AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ Mini PC: GMK Announces Strix Halo-Powered Compact System

[GGforever]

At CES, AMD unleashed the much awaited Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" APUs with mammoth iGPUs, up to a whopping 40 CUs for the Radeon 8060S. These chips are powerful enough to not require discrete graphics at all, making them ideal for mini PCs, which lack the physical room for dedicated graphics. GMK appears to be among the first to announce a mini PC with the top-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU, although any further details are under wraps as of now.

Unlike the Strix Point parts, Strix Halo abandons the smaller and more efficient Zen 5c cores for a Zen 5-only setup, with up to 16 Zen 5 cores for the highest-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 SKU. This allows for some serious performance potential, with AMD promising substantially better performance than both Intel's Lunar Lake and Apple's M4 Pro, although it would be much fairer to compare Strix Halo to Apple's M4 Max, and Intel's Arrow Lake-H/X instead. Regardless, there is no denying Strix Halo APUs open up new doors in terms of performance for compact systems, the rest remains to be seen as and when the products reach reviewers.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Mack4285]

Could be the future since big bulky performance PC:s are getting tiresome, at least for me. But it has to be executed right. Aesthetics, price, BIOS, I/O and a good quality cooling solution that doesn't sound like a jet engine. Would have better longevity than a Mac mini since Linux could be installed.

 

[dragontamer5788]

40 CUs? The Rx 580x was 36 CUs.

That's a mighty amount of GPU-compute.

 

[GGforever]

40 CUs? The Rx 580x was 36 CUs.

That's a mighty amount of GPU-compute.

Yeah, really excited for this one...

 

[JasBC]

Could be the future since big bulky performance PC:s are getting tiresome, at least for me. But it has to be executed right. Aesthetics, price, BIOS, I/O and a good quality cooling solution that doesn't sound like a jet engine. Would have better longevity than a Mac mini since Linux could be installed.

You can't install Asahi Linux on the Mac Mini?

 

[GGforever]

Could be the future since big bulky performance PC:s are getting tiresome, at least for me. But it has to be executed right. Aesthetics, price, BIOS, I/O and a good quality cooling solution that doesn't sound like a jet engine. Would have better longevity than a Mac mini since Linux could be installed.

All that? Maybe, up to the brands.
But pricing is gonna be, well, interesting.

 

[SL2]

Their current model is ugly AF.

Logo even worse, looks so cheap.

 

[HOkay]

Their current model is ugly AF.

Logo even worse, looks so cheap.

View attachment 379779

Oh wow, that truly is hideous. I can't really explain why, it's just...all ugly.

 

[EsliteMoby]

40 RDNA 4 CUs look like it's gonna outperform the PS5 36 RDNA 2 CUs. But will it bottleneck by DDR5 bandwidth?

 

[Ozzer]

40 RDNA 4 CUs look like it's gonna outperform the PS5 36 RDNA 2 CUs. But will it bottleneck by DDR5 bandwidth?

It's RDNA 3.5

 

[dragontamer5788]

40 RDNA 4 CUs look like it's gonna outperform the PS5 36 RDNA 2 CUs. But will it bottleneck by DDR5 bandwidth?

Almost certainly.

I'm wondering if DDR5 has gotten faster to mitigate this problem.

Alternatively, they might use LPDDR5 which has been getting surprisingly fast. Still slower than GDDR(whatever) but dedicated Laptop/Phone RAM is surprisingly fast these days.

 

[ymdhis]

40 RDNA 4 CUs look like it's gonna outperform the PS5 36 RDNA 2 CUs. But will it bottleneck by DDR5 bandwidth?

It is using 256bit DDR5, so it's still bottlenecked but not as much as say a 8700G.

 

[dragontamer5788]

It is using 256bit DDR5, so it's still bottlenecked but not as much as say a 8700G.

LPDDR5 is not DDR5.

But yes, it appears to be 256-bit LPDDR5. Very promising.

 

[Mack4285]

You can't install Asahi Linux on the Mac Mini?

You can, but currently only M1/M2 Macs are supported. They don't have a timeline for M3/M4 support yet. Maybe this year.

All that? Maybe, up to the brands.
But pricing is gonna be, well, interesting.

I said all that because I know these Asian companies mostly don't get anything of that right. But still hoping we see something attractive.

 

[Lionheart]

I get more excited over hardware like this now days, Powerful yet energy efficient SOC's, be it from AMD, Intel, Nvidia or Apple

 

[dragontamer5788]

I get more excited over hardware like this now days, Powerful yet energy efficient SOC's, be it from AMD, Intel, Nvidia or Apple

LPDDR5 means that these computers now have soldered on RAM by default.

It means the remaining days of configurable RAM are few. I guess it's already the norm in Laptops and Phones, but still sad to see this encroaching upon desktop space.

It's only for AI though which I'm convinced remains niche. These AI algorithms really wants a lot of RAM Bandwidth at lower prices than Graphics RAM.

Video games need faster RAM. Servers need more RAM. Desktops are now in an awkward spot with DDR5 just not the best anymore

 

[Tropick]

LPDDR5 is not DDR5.

But yes, it appears to be 256-bit LPDDR5. Very promising.

Looks like partners can opt to use LPDDR5X as well. HP is launching the Z2 Mini G1a which is a similar form factor but with soldered 8000MT/s memory and a MAX+ 395 PRO. That'd be LPDDR5X right?

Edit: not to mention this thing looks way nicer than the GMK box

https://www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/z2-mini-a.html

 

[bonehead123]

Their current model is ugly AF.

Oh wow, that truly is hideous. I can't really explain why, it's just...all ugly.

I believe the word ya'll are lookin for is FUGGGILLLLY, hahahaha

But yea, I agree they are definitely that for sure !

Unlike some other mini-me boxes (including mine), which are fairly attractive while being space saving & reasonably performant at the same time...

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Could be the future since big bulky performance PC:s are getting tiresome, at least for me. But it has to be executed right. Aesthetics, price, BIOS, I/O and a good quality cooling solution that doesn't sound like a jet engine. Would have better longevity than a Mac mini since Linux could be installed.

There's a linux build out there for Apple Silicon Macs. But even then, it's not like Macs stop working once they fall off the macOS update wagon. I have 2 Mac Pros that are now 11 and 15 years old, and they both still run the software I need at good enough performance. Even then, Apple maintains/updates the 3 most recent editions of macOS, so you're typically looking at about 10 years of official support. For example, the 2013 Mac Pro topped out at Monterey, which had its final update in July of 2024. That's 11 years of official support. After that, there's OCLP, which can really help you extend an old Mac even further, in a self-supported fashion. I was running Monterey on my 2010 Mac Pro all last year, for example. Yeah, all that is work and unsupported, but if we're talking about Linux as the alternative, it's not all that different when it comes to technical ability. OCLP does 100% of the work in a few clicks.

At the end of the day, it's really just if the hardware does what you need, and Stix Halo won't be much different than those Macs with soldered RAM. What you see is what you get.

 

[Arco]

Looks like partners can opt to use LPDDR5X as well. HP is launching the Z2 Mini G1a which is a similar form factor but with soldered 8000MT/s memory and a MAX+ 395 PRO. That'd be LPDDR5X right?

Edit: not to mention this thing looks way nicer than the GMK box

https://www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/z2-mini-a.html

View attachment 379782View attachment 379783

I don't get why they don't adopt the camm2 standard, it's modular while being almost as fast and almost the same size. I would 100% buy a laptop with camm2 memory if the laptop suited my purposes.

 

[Timbaloo]

I'm very interested in Strix Halo. My kidneys not so much.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Looks like partners can opt to use LPDDR5X as well. HP is launching the Z2 Mini G1a which is a similar form factor but with soldered 8000MT/s memory and a MAX+ 395 PRO. That'd be LPDDR5X right?

Edit: not to mention this thing looks way nicer than the GMK box

https://www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/z2-mini-a.html

View attachment 379782View attachment 379783

Glad to see HP doing things still.

I'm impressed with this setup. But it depends on the price, what's everyone thinking? I think $3k would be a bit steep but a fair price. I can definitely see them trying to sell this stuff for $5k+ though

 

[trsttte]

It means the remaining days of configurable RAM are few.

LPCAMM to the rescue!

Glad to see HP doing things still.

It was surprising to see them alone with Asus in the Strix Halo presentation, where was Lenovo, Dell, MSI, Gigabyte, etc.?

 

[Sound_Card]

Strix Halo is worrying the hell out of Intel and Nvidia. This is a chip that is going to take a sizable bite out of everyone's lunch so long as TSMC can supply it, and it quite honestly the chip I care most about as I am migrating over to mini PC's. I have a Phoenix point Mini PC right now. Zen 3 with 12 RDNA 2 CU's. The damn tiny thing is awesome.

 

[Chaitanya]

I don't get why they don't adopt the camm2 standard, it's modular while being almost as fast and almost the same size. I would 100% buy a laptop with camm2 memory if the laptop suited my purposes.

To keep the up to 16 "Zen 5" CPU cores, the large iGPU with 40 CU, and the 50 TOPS NPU fed with sufficient memory bandwidth, AMD has given the "Strix Halo" a quad-channel (256-bit) LPDDR5X-6400 memory interface. This should give the processor a memory bandwidth of 256-bit. The iGPU talks to the system over the core switching fabric (Infinity Fabric) of the SoC die.

Probably due to fact that CAMM2 and LPCAMM dont support 256bit quad channel memory which is what these AI Max series of CPUs are designed around.

Looks like partners can opt to use LPDDR5X as well. HP is launching the Z2 Mini G1a which is a similar form factor but with soldered 8000MT/s memory and a MAX+ 395 PRO. That'd be LPDDR5X right?

Edit: not to mention this thing looks way nicer than the GMK box

https://www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/z2-mini-a.html

View attachment 379782View attachment 379783

Not a fan of mini DP ports.