Notebooks Powered by Ryzen 9000HX and 9000HX3D "Fire Range" Available From March-April

[btarunr]

One of AMD's key announcements at its 2025 International CES keynote was the Ryzen 9000HX line of processors, codenamed "Fire Range." A successor to the 7000HX "Dragon Range," this is essentially a BGA package of the "Granite Ridge" MCM, which combines one or two "Zen 5" CCDs with a client I/O die. The processor lacks an NPU and has a basic iGPU, but is meant for enthusiast segment gaming notebooks and portable workstations, as it's meant to be paired with discrete GPUs, taking advantage of the package's lavish 28 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. The Ryzen 9 9955HX3D stands out in the series as the only model with 3D V-Cache, making it possibly the fastest mobile processor for gaming notebooks—faster than even the "Arrow Lake-HX," given how the desktop 9800X3D compares to the Core Ultra 9 285K at gaming.

Notebook OEM Dream Machines put out a press release which specifies that the first notebooks powered by the 9955HX3D will ship either toward the end of March, or early-April 2025. "Fire Range" is known to have scored design wins from several popular notebook OEMs, which means the chips could have a good run at the markets this generation. Notebooks powered by the 9955HX3D and discrete GPU options that include the GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU and the RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU, are expected to be priced around €2,530 and €3,860, respectively.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[rhqq]

I'm getting increasingly confused with the naming convention of the AMD processors, especially mobile ones. How does it stand against "ai" chips, like 395 Pro+ ? and the rest of CES announced lineup?

 

[3valatzy]

I'm getting increasingly confused with the naming convention of the AMD processors, especially mobile ones. How does it stand against "ai" chips, like 395 Pro+ ? and the rest of CES announced lineup?

Compare the specs. The 395 is 5.1 GHz max.

as it's meant to be paired with discrete GPUs, taking advantage of the package's lavish 28 PCIe Gen 5 lanes

Yeah, but 0% market share for Radeon. This is reserved for Nvidia 100%.

 

[Daven]

I'm getting increasingly confused with the naming convention of the AMD processors, especially mobile ones. How does it stand against "ai" chips, like 395 Pro+ ? and the rest of CES announced lineup?

The three digit models have NPUs and/or fast integrated graphics. The four digit models are just power limited equivalents of the desktop Ryzen chips without an NPU and meant to be paired with discrete mobile graphics.

Here is my favorite reference of all Ryzens in one place:

List of AMD Ryzen processors - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[rhqq]

Compare the specs. The 395 is 5.1 GHz max.

yeah, but which zen generation it is, the performance is a dice roll really.

The three digit models have NPUs and/or fast integrated graphics

7840 also has npu. there's little to no pattern at this point.

39x and 38x have better GPUS, but not the 36x and 37x... so it's not valid either.

 

[SL2]

The three digit models have NPUs and/or fast integrated graphics. The four digit models are just power limited equivalents of the desktop Ryzen chips without an NPU and meant to be paired with discrete mobile graphics.

Or, APU's and CPU's, respectively.

7840 also has npu. there's little to no pattern at this point.

It is, when comparing everything launched since Strix point last summer. I'm not saying it's not a mess, tho..

but not the 36x and 37x... so it's not valid either.

Not better GPU's than what?

 

[Daven]

7840 also has npu. there's little to no pattern at this point.

39x and 38x have better GPUS, but not the 36x and 37x... so it's not valid either.

I'm referring to the current generation. And products within a product family will have different performance levels. That has always been the case. Just because the Ryzen 9600X is slower than the 9950X doesn't mean it's confusing. If you use the wikipedia link above, you will see the following:

340 4 CUs
350 8 CUs
365 12 CUs
370 16 CUs
375 16 CUs
MAX 380 16 CUs
MAX 385 32 CUs
MAX+ 395 40 CUs

Numbers go up and so does the CUs for the most part. Also look for differentiators in the model name like 'MAX' and 'MAX+'.

 

[3valatzy]

yeah, but which zen generation it is, the performance is a dice roll really.

I don't think so. The Zen generation unless original Zen vs. Zen 5 makes little difference.
Look at the caches sizes, then.

 

[SL2]

AMD came up with a new system for mobile APU model numbers "because everyone hated it" (at 11:25). This culminated with the 7000 series, but even before that there was Zen2 and Zen3 mixed in the 5000 mobile APU series.

Now it's easier to follow, maybe, but people hate all the AI, PRO, MAX and + instead lol

 

[rhqq]

ok, so it seems they have 9xxx numbering for zen5 with rdna2 igpu, while 3xx for zen5 with rdna3.5. and then they use x3d cache only for the 9xxx, which is a questionable decission. i'm surprised they didn't put it into the max+ 395 pro whatever, which is the top-tier gaming chip from their lineup - and 3d cache would make perfect sense in the arrangement and target group they have there...

 

[SL2]

ok, so it seems they have 9xxx numbering for CPU's, while 3xx for APU's.

Fixed

i'm surprised they didn't put it into the max+ 395 pro whatever, which is the top-tier gaming chip from their lineup

How do you know it would be needed in an IGP and 2.66 times faster CPU (or unified really) RAM? Edit: I mean bandwidth.

9950HX3D:
Chiplets-IOD-----------------------------------GPU

395:
Chiplets-IOD&GPU

I've seen this over and over again: Lets throw V-cache at everything!!!

 

[rhqq]

Fixed

How do you know it would be needed in an IGP and 2.66 times faster CPU (or unified really) RAM? Edit: I mean bandwidth.

9950HX3D:
Chiplets-IOD-----------------------------------GPU

395:
Chiplets-IOD&GPU

I've seen this over and over again: Lets throw V-cache at everything!!!

technically they're all APUs, as all of them have igpu. I know, there''s a blurry line between, but I wouldn't call the 360 an APU by any stretch, given how little GPU power it has. only the 39x series are decent (roughly around rx7600 ?xt? ).
And I sustain my point on 3D cache on the top tier ones. They're clearly targetted at gaming, and historically chiplets for the 3d cache ones are higher bines with lower voltages making them always more efficient. Given these are mobile chips, they're prebinned for better efficiency, so all that's left is slapping the cache on top (well, bottom actually). side note - i know it is not "simple", but yeah, half way there regardless.
Now based on all the recent interviews I expect that's what going to happen pretty soon. Just few years ago we heard the 3D cache will be only for desktops, now they're having a SKU for mobile, and I feel like that trend will extend further down.

Now the efficiency - given iGPUs are usually hurt most by the performance of the non-v ram, having 3D cache would free up more transfers for the GPU - and that could yeld visible gains for the overall package.