News AMD pushes Ryzen to the Max — Ryzen AI Max 300 Strix Halo reportedly has up to 16 Zen 5 cores and 40 RDNA 3+ CUs

[Admin]

AMD's Ryzen AI Max family is reportedly detailed: Strix Halo will feature up to 16 cores and a massive GPU.

AMD pushes Ryzen to the Max — Ryzen AI Max 300 Strix Halo reportedly has up to 16 Zen 5 cores and 40 RDNA 3+ CUs : Read more

 

[Gururu]

Beats all laptops for shortest battery life.

 

[Amdlova]

Price? 2500+

 

[usertests]

Beats all laptops for shortest battery life.

It will be in mini PCs and soldered onto motherboards too. It has the potential to be unbeatable in its price class (still expensive) for AI workloads that need more than 24 GB of VRAM.

For a gaming laptop, even though it can pull >100W, it should do well with much less. Games certainly don't need 16x Zen 5 cores, so it will be mostly about the power the iGPU is consuming. The only thing missing at this point is X3D, which could lower power usage a little in gaming.

We already have gaming handhelds that can use 35-53 Watts. 8-core Strix Halo would outperform them at those power levels, owing to more CUs and 256-bit memory.

 

[Jame5]

So up to 96GB of ram for GPU allocation means that we can expect 96GB and 128GB memory configurations for any systems using these new SoCs?

 

[usertests]

So up to 96GB of ram for GPU allocation means that we can expect 96GB and 128GB memory configurations for any systems using these new SoCs?

128 GB, 75% allocated (maximum, for now).

I was wondering about 192-256 GB but I guess it's not feasible with current LPDDR5X packages. Not sure if it supports DDR5 DIMMs either.

 

[baboma]

Some takeaways:

. On SoC naming: Assuming the rumored new label is correct, AMD is leaning toward discrete words and away from the Intel-convention 5/7/9 for its tier designation.

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370/365 started this trend, but the '9' is unneeded since there's no 7 or 5 tier. The 395/390 dropped the '9' and gained 'Max' to differentiate from 370/365. This makes sense since Halo would be "above 9" per 5/7/9 convention, and would need an '11' label which would sow confusion.

It's a logical step, but the unfortunate consequence is that the names are growing ever more unwieldy. Ditto for Intel, where ARL/LNL's official name is Core Ultra Series 2. The need for shorthand is why sites & reviewers are increasingly adopting use of codenames for their frequent mentions. We'll see "Strix Halo" or just "Halo" in use more often.

>It will be in mini PCs
>For a gaming laptop

While Halo may well show up in above segments, both of them are too niche to merit a dedicated "super-chip" by themselves. I agree with other assessments--Videocardz and WccfTech which posted this leak yesterday--that Halo is destined for workstation-class laptops sans discrete graphics. MiniPCs & gaming laptops may be beneficiaries, but they're secondary.

>up to 96GB of ram for GPU allocation

This factoid further affirms the workstation category as the target.

>gaming handhelds

Note that 370/365 haven't been adopted in any handheld, either because of high price or high power consumption. The talk is that the lower-tier Krackan will fill that niche. So the chance of 395/385 going into handheld is probably zero.

 

[thestryker]

If the performance is high enough I could see this ending up in gaming laptops. It would certainly use less power than an equivalent with a dedicated GPU, but it's dependent on price due to how large the die undoubtedly is. The die size is likely why it's being aimed squarely at workstations from all initial indicators. AMD also has a tendency to have limited availability so it would make sense to target the largest profit center first.

>gaming handhelds

Note that 370/365 haven't been adopted in any handheld, either because of high price or high power consumption. The talk is that the lower-tier Krackan will fill that niche. So the chance of 395/385 going into handheld is probably zero.

It's price one of the GPD folks said their cost for the 370 was double that of the 8840.

 

[m3city]

Beats all laptops for shortest battery life.

If you keep it on benchmark/render/encoding mode and keep killing in cyberpunk 2077, then yes, you may actually hear energy leaking from the battery. If you use it as intended on battery, then you will probably have a day without plugging in. If you really have to have 100% CPU use on battery mode for 8h a day, then you should not do it on laptop. Desktop is the answer in such case.

 

[mac_angel]

the 390 looks like it would be the sweet spot to put together a SSF gaming PC that should be able to do better than a console. Make your own X-Box

 

[Notton]

AMD totally missing out on an opportunity to claim theirs goes up to 11.
Instead, they copy Apple now.

 

[usertests]

While Halo may well show up in above segments, both of them are too niche to merit a dedicated "super-chip" by themselves. I agree with other assessments--Videocardz and WccfTech which posted this leak yesterday--that Halo is destined for workstation-class laptops sans discrete graphics. MiniPCs & gaming laptops may be beneficiaries, but they're secondary.

It will definitely show up in gaming laptops, which are hardly a niche unless you are just comparing it to the overall laptop market. That 32 MiB of Infinity Cache isn't for the AI workloads. (Consumer) Mini-PCs are an afterthought, coming after laptops. I mentioned it because in those, battery life doesn't matter.

Note that 370/365 haven't been adopted in any handheld, either because of high price or high power consumption. The talk is that the lower-tier Krackan will fill that niche. So the chance of 395/385 going into handheld is probably zero.

Handhelds come later than laptops. AMD has confirmed the Z2 Extreme is coming. That's highly likely to be a carbon copy of the HX 370, as the Z1 Extreme was just the top Phoenix chip.

the 390 looks like it would be the sweet spot to put together a SSF gaming PC that should be able to do better than a console. Make your own X-Box

The problem is that it's likely to be very expensive, more than CPU+GPU combos of similar or better performance.

If compactness is the goal at any price, maybe. Soldered to a Mini-ITX board might even be larger than necessary.

 

[Guardians Bane]

Some takeaways:

. On SoC naming: Assuming the rumored new label is correct, AMD is leaning toward discrete words and away from the Intel-convention 5/7/9 for its tier designation.

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370/365 started this trend, but the '9' is unneeded since there's no 7 or 5 tier. The 395/390 dropped the '9' and gained 'Max' to differentiate from 370/365. This makes sense since Halo would be "above 9" per 5/7/9 convention, and would need an '11' label which would sow confusion.

It's a logical step, but the unfortunate consequence is that the names are growing ever more unwieldy. Ditto for Intel, where ARL/LNL's official name is Core Ultra Series 2. The need for shorthand is why sites & reviewers are increasingly adopting use of codenames for their frequent mentions. We'll see "Strix Halo" or just "Halo" in use more often.

>It will be in mini PCs
>For a gaming laptop

While Halo may well show up in above segments, both of them are too niche to merit a dedicated "super-chip" by themselves. I agree with other assessments--Videocardz and WccfTech which posted this leak yesterday--that Halo is destined for workstation-class laptops sans discrete graphics. MiniPCs & gaming laptops may be beneficiaries, but they're secondary.

>up to 96GB of ram for GPU allocation

This factoid further affirms the workstation category as the target.

>gaming handhelds

Note that 370/365 haven't been adopted in any handheld, either because of high price or high power consumption. The talk is that the lower-tier Krackan will fill that niche. So the chance of 395/385 going into handheld is probably zero.

I am anxiously waiting for a Halo based Mini PC. I'm already getting a Strix Point 370 based one. It's absolutely an upgrade over my UM690S w/6900hx and 680m iGPU. Not that I'll need any of them. I'm just a mini PC enthusiast that spends way to much money on new tech! Lol

 

[Guardians Bane]

If the performance is high enough I could see this ending up in gaming laptops. It would certainly use less power than an equivalent with a dedicated GPU, but it's dependent on price due to how large the die undoubtedly is. The die size is likely why it's being aimed squarely at workstations from all initial indicators. AMD also has a tendency to have limited availability so it would make sense to target the largest profit center first.

It's price one of the GPD folks said their cost for the 370 was double that of the 8840.

GPD isn't thinking straight though. There's an AooStar 370 based mini going on sale for ~$690 USD. That's with 32gb ram and 1tb storage and Windows 11 installed.

And yeah, I know it's not the same.... Customers would need to supply monitor and peripherals (keyboard/mouse). But for those of us who already have that's stuff, that price is very good for a Strix Point 370 system! I'm getting one as soon as the retailers selling in the US have them available! Gonna be fun with that little thing for sure! Lol

 

[thestryker]

GPD isn't thinking straight though.

I'm pretty sure they know what their CPU cost is...

 

[suryasans]

AMD is planning to move away from nvidia graphics cards to power its high end laptops. The total bandwidth of LPDDR5X memories has reached to the bandwidth rates of the first generation of GDDR6 memories at the same channel width, so making a soc package of its highed gaming laptop platform is getting makes sense.

 

[Guardians Bane]

I'm pretty sure they know what their CPU cost is...

Oh, I know that! I'm just postulating that it isn't as huge of a or ce that they're implying. I mean a Strix based (370) system with 32bg and 1tb ram and Oculink and USB4 all for under $700.
No doubt is not as cheap as the 8040 series. Either way, I think I'm just envious of those who will be able to get one of these laptops way before I can! Lol.. it would be a couple months of saving to get one...

And it's nothing against GPD. I know they make solid stuff.

 

[thestryker]

Oh, I know that! I'm just postulating that it isn't as huge of a or ce that they're implying. I mean a Strix based (370) system with 32bg and 1tb ram and Oculink and USB4 all for under $700.

That's ~$150 more than the prior gen version of the same thing which is a pretty heavy premium to pay contextually speaking. It also explains the high cost floor for the laptops currently using the 370 which are on the market now. It's not that these devices are all bad deals by any means just that the price has to go up for something that has low margins (or in the case of huge companies raising to make their minimum acceptable).

 

[Hotrod2go]

Bring this architecture to the next gen desktop APUs.

 

[Bikki]

This is very interesting news, especially the 8 cores with 40 cus for handheld use. I wonder if performance could be 3x higher at 10 watt vs steam deck due to large amount of CUs.

 

[acadia11]

What socket would this chip belong? Is it a viable desktop option or will it only be soldered on. As 16 core sounds like 9950x married to a much more capable GPU in which case that would be a very nice drop into AM5 socket getting the benefit of integrated graphics and perhaps not the insane pricing we see in todays GPU market?

 

[Notton]

What socket would this chip belong? Is it a viable desktop option or will it only be soldered on. As 16 core sounds like 9950x married to a much more capable GPU in which case that would be a very nice drop into AM5 socket getting the benefit of integrated graphics and perhaps not the insane pricing we see in todays GPU market?

BGA only
There's no way it will go into an AM5 socket when it has a 256-bit memory bus. That would require more pins.
Although I wouldn't be surprised if someone hacks it onto a socket near the end of its life cycle.

 

[acadia11]

, BGA only
There's no way it will go into an AM5 socket when it has a 256-bit memory bus. That would require more pins.
Although I wouldn't be surprised if someone hacks it onto a socket near the end of its life cycle.

wonder if mobo manufacturers out there that setup with processor+mobo ready to go? Of course the sheer size of this SOC doesn't make it AM5 possible plus and technical limitations... this really would fit nicely thought in desktop and save on the outrageous price you pay for dedicated GPUs these days. Here's to hoping. Weren't there some APU's that produced that fit into AMX sockets in the past , or am I mistaken?

 

[thestryker]

wonder if mobo manufacturers out there that setup with processor+mobo ready to go? Of course the sheer size of this SOC doesn't make it AM5 possible plus and technical limitations... this really would fit nicely thought in desktop and save on the outrageous price you pay for dedicated GPUs these days. Here's to hoping. Weren't there some APU's that produced that fit into AMX sockets in the past , or am I mistaken?

This isn't those as has already been said these require a 256-bit memory bus and desktop motherboards only support 128-bit. Even with the infinity cache that's supposed to be on these chips cutting the bandwidth in half would do a number on performance.

The only thing you could really hope for is minipcs using them or companies out of China like Erying who sometimes put together desktop boards with soldered mobile chips. I'm not sure that would be viable here given the extra memory bandwidth requirement (they're low margin products) but it should be technically possible.

 

[acadia11]

This isn't those as has already been said these require a 256-bit memory bus and desktop motherboards only support 128-bit. Even with the infinity cache that's supposed to be on these chips cutting the bandwidth in half would do a number on performance.

The only thing you could really hope for is minipcs using them or companies out of China like Erying who sometimes put together desktop boards with soldered mobile chips. I'm not sure that would be viable here given the extra memory bandwidth requirement (they're low margin products) but it should be technically possible.

I thought controller is built into the SOC , not suggesting to use AM5 but build a board that can support this processor utilizing the required socket pinning. The point someone could build an atx eatx … board to use in desktop, soldering it appropriately to the board in the appropriate bga format. Ultimately, the question is there a market for it … considering the cost of discrete graphics and cpu today. Seems this could be a viable product but if I truly were AMD may considered doing it?