AMD has published a blog post about its latest AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processors, claiming they are changing the game for portable devices. To back these claims, Team Red has compared its Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor to Intel's latest Core Ultra 7 258V, using the following games: Assassin's Creed Mirage, Baldur's Gate 3, Borderlands 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, Dying Light 2 Stay Human, F1 24, Far Cry 6, Forza Horizon 5, Ghost of Tsushima, Hitman 3, Hogwarts Legacy, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Spider-Man Remastered, and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. The conclusion was that AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, with its integrated Radeon 890M graphics powerhouse, outperformed the Intel "Lunar Lake" Core Ultra 7 258V with Intel Arc Graphics 140V by 75% on average.

To support this performance leap, AMD also relies on software technologies, including FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3) and HYPR-RX, to unlock additional power and gaming efficiency. FSR 3 alone enhances visuals in over 95 games, while HYPR-RX, with features like AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 (AFMF 2) and Radeon Anti-Lag, provides substantial performance boosts across thousands of games. The company has also compared its FSR/HYPR-RS combination with Intel's XeSS, which is available in around 130 games. AMD claims its broader suite supports 415+ games and is optimized for smoother gameplay. The AFMF 2 claims support with thousands of titles, while Intel's GPU software stack lacks a comparison point. Of course, these marketing claims are to be taken with a grain of salt, so independent testing is always the best to compare the two.

According to CRN, AMD is looking to make some cuts to its workforce of approximately 26,000 employees. The company hasn't announced a specific number, but in a comment to the publication AMD said that "as a part of aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of targeted steps that will unfortunately result in reducing our global workforce by approximately 4 percent". In actual headcount numbers that should be just north of a thousand people that the company will let go. It's not clear which departments or divisions at AMD will be affected the most, but the cutback appears to be a response to AMD's mixed quarterly report.

AMD's statement also doesn't make it clear on exactly what the company will be putting its focus on moving forward, but CRN seems to suggest that the embedded and gaming business is where AMD is struggling. That said, it's not likely that AMD will put an increased focus on those businesses, but instead the company is more likely to invest more into its server products, least not to try and catch up with NVIDIA in the AI server market. According to CRN, AMD has also seen a strong demand in AI PCs, such as the Ryzen AI 300-series of mobile SoCs, so it's possible AMD will put an extra effort into is mobile product range. The Ryzen 9000-series is thankfully also doing well, so it's unlikely there will be any big cutbacks here. We already know that AMD is not going after NVIDIA with a new flagship GPU to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5000-series flagship SKU, so it's possible that the company will cut back on some people in its consumer GPU team for the time being, but this should become clear come CES in January.

AYANEO has officially revealed its latest handheld gaming console, dubbed the AYANEO 3. The company has teased the handheld multiple times in the past, while refraining from sharing any specifications regarding the same. Now, however, the company has detailed the internals for its new flagship handheld along with a few extra details.

The AYANEO 3 appears to be powered exclusively by AMD APUs, with Intel's Lunar Lake options nowhere to be found. Interested buyers will get to choose between either the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" APU, or the Ryzen 7 8840U "Hawk Point" APU. The "Strix Point" option happens to be AMD's latest and greatest, packing 4 Zen 5 and 8 Zen 5c cores, while the "Hawk Point" option sports 8 Zen 4 cores only.

AMD Ryzen AI MAX 300-series processors, codenamed "Strix Halo," have been on in the news for close to a year now. These mobile processors combine "Zen 5" CPU cores with an oversized iGPU that offers performance rivaling discrete GPUs, with the idea behind these chips being to rival the Apple M3 Pro and M3 Max processors powering MacBook Pros. The "Strix Halo" mobile processor is an MCM that combines one or two "Zen 5" CCDs (some ones featured on "Granite Ridge" desktop processors and "Turin" server processors), with a large SoC die. This die is built either on the 5 nm (TSMC N5) or 4 nm (TSMC N4P) node. It packs a large iGPU based on the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture, with 40 compute units (CU), and a 50 TOPS-class XDNA 2 NPU carried over from "Strix Point." The memory interface is a 256-bit wide LPDDR5X-8000 for sufficient memory bandwidth for the up to 16 "Zen 5" CPU cores, the 50 TOPS NPU, and the large 40 CU iGPU.

Golden Pig Upgrade leaked what looks like a company slide from a notebook OEM, which reveals the iGPU model names for the various Ryzen AI MAX 300-series SKUs. Leading the pack is the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395. This is a maxed out SKU with a 16-core/32-thread "Zen 5" CPU that uses two CCDs. All 16 cores are full-sized "Zen 5." The CPU has 64 MB of L3 cache (32 MB per CCD), each of the 16 cores has 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache. The iGPU is branded Radeon 8060S, it comes with all 40 CU (2,560 stream processors) enabled, besides 80 AI accelerators, and 40 Ray accelerators. The Ryzen AI MAX 390 is the next processor SKU, it comes with a 12-core/24-thread "Zen 5" CPU. Like the 395, the 390 is a dual-CCD processor, all 12 cores are full-sized "Zen 5." There's 64 MB of L3 cache, and 1 MB of L2 cache per core. The Radeon 8060S graphics solution is the same as the one on the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395, it comes with all 40 CU enabled.

A new ultraportable notebook model powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" processor coming this December, will feature LPDDR5X-8000 memory, a memory speed above the LPDDR5-7500 that was standard for the processor. Hoang Anh Phu did some digging, and found that AMD has quietly updated the product pages of these processors on its website, now showing support for LPDDR5X-8000. Older versions of these pages accessed by The Wayback Machine showed them to mention 7500 MT/s as the top speed for LPDDR5X.

While regular DDR5 SO-DIMM speeds remain unchanged at dual-channel DDR5-5600, it's pertinent to note that mainstream and enthusiast-segment gaming notebooks tend to use faster DDR5 SO-DIMMs than spec using OEM-level memory overclocking, however, LPDDR5X speeds do not tend to be higher than what the processor is capable of. An OEM would only use LPDDR5X-8000 chips if the processor officially supports it, which it now does with this stealthy specs update. The notebook in question is an HP EliteBook X G1a, a 14-inch premium ultraportable that not just uses LPDDR5X-8000 with "Strix Point" processors, but also seems to have overclocked its NPU. By AMD's specs, the XDNA 2 NPU should be capable of 50 TOPS, but HP has stepped its performance up by 10%.

Even as AMD is giving final touches the 2nd generation Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor for gaming handhelds with a wacky 3+5 CPU core-configuration, some manufacturers like OneXPlayer couldn't wait, and went ahead to implement the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 mobile processor with a cTDP of 15 W. On the upside, the HX 370 is better kitted out than the Z2 Extreme, having all 12 cores enabled (4+8), but on the downside, it lacks much of the power optimization AMD put into the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. The OneXFly F1 Pro implements the Ryzen AI HX 370, and packs a 7-inch Full HD 144 Hz touchscreen. It was recently benchmarked by One-Netbook, where it yielded some surprising results, including a 58 FPS average frame-rate in "Black Myth Wukong" with low settings.

AMD today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2024 of $6.8 billion, gross margin of 50%, operating income of $724 million, net income of $771 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.47. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margin was 54%, operating income was $1.7 billion, net income was $1.5 billion and diluted earnings per share was $0.92.

"We delivered strong third quarter financial results with record revenue led by higher sales of EPYC and Instinct data center products and robust demand for our Ryzen PC processors," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "Looking forward, we see significant growth opportunities across our data center, client and embedded businesses driven by the insatiable demand for more compute."

Minisforum is thrilled to announce the launch of the EliteMini AI370, a powerful mini PC that combines groundbreaking CPU performance with a sleek, compact design. This innovative device is designed to meet the demands of gamers, creators, and tech enthusiasts who need high performance in a small footprint.

The Next-Level Performance
At the core of the EliteMini AI370 is the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor. Featuring 12 cores and 24 threads, this advanced chip delivers effortless power for gaming and creative applications. It expertly balances high performance and energy efficiency, with integrated AI enhancements that optimize workflows and daily tasks like never before.

Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced its third generation commercial AI mobile processors, designed specifically to transform business productivity with Copilot+ features including live captioning and language translation in conference calls and advanced AI image generators. The new Ryzen AI PRO 300 Series processors deliver industry-leading AI compute, with up to three times the AI performance than the previous generation, and offer uncompromising performance for everyday workloads. Enabled with AMD PRO Technologies, the Ryzen AI PRO 300 Series processors offer world-class security and manageability features designed to streamline IT operations and ensure exceptional ROI for businesses.

Ryzen AI PRO 300 Series processors feature new AMD "Zen 5" architecture, delivering outstanding CPU performance, and are the world's best line up of commercial processors for Copilot+ enterprise PCs. Laptops equipped with Ryzen AI PRO 300 Series processors are designed to tackle business' toughest workloads, with the top-of-stack Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 offering up to 40% higher performance and up to 14% faster productivity performance compared to Intel's Core Ultra 7 165U. With the addition of XDNA 2 architecture powering the integrated NPU, AMD Ryzen AI PRO 300 Series processors offer a cutting-edge 50+ NPU TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second) of AI processing power, exceeding Microsoft's Copilot+ AI PC requirements and delivering exceptional AI compute and productivity capabilities for the modern business. Built on a 4 nm process and with innovative power management, the new processors deliver extended battery life ideal for sustained performance and productivity on the go.

The upcoming Strix Point Halo processors from AMD now have a new name - Ryzen AI Max - and come with big promises of impressive power. This rumor, first reported by VideoCardz and originating from Weibo leaker Golden Pig Upgrade, reveals key details about the first three processors in this lineup, along with their specifications.

The leaker claims AMD might roll out a new naming system for these processors branding them as part of the Ryzen AI Max series. These chips will run on the anticipated Strix Halo APU. This series includes three models, with the top-end version boasting up to 16 Zen 5 cores and 40 Compute Units (CUs) for graphics. This setup is expected for the best model contrary to earlier rumors that AMD would drop such a variant. In fact, word has it that at least two of the models in this lineup will come with 40 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units. The leaker also hints that Strix Halo will handle up to 96 GB of video memory suggesting AMD aims to make this processor work with its ROCm (Open Compute Platform) system.

AMD is about to extend its mobile CPU lineup with the introduction of new Ryzen AI APUs, which are going to include the Krackan Point series which has been greatly expected. These CPUs are aimed at mainstream platforms and are targeted to bring performance, AI capabilities, and memory support to a new level. Krackan Point is supposed to be a cheaper alternative to the premium Strix Point series. Jack Huynh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Computing and Graphics Business Group of AMD confirmed at IFA 2024 that Krackan will be released to the mass market early in 2025.

One of the highlights is the support for LPDDR5X-8000 memory, this feature is expected to place the Krackan Point APUs close to AMD's Strix Halo series and compete directly with Intel's Lunar Lake processors. The XDNA2 Neural Processing Unit and also the certification of AMD for Microsoft Copilot+PC will be the advantages of this enhancement of the product.

Lenovo, a global leader in technology innovation, announced its latest advancements at Lenovo Innovation World 2024, unveiling a series of AI PC devices, including ThinkPad, ThinkBook, Yoga, and IdeaPad laptops, designed to transform both enterprise and consumer user experiences.

AI PC Era
AI PCs are set to revolutionize computing as their relevance grows, with 60% of PCs shipped by 2027 anticipated to be AI-capable. Lenovo's AI PCs are at the forefront of this transformation, leveraging natural interactions, personalized large language models, and advanced computing architectures. These innovations make computing more personal by tailoring experiences to individual users, more productive by enhancing workflow efficiency, and more protected by integrating robust security features into AI-driven systems.

MSI, a leading brand in gaming, content creation, and business & productivity laptops, proudly launched several next-gen AI+ gaming and business productivity laptops featuring the new Intel Core Ultra processor (Series 2) and AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series at IFA 2024. These laptops offer more AI computing power, making it the most robust platform for AI PC development, with more AI models, frameworks, and runtimes enable.

Additionally, MSI officially launched the new Claw 8 AI+ Windows 11 gaming handheld device, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2) and an 8-inch screen, providing a smoother and broader mobile gaming experience. MSI also announced the whole new Venture series laptops, redefining the combination of thin, light and powerful. Equipped with Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2) and varieties of different size, from 14, 15.6, 16, to 17 inches.

Acer today announced its entry into the handheld gaming space with the launch of the new Acer Nitro Blaze 7 (GN771). The device combines cutting-edge technology and a compact design to always bring next-level gaming and entertainment within reach. Acer's first-generation handheld AI gaming PC features an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS processor, with Ryzen AI that optimizes performance and responsiveness across a wide range of games and applications.

The design allows users to easily slip the device into their bags or pockets for instant playing time on the go. It features a 7-inch Full HD (FHD) IPS display with a touch interface, plus AMD FreeSync Premium technology, and a blazing-fast 144 Hz refresh rate. This allows players to experience enhanced visuals and responsive controls while playing their favorite AAA titles. The system runs on Windows 11 and features the new Acer Game Space application which supports the addition of games from multiple platforms.

MSI, a leading brand in gaming, content creation, and business & productivity laptops, proudly launched several next-gen AI+ gaming and business productivity laptops featuring the new Intel Core Ultra processor (Series 2) and AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series at IFA 2024. These laptops offer more AI computing power, making it the most robust platform for AI PC development, with more AI models, frameworks, and runtimes enable. Additionally, MSI officially launched the new Claw 8 AI+ Windows 11 gaming handheld device, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2) and an 8-inch screen, providing a smoother and broader mobile gaming experience. MSI also announced the whole new Venture series laptops, redefining the combination of thin, light and powerful. Equipped with Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2) and varieties of different size, from 14, 15.6, 16, to 17 inches.

"MSI not only brings the industry's most comprehensive AI+ PC lineup but also introduces multiple new laptops and handheld devices designed for gamers worldwide," said Eric Kuo, MSI's Executive Vice President and General Manager of NB Business Unit. "We welcome global guests to visit the MSI booth to experience next-gen AI computing and exciting gaming products."

ASUS announced availability for the company's new lineup of AMD Ryzen AI laptops featuring advanced AI capability with 50 TOPS NPU AI engines.

ASUS ProArt P16 / ProArt PX13
The new ASUS ProArt laptop lineup is designed to empower every creator — whether they are everyday users, outdoor content creators, or professionals — to transform their precious life moments into enduring stories. The lightweight, durable, and powerful laptops allow users to create anywhere, create faster, and create smarter.

Since its reveal last week, we got a slightly more technical deep-dive from AMD on its two upcoming processors—the "Strix Point" silicon powering its Ryzen AI 300 series mobile processors; and the "Granite Ridge" chiplet MCM powering its Ryzen 9000 desktop processors. We present a closer look into the "Strix Point" SoC in this article. It turns out that "Strix Point" takes a significantly different approach to heterogeneous multicore than "Phoenix 2." AMD gave us a close look at how this works. AMD built the "Strix Point" monolithic silicon on the TSMC N4P foundry node, with a die-area of around 232 mm².

The "Strix Point" silicon sees the company's Infinity Fabric interconnect as its omnipresent ether. This is a point-to-point interconnect, unlike the ringbus on some Intel processors. The main compute machinery on the "Strix Point" SoC are its two CPU compute complexes (CCX), each with a 32b (read)/16b (write) per cycle data-path to the fabric. The concept of CCX makes a comeback with "Strix Point" after nearly two generations of "Zen." The first CCX contains the chip's four full-sized "Zen 5" CPU cores, which share a 16 MB L3 cache among themselves. The second CCX contains the chip's eight "Zen 5c" cores that share a smaller 8 MB L3 cache. Each of the 12 cores has a 1 MB dedicated L2 cache.

AMD presented a closer look at the Radeon 890M iGPU powering the Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" mobile processor. The iGPU introduces the new RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture, with several architecture-level improvements built around the existing RDNA 3 SIMD, to yield performance/Watt improvements that AMD could trade in to increase the SIMD muscle for its processors, and proportionately increase performance. The iGPU features one Shader Engine with 8 workgroup processors (WGPs), which amount to 16 CU (compute units), for a total of 1,024 stream processors, 32 AI accelerators, and 16 Ray accelerators. The iGPU also has 4 render backends+, for 16 ROPs. It is specced with a maximum engine clock of 2.90 GHz, which yields over 11 TFLOP/s of FP32 throughput, which is around 30% higher than the iGPU of "Phoenix" (12 CU, RDNA 3), at comparable power.

AMD goes into the finer points of how it yielded the performance/Watt gains. The company worked on the texture subsystem to double the texture sampler rate, and introduced point-sampling acceleration. The shader sub-system features interpolation and comparison rate doubling. The raster sub-system introduces sub-batching of batch raster operations, with a programmable bin order, for the hardware to be more efficient. Lastly, AMD worked on the iGPU's memory-management, to be more aware of LPDDR5 (which has a different physical layer or way of writing/fetching than GDDR6). The company worked on improving the memory compression technologies, to improve performance, and reduce the iGPU's memory footprint.

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.

AMD is about give the new "Zen 5" microarchitecture a near-simultaneous launch across both its client segments—desktop and mobile. The desktop front is held by the Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" Socket AM5 processors; while Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" powers the company's crucial effort to capture Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC market share. We recently did a technical deep-dive on the two. HardwareLuxx.de scored two important bits of specs for both processors in its Q&A interaction with AMD—die sizes and transistor counts.

To begin with, "Strix Point" is a monolithic silicon, which is confirmed to be built on the TSMC N4P foundry node (4 nm). This is a slight upgrade over the N4 node that the company built its previous generation "Phoenix" and "Hawk Point" processors on. The "Strix Point" silicon measures 232.5 mm² in area, which is significantly larger than the 178 mm² of "Hawk Point" and "Phoenix." The added die area comes from there being 12 CPU cores instead of 8, and 16 iGPU compute units instead of 12; and a larger NPU. There are many other factors, such as the larger 24 MB CPU L3 cache; and the sizes of the "Zen 5" and "Zen 5c" cores themselves.

HP Inc. today introduced two new innovations—the world's highest performance AI PC and the first integration of a trust framework into an AI model development platform. Both announcements expand HP's efforts to make AI real for companies and people with new and transformative AI experiences across the company's PCs, software, and partner ecosystem.

HP is empowering everyone, from corporate knowledge workers to freelancers and students, to unlock the power of AI. Users can connect with anyone in the world with real time translation to 40 languages, become master presenters with their personal communication coach, and quickly create videos like a pro.

CPUID this week released the latest version of CPU-Z, and its change-log confirms the core-configurations of upcoming AMD Ryzen AI 300-series "Strix Point" processor SKUs. On paper, "Strix Point" packs a 12-core CPU based on the latest "Zen 5" microarchitecture, but there's more to this number. We've known since June 2024 that the chip has a heterogeneous multicore configuration of four full-sized "Zen 5" cores, and eight compacted "Zen 5c" cores. Only the "Zen 5" cores can reach the maximum boost frequencies rated for the chip, while the "Zen 5c" cores go a few notches above the base frequency, although it's expected that the gap in boost frequencies between the two core types is expected to slightly narrow compared to that between the "Zen 4" and "Zen 4c" cores in chips such as the "Phoenix 2."

The series is led by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, an enthusiast segment chip that maxes out all 12 cores on the chip—that's 4x "Zen 5" and 8x "Zen 5c." This model is closely followed by the Ryzen AI 9 365, which AMD marked in its presentations as being simply a 10-core/20-thread chip. We're now learning that it has 4x "Zen 5" and 6x "Zen 5c," meaning that AMD hasn't touched the counts of its faster "Zen 5" cores. It's important to note here that "Zen 5c" is not an E-core. It supports SMT, and at base frequency, it has an identical IPC to "Zen 5." It also supports the entire ISA that "Zen 5" does.

The recent launch of Copilot+ PCs, a collaboration between Microsoft and Qualcomm, has taken an unexpected turn in the market. While these devices were promoted for their artificial intelligence capabilities, a Bloomberg report reveals that consumers are primarily drawn to them for their impressive battery life. The Snapdragon X-powered Copilot+ PCs have made a significant impact, securing 20% of global PC sales during their launch week. However, industry analyst Avi Greengart points out that the extended battery life, not the AI features, is driving these sales. Microsoft introduced three AI-powered features exclusive to these PCs: Cocreator, Windows Studio Effects, and Live Captions with Translation. Despite these innovations, many users find these features non-essential for daily use. The delay of the anticipated Recall feature due to privacy concerns has further dampened enthusiasm for the AI aspects of these devices.

The slow reception of on-device AI capabilities extends beyond consumer preferences to the software industry. Major companies like Adobe, Salesforce, and SentinelOne declined Microsoft's request to optimize their apps for the new hardware, citing resource constraints and the limited market share of AI-capable PCs. Gregor Steward, SentinelOne's VP for AI, suggests it could take years before AI PCs are widespread enough to justify app optimization. Analysts project that by 2028, only 40% of new computers will be AI-capable. Despite these challenges, Qualcomm remains optimistic about the future of AI PCs. While the concept may currently be more on the marketing side, the introduction of Arm-based Windows laptops offers a welcome alternative to the Intel-AMD duopoly. As the technology evolves and adoption increases, on-device AI features may become more prevalent and useful. The imminent arrival of AMD Ryzen AI 300 series and Intel Lunar Lake chips promises to expand the Copilot+ PC space further. For now, however, it appears that superior battery life remains the primary selling point for consumers.

Just a few weeks ago, AMD invited us to Barcelona as part of a roundtable, to share their vision for the future of the company, and to get our feedback. On site, were prominent AMD leadership, including Phil Guido, Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer and Jack Huynh, Senior VP & GM, Computing and Graphics Business Group. AMD is making changes in a big way to how they are approaching technology, shifting their focus from hardware development to emphasizing software, APIs, and AI experiences. Software is no longer just a complement to hardware; it's the core of modern technological ecosystems, and AMD is finally aligning its strategy accordingly.

The major difference between AMD and NVIDIA is that AMD is a hardware company that makes software on the side to support its hardware; while NVIDIA is a software company that designs hardware on the side to accelerate its software. This is about to change, as AMD is making a pivot toward software. They believe that they now have the full stack of computing hardware—all the way from CPUs, to AI accelerators, to GPUs, to FPGAs, to data-processing and even server architecture. The only frontier left for AMD is software.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen AI 300 APUs pre-launch leaks continue, the latest coming from the BAPCo CrossMark benchmark database. Two models have been spotted: the officially announced Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the recently leaked Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, part of the "Strix Point" family, boasts 12 cores and 24 threads. Its hybrid architecture combines four Zen 5 cores with eight Zen 5C cores. The chip reaches boost clocks up to 5.1 GHz, features 36 MB of cache (24 MB L3 + 12 MB L2), and includes a Radeon 890M iGPU with 16 compute units (1024 cores). The Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360, previously leaked as a 12-core part, has now been confirmed with 8 cores and 16 threads. It utilizes a 3+5 configuration of Zen 5 and Zen 5C cores, respectively. The APU includes 8 MB each of L2 and L3 cache, with a base clock of 2.0 GHz. Its integrated Radeon 870M GPU is expected to feature the RDNA 3.5 architecture with fewer cores than its higher-end counterparts, possibly 8 compute units.

According to the leaked benchmarks, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 was tested in an HP laptop, while the Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 appeared in a Lenovo model equipped with LPDDR5-7500 memory. Initial scores appear unremarkable compared to top Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and AMD Ryzen 7040 APUs, however, the tested APUs may be early samples, and their performance could differ from final retail versions. Furthermore, while the TDP range is known to be between 15 W and 54 W, the specific power configurations used in these benchmarks remain unclear. The first Ryzen AI 300 laptops are slated for release on July 28th, with Ryzen AI 300 PRO models expected in October.