 1080p IPS panels with FreeSync support. The only real difference, other than the physical size and weight, is the refresh rate—the 17.3-inch TUF Gaming FX705DY has a FreeSync range of 40-60Hz, while the 15.6-inch TUF Gaming FX505DY goes even higher with a 48-120Hz refresh rate range.
"The 60Hz panel is great for gamers who play more graphically demanding titles where sky-high frame rates aren’t realistic for this class of system. Go with the 120Hz alternative if you prefer fast-paced shooters like CS:GO and Overwatch," ASUS says.
ASUS never got around to announcing prices or availability, but we now have an idea. A few vendors in Europe have listed the TUF Gaming FX505DY at €699 (~$789 in US currency). That configuration includes 8GB of RAM, discrete AMD Radeon RX 560X graphics, and a 512GB solid state drive. The TUF Gaming FX705DY, meanwhile, is listed for €799 (~ $900 ) with the same CPU, RAM, GPU, and storage allotment.
One thing to keep in mind is that pricing in different territories does not always work out to a perfect currency conversion. Nevertheless, we can treat these prices as ballpark figures, for when the laptops find their way to US soil.
