AMD brings Ryzen and Athlon chips to Chromebooks w/ Radeon Vega graphics

Ben Schoon | Sep 22 2020 - 6:00 am PT

The Chromebook market has grown considerably over the past few years, but it’s mostly been dominated by Intel and MediaTek. In 2019, AMD stepped into the market with some entry-level chips, but this year, AMD is bringing both Ryzen and Athlon chips to Chromebooks.

Starting later this year, the AMD Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series will make their debut in new Chromebook models. In total, five new chips will be available to Chrome OS manufacturers.

For mid-range machines, the AMD Athlon Silver 3050C and Gold 3150C will be the go-to options, both dual-core chips. More exciting is the Ryzen series coming to Chrome OS for premium Chromebooks. On high-end Chromebooks, the Ryzen 3 3250C, Ryzen 5 3500C, and Ryzen 7 3700C chips will offer designs that range up to quad-core with clock speeds that can hit 4.0GHz. the Ryzen 7 chip will be one of the most powerful chips on any Chromebook. It’ll certainly be competing with Intel’s best.

Both the Athlon and Ryzen chips are also coming with Radeon Vega graphics. Obviously, Chromebooks still aren’t gaming machines, but AMD’s chips, especially the high-end Ryzen models, should give local games quite a boost. After all, Steam is coming.

Why deliver these new chips to the Chromebook market? With its entry-level A-series chips, AMD has already seen rapid growth. Plus, Chrome OS as a platform is continuing to grow, especially in the enterprise market. There, the more powerful Ryzen chips may come in handy for handling heavier workflows or Linux apps.

Today, HP announced the first Ryzen-based Chromebook with its C645 Pro machine — which will actually be available with all five chips mentioned in this article — but it’s unclear when others will join the market. AMD says that 5 other Chromebook designs are incoming from HP, Lenovo, and ASUS using Ryzen and Athlon chips.