What you need to know
- Recent leaks suggest that the Surface Laptop 5 will feature modern chips from AMD.
- If the reported specs are correct, the Surface Laptop 5 will have options for 12th Gen Intel chips or AMD Ryzen 6000-series CPUs.
- Microsoft has provided AMD and Intel options for Surface Laptops in the past, but the AMD CPUs were from previous generations compared to when the laptops shipped.
Microsoft may ship modern AMD processors inside its Surface Laptop for the first time this year. According to an alleged leaked spec sheet shared by Windows Prime, the Surface Laptop 5 will have options for either 12th Gen Intel Core CPUs or AMD Ryzen 6000-series chips.
Microsoft has had options for AMD and Intel processors in the Surface Laptop lineup before, but AMD chips have always been a generation behind when offered, as was the case with Surface Laptop 4. A shift to the latest generation of AMD CPUs would give Surface Laptop shoppers a better option on the AMD side of things.
The processor section of the leak shows options for the AMD Ryzen 5 6880U (6 cores) and Ryzen 7 6980U (8 cores). Both AMD versions of the device will also reportedly have "Radeon Graphics Microsoft Surface Edition."
It's not just the chip options of the Surface Laptop 5 that appear set for an upgrade. The leaked spec sheet states that the Surface Laptop 5 will have two USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4. The Surface Laptop 5 also has a USB-A port, based on the leak.
Additionally, there is also now an upgraded 120Hz PixelSense Flow display, similar to what Surface Pro 8 and Surface Laptop Studio feature, including Dynamic Refresh and Dolby Vision.
The sheet claims that the Surface Laptop 5 gets 21 hours of battery life, but that's likely ambitious. Battery claims are often high from laptop manufacturers, so it's better to wait for reviewers to do real-life battery testing and to run specific benchmarks.
As is the case with all leaks, this information needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The final specs that the Surface Laptop 5 ships with could be different than those that appear in the shared spec sheet.
Despite the alleged leak, according to our sources, Microsoft won't ship Surface Laptop 5 until later this year.
