AMD's upcoming Ryzen AI Kraken Point APUs appear to be affordable APUs for next-generation thin-and-light laptops and potentially even some gaming handhelds. Murmurings of these new APUs have been going around for quite some time, but a PassMark benchmark was just posted, giving us a pretty comprehensive look at the hardware configuration for the upcoming Ryzen AI 7 350. While the CPU configuration in the PassMark result confirms the 4+4 configuration we reported on previously, it seems as though the iGPU portion of the new Ryzen AI 7 is getting something of a downgrade compared to previous generations.

While all previous mobile Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 APUs have featured the Radeon -80M or -90M series iGPUs, the Ryzen AI 7 350 steps down to the AMD Radeon 860M. Although not much is known about the new iGPU, it uses the same nomenclature as the Radeon iGPUs found in previous Ryzen 5 APUs, suggesting it is the less performant of the new 800 series iGPUs. This would be the first time, at least since the introduction of the Ryzen branding, that a Ryzen 7 CPU will use a cut-down iGPU. This, along with the 4+4 (Zen 5 and Zen 5c) heterogenous architecture, suggests that this Ryzen 7 APU will prioritize battery life and thermal performance, likely in response to Qualcomm's recent offerings. Comparing the 760M to the single 860M benchmark on PassMark reveals similar performance, with the 860M actually falling behind the average 760M by an average of 9.1%. Take this with a grain of salt, though, since there is only one benchmark result on PassMark for the 860M.

According to the latest PassMark benchmarks, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is the highest-performing single-thread CPU. The benchmark king title comes as PassMark's official account on X shared single-threaded performance number, with the upcoming Arrow Lake-S flagship SKU, Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scoring 5,268 points in single-core results. This is fantastic news for gamers, as games mostly care about single-core performance. This CPU, having 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores, boasts 5.7 GHz P-core boost and 4.6 GHz E-core boost frequencies. The single-core tests put the new SKU at 11% lead compared to the previous-generation Intel Core i9-14900K processor.

However, the multithreaded cases are running more slowly. The PassMark multithreaded results put Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at 46,872 points, which is about 22% slower than the last-generation top SKU. While this may be a disappointment for some, it is partially expected, given that Arrow Lake stops the multithreaded designs in Intel CPU families. From now on, every CPU will be a combination of P and E-Cores, tuned for efficiency or performance depending on the use case. It is also possible that the CPU used inn PassMark's testing was an engineering sample, so until official launch, we have no concrete information about its definitive performance comparison.

The much-anticipated revolution in AI-powered personal computing seems to be off to a slower start than expected. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X CPUs, touted as game-changers in the AI PC market, have struggled to gain significant traction since their launch. Recent data from PassMark, a popular benchmarking software, reveals that Snapdragon X CPUs account for a mere 0.3% of submissions in the past 30 days. This is a massive contrast to the 99.7% share held by traditional x86 processors from Intel and AMD, which raises questions about the immediate future of ARM-based PCs. The underwhelming adoption comes despite bold predictions from industry leaders. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon had projected that ARM-based CPUs could capture up to 50% of the Windows PC market by 2029. Similarly, ARM's CEO anticipated a shift away from x86's long-standing dominance.

However, it turns out that these PCs are primarily bought for the battery life, not their AI capabilities. Of course, it's premature to declare Arm's Windows venture a failure. The AI PC market is still in its infancy, and upcoming mid-tier laptops featuring Snapdragon X Elite CPUs could boost adoption rates. A lot of time still needs to pass before the volume of these PCs reaches millions of units shipped by x86 makers. The true test will come with the launch of AMD's Ryzen AI 300 and Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs, providing a clearer picture of how ARM-based options compare in AI performance. As the AI PC landscape evolves, Qualcomm faces mounting pressure. NVIDIA's anticipated entry into the market and significant performance improvements in next-generation x86 processors from Intel and AMD pose a massive challenge. The coming months will be crucial in determining whether Snapdragon X CPUs can live up to their initial hype and carve out a significant place in the AI PC ecosystem.

The 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" desktop CPU lineup was not showcased during Intel Innovation's keynote presentation—instead, upcoming Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake generations were put in the spotlight. We will likely have to wait for an official announcement closer to the expected October 17 launch date of K and KF SKUs. The Core i9-14900KF model has emerged once again, thanks to benchmark results hitting the 'net—Passmark's owner, David Wren, declared on social media: "Yet another high-end CPU has made a significant debut on the single-threaded chart today! While it's not available for purchase yet, the Intel 4th Gen i9-14900KF CPU has claimed the top spot on the chart."

The benched Core i9-14900KF scored 4939 points in PassMark's single-thread test, which surpasses equivalent 13th gen heavyweights: Core i9-13900KS—4769 points and Core i9-13900K—4666 points. Intel's iGPU-less flagship desktop processor now sits at the top of Passmark's single-thread rating table. VideoCardz noted: "It's worth mentioning that the i9-13900KS also boasts a 6.0 GHz clock speed, and the 14900KF achieved this score using relatively modest DDR5-5600 memory." Multi-threaded performance is a tad disappointing—this 14900KF sits about level with the 13900K with an extremely narrow 0.6% difference.

Since the launch of AMD's Ryzen processors, the CPU market share has been reshaped in AMD's favor. Intel's offerings were matched by team red, and AMD quickly broke into the consumer market. However, according to the latest round of reports, it seems like that is no longer the case. As per the Japanese DIY market analysis from BCNR, sales of Intel processors started rising in mid-2021, and the company is managing to grab some market share from AMD. After nearly two years of dominance in the Japanese market, AMD is now behind Intel in sales, and team blue is getting back to its older setting.

Another source that is generally a pretty good indicator of the market share of Intel and AMD processor is PassMark. As users submit their benchmark runs, the PassMark software developer has updated the CPU market share statistics chart, mainly showing the desktop segment. It also concludes the same thing as BCRN: Intel is again gaining share in the CPU market. As it always goes hand-in-hand, AMD is losing the CPU marker share naturally. This is due to many reasons, and it seems like Intel's marketing and supply tactics are paying off. Intel now sits at 60% share, while AMD is set at 40%.

The recently announced entry-level NVIDIA GeForce MX550 Turing-based discrete mobile graphics card for thin and light laptops has recently appeared on the PassMark video card benchmark site. The MX550 scores 5014 points in the G3D Mark test which places its performance nearly exactly with that of the integrated Vega 8 iGPU found in the Ryzen 9 5900HS that scores 4968 points in the same benchmark. There is only a single test result available for the MX550 so we will need to wait for further benchmarks to confirm its exact performance but either way it represents a significant performance improvement from the MX450 which scores just 3724 points. The MX550 is a PCIe 4.0 card featuring the 12 nm TU117 Turing GPU with 1024 shading units paired with 2 GB of GDDR6 memory.

If you even came across a PC system that had a problem with its Ram, there are high chances that you have used PassMark Software MemTest86 software for testing and revealing DRAM errors. The software uses a chain of algorithms, including SIMD and row hammer tests, to try to test if the memory is in a good shape or it has some problems. PC builders have used the software for years to detect and isolate any potential Ram issues that occurred. Today, makers of MemTest86, PassMark Software, previewed initial support for DDR5 memory in their internal software builds. That means that by the time DDR5 memory hits the consumer market, we will have software for testing any possible defective Ram.

Passmark Software have recently announced the significant expansion of their cross-platform benchmarking with the latest releases of PerformanceTest. For the first time this cornerstone benchmarking software is now available for Windows ARM, included with every PerformanceTest for Windows license. All CPU, 2D, Memory and Disk Tests have been natively compiled to run on Windows ARM, partial 3D support is also available.

PerformanceTest has also been released as free command line versions for Linux x86 64-bit, Linux ARM 32-bit, Linux ARM 64-bit and for MacOS (CPU Test Suite Only). The Android and IOS Mobile versions have also received updates, with all available versions of PerformanceTest now running the same CPU Test Suite found in V10 for Windows. These releases allow for directly comparable cross-platform CPU results, an apparent necessity as the number of ARM based processors such as Apple's M1 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon enter consumer hardware.