Ryzen Pro 7040 brings AMD's cutting-edge tech to business laptops

AMD is stepping on the gas with its new Ryzen Pro 7040 processors for both business laptops and desktops, injecting Zen 4 CPU technology and RDNA 3 graphics architecture for increased performance. AI, too, will play a role, with some improvements for video calls to clients and partners. The fine print, though, reveals a small penalty: While last year's Ryzen Pro 6000 models were designed for both 35W to 45W laptops as well as thinner 15W to 30W and 10W to 25W thin-and-light laptops, AMD's latest chips require more power. The high-end 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 9 Pro 7940HS consumes 35W to 54W of power, and there's only a single second tier of chips for laptops that consume between 15W and 28W. Still, AMD claims that its new Ryzen Pro 7040 processors can actually outperform an Apple Mac not on performance, but on battery life.