AMD processor in Surface Laptop is Ryzen 7 3780U with Zen+ cores and Vega 11 GPU

AMD has announced details about the processor that Microsoft will put in the 15″ version of its Surface Laptop 3. It is the Ryzen 7 3780U, which is based on the Zen+ architecture and is equipped with a Vega 11 GPU. The chip was probably made at 12nm.

AMD does not mention the process used to make the chip for the Surface Laptop 3, but the processor is based on the Zen+ architecture, just like the current Ryzen laptop processors and they are made at 12nm. The naming also indicates that the chip falls in the current series of 12nm processor. AMD already released the Ryzen 7 3700U and Ryzen 5 3500U. Those chips have a Vega 10 and Vega 8 GPU respectively, the new Ryzen 7 3780U has a Vega 11 GPU and therefore an extra compute unit compared to the existing Ryzen 7 laptop processor.

AMD does not specify the number of cores and threads of the processor, but it is likely that the new processor, like the existing models, has four cores and can work on eight threads. It is a processor with a TDP of 15 watts and the speed goes up to 4GHz.

The manufacturer publishes its own benchmarks in which the Ryzen 7 3780U in the Surface Laptop 3 is compared with laptops with Intel CPUs and the Ryzen 7 3700U. The AMD chip is slightly faster in 3DMark than Intel’s fastest 15W Ice Lake processor with Iris Plus GPU.

Microsoft calls the processor the Ryzen 7 Surface Edition, the full name is AMD Ryzen 7 3780U Mobile Processor with Radeon RX Vega 11 Graphics Microsoft Surface Edition. There is also a Ryzen 5 3580U variant according to Microsoft’s spec sheets. AMD has not disclosed exact details, but it concerns a variant with Vega 9 GPU and presumably lower clock speeds.