Microsoft’s Copilot+ initiative for supercharged AI computing is becoming a reality at Computex 2024. AMD today announced its next major chip platforms, the Ryzen AI 300 for notebooks and the Ryzen 9000 for desktops, which focus on more powerful notebook AI and faster gaming. on desktop computers. In particular, the Ryzen AI 300 chips feature a redesigned Neural Processing Unit (NPU) with 50 TOPS (tera operations per second) of AI performance, more than triple AMD’s previous laptop hardware. The new desktop processors are said to be 16 percent faster than their predecessors in terms of overall performance.
The key takeaway from these announcements is that Qualcomm is no longer the only company touting fast AI hardware for Copilot+ PCs. This initiative, unveiled by Microsoft a few weeks ago, sets a new standard for the core specification for artificial intelligence computing. Copilot+ computers require an NPU with at least 40 TOP AI performance, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD to qualify as Copilot+ laptops. Microsoft has also tied long battery life to the initiative, but it’s unclear whether the Ryzen AI 300 chips will be able to match the reported twenty-plus hours of Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon processors. (We also expect Intel to respond with more details about its Lunar Lake Copilot+ chips today at Computex.)
AMD’s new laptop chips so far include two models: the 12-core Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the 10-core AI 9 365. As usual, we expect the company to add mid-tiers to its lineup over the next year. and lower end offerings. Both Ryzen AI 9 chips reach at least 5GHz maximum boost speed and also have RDNA 3.5 Radeon 890M and 880M integrated graphics. According to AMD’s benchmarks, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is 98 percent faster than Apple’s M3 chip in Blender and 73 percent faster than Intel’s Core Ultra 185H. (It’s worth noting that the company tested its hardware with 32GB of RAM against Apple and Intel systems with 16GB of RAM, according to the testing notes.)
The Ryzen AI 300 and Ryzen 9000 chips are powered by AMD’s Zen 5 architecture, a “major update” for the company, Donny Woligrosky, senior manager of processor technical marketing, said at a press conference. It claims to offer better branch prediction (which helps with accuracy and latency), higher overall throughput, and up to twice the instruction bandwidth. For regular users, this means you can expect Zen 5 systems to be a bit more responsive and better prepared to handle large amounts of data.
While AMD’s new AI chips are the star of the show, the company isn’t far behind for desktop users either. The new Ryzen 9000 chips top off the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X, which approaches the dream of 6GHz with 5.7GHz boost speeds. However, it’s a power-hungry beast, requiring 170 watts, so more sensible hardware nerds could opt for the Ryzen 9 9900X (120W TDP) or the octa-core Ryzen 7 9700X (65W). These new chips don’t include an NPU like the Ryzen 8000G, but for now gamers and heavy PC users can get by with the raw processing power of desktop CPUs and powerful GPUs. (NVIDIA is also trying to power some AI features with its RTX GPUs, which avoids the need for a separate NPU.)
Alongside these new desktop chips, AMD is also unveiling the X870E and X870 AM5 chipsets. They include the next-gen PC features you’d expect, including PCIe 5, USB4, WiFi 7 and DDR5. For its older AM4 hardware, AMD also revealed the 16-core Ryzen 9 5900XT and the eight-core Ryzen 7 5800XT, both of which can reach 4.8GHz.
We’re still waiting for pricing details on AMD’s new hardware, but the company says we can expect to see Ryzen AI 300 systems and Ryzen 9000 chips in July. These new laptops include the ASUS ZenBook S 16 and Zephyrus G16, as well as the MSI Stealth A16 AI+.