AMD Announces XDNA 2 NPU Architecture for Next Gen "Strix Point" Mobile Processors Arriving in 2024

[btarunr]

AMD in its Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point" mobile processors announcement made the first mention of XDNA 2, its next-generation on-chip neural processing unit (NPU) architecture. Above all, the XDNA 2 NPU is expected to introduce an over 3 times improvement in performance over the first generation XDNA NPU powering the Ryzen 7040 series "Phoenix" processor. XDNA 2 is making its debut with AMD's next-generation Ryzen "Strix Point" mobile processor that the company looks to launch in 2024. While "Phoenix" offers 10 TOPS of NPU performance, AMD mentions an "over 3 times" performance improvement, which probably puts this figure at 32 TOPS for "Strix Point."

The "Strix Point" mobile processor is rumored to debut faster "Zen 5" CPU cores, a possible CPU core count increase to 12, and a much more powerful iGPU based on the updated RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture, with some SKUs expected to feature CU counts as high as 32, and designed to square off against the iGPU of the Apple M3 Max processor. Besides "Zen 5" CPU cores and RDNA 3.5 iGPU, we now know that even the NPU gets an overhaul with this XDNA 2 announcement, and a possible 32 TOPS NPU performance.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[The Quim Reaper]

So I guess Strix Point will be the APU that Valve will be wanting for Steam Deck 2 in 2025...probably

 

[Space Lynx]

So I guess Strix Point will be the APU that Valve will be wanting for Steam Deck 2 in 2025...probably

you read my mind senpai

 

[Gooigi's Ex]

So I guess Strix Point will be the APU that Valve will be wanting for Steam Deck 2 in 2025...probably

And for the Windows PC handhelds as well

 

[Chrispy_]

What's XDNA - is that like RDNA?
What's an NPU - is that like a CPU or GPU?
What are are TOPS - are they like FLOPS, ROPS, or OPS?

I'm guessing we're playing Marketing Bullshit Bingo here, in "hey, let's ride this AI-hype gravy train" land so uh, "BINGO!"

What did I win?!

(Seriously, all anyone cares about is "how fast does it load webpages" and "how many frames a second"?)

 

[dyonoctis]

What's XDNA - is that like RDNA?
What's an NPU - is that like a CPU or GPU?
What are are TOPS - are they like FLOPS, ROPS, or OPS?

I'm guessing we're playing Marketing Bullshit Bingo here, in "hey, let's ride this AI-hype gravy train" land so uh, "BINGO!"

What did I win?!

(Seriously, all anyone cares about is "how fast does it load webpages" and "how many frames a second"?)

XDNA is part of the things that AMD gained when they bought Xilinx. Those are dedicated AI accelerators.
The NPU is going to be more efficient at ML stuff so that Windows laptop battery life will be less embarrassing vs a Macbook when you use software that makes use of it. And that list of software is growing.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Let's be clear Microsoft has mandated a minimum spec of about 50 TOPS for Win 12's AI infested crapware, and this is why Strix Point will see the 3x increase in AI. I'm sure it will help with software like Adobe Photoshop and people wanting to run LLM's etc, but the primary reason is to get MS's tick of approval. Intel's Meteor Lake should already be compliant in AI performance.

 

[doc7000]

What's XDNA - is that like RDNA?
What's an NPU - is that like a CPU or GPU?
What are are TOPS - are they like FLOPS, ROPS, or OPS?

I'm guessing we're playing Marketing Bullshit Bingo here, in "hey, let's ride this AI-hype gravy train" land so uh, "BINGO!"

What did I win?!

(Seriously, all anyone cares about is "how fast does it load webpages" and "how many frames a second"?)

TOPS is like OPS however the T means trillion so trillion operations per second so no that is not an AMD marketing term though the rest are marketing terms though not all marketing terms are created equal.

 

[watzupken]

So I guess Strix Point will be the APU that Valve will be wanting for Steam Deck 2 in 2025...probably

I guess it depends. If you look at an actual console, they don’t jump at the next generation hardware. Instead, they miss a number of generations before updating. Performance is one aspect, and I think they also need to consider that things like whether it is suitable for a hand held device like the Deck. I feel Strix Point sounds powerful, but it will need more power to drive the performance. And looking at the Steam Deck now, the reason why it’s capped at 15W is a clear sign that Valve also wants to ensure reasonable battery life and cooling.

 

[Warigator]

What's XDNA - is that like RDNA?
What's an NPU - is that like a CPU or GPU?
What are are TOPS - are they like FLOPS, ROPS, or OPS?

I'm guessing we're playing Marketing Bullshit Bingo here, in "hey, let's ride this AI-hype gravy train" land so uh, "BINGO!"

What did I win?!

(Seriously, all anyone cares about is "how fast does it load webpages" and "how many frames a second"?)

WRONG!

Current CPUs provide enough performance for loading webpages and GPUs provide enough performance for simple gaming (but definitely not enough for true VR).

What has been missing for all these years in computers and software is useful INTELLIGENCE, CLEVERNESS, WISDOM and INTUITION. I don't care if a website loads in 1 second or in 0.0000001 second, really.

Let's be clear Microsoft has mandated a minimum spec of about 50 TOPS for Win 12's AI infested crapware, and this is why Strix Point will see the 3x increase in AI. I'm sure it will help with software like Adobe Photoshop and people wanting to run LLM's etc, but the primary reason is to get MS's tick of approval. Intel's Meteor Lake should already be compliant in AI performance.

I've literally been waiting 20 years for OSes to finally get artificially intelligent. There were books in the 90s about this and it has not happened yet, possibly because of performance reasons, but we are finally getting to a point when performance is gonna be high enough.

 

[T1beriu]

So I guess Strix Point will be the APU that Valve will be wanting for Steam Deck 2 in 2025...probably

Zero chances. Strix Point will be a bloated, power hungry and expensive die. The Deck won't need at least 30% of what's on Strix Point. Valve needs the opposite and will order a custom SoC at half the size, efficiency, older node to reach a low price point.

My bet is Deck 2 will use a 6 core Zen 4 (2 x Zen4 + 4 x Zen4C) with 12 RDNA 3.5 CUs, built on TSMC's N5, and 2 years later we'll see a refresh on N4, just like we saw recently.