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Corsair’s first gaming laptop ever goes all-in on AMD

Jacob Roach
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Corsair launched its first gaming laptop ever during AMD’s Computex 2022 keynote. The machine, called Voyager, is launching exclusively with AMD hardware. It also has a few unique touches that make it “the first laptop ever designed to be a truly mobile streaming solution,” according to AMD’s Frank Azor.

Those additions include a 10-key streaming command center at the hinge of the notebook and a Full HD webcam. Both are bolstered by two key pieces of Elgato software: Stream Deck for the command center, and Camera Hub for the webcam, which allows you to adjust field of view, change video inputs, and tweak the look of your video.

Frank Azor from AMD presenting the Corsair Voyager laptop.

The Corsair Voyager is part of the AMD Advantage program under the hood, so it’s equipped exclusively with a Ryzen CPU and Radeon GPU. AMD didn’t mention specifics during its Computex presentation, but it said the machine will launch with the latest generations for both parts. A leak from earlier in May referenced a Corsair laptop with a Ryzen 9 6900HX and Radeon RX 6800M, which may be the flagship configuration for the Voyager.

In addition, the machine comes equipped with Corsair DDR5 memory, as well as a 16-inch 240Hz 1440p display with FreeSync Premium support.

As part of the AMD Advantage program, the Voyager has access to a suite of AMD Smart technologies, including SmartShift and Smart Access Memory. It will not have the newly-announced Smart Access Storage, however. This technology enables Microsoft’s DirectStorage API on AMD Advantage laptops, helping boost loading times in supported games.

We don’t know much about Smart Access Memory now, but AMD says to expect more news in the coming months. AMD says it allows the GPU to decompress game assets instead of putting that work on the CPU, which should improve loading times. We’ve already seen this type of technology at work in Forspoken, which could be capable of loading in less than a second.

A close up of the Corsair Voyager gaming laptop.

The Corsair Voyager will be available this summer, both in preconfigured models and customizable versions available through Origin PC. We don’t have word on pricing yet, but with a Touch Bar-esque streaming command center and flagship AMD hardware, it’ll likely be expensive.

That’s not all the news AMD had to share on the laptop front at Computex 2022. The company also announced new Mendocino processors for “the everyday laptop.” These chips support up to four cores, and they target Windows laptops and Chromebooks between $400 and $700.

These new chips are still built on the 6nm manufacturing process as the rest of the Ryzen 6000 range, and they come equipped with an integrated RDNA 2 GPU. Despite using the new manufacturing process, however, they’re based on the older Zen 2 architecture. AMD says the first machines with Mendocino chips will launch in the last few months of 2022.

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