AMD Confirms Ryzen AI MAX 300 Series: Next-Gen APUs with Powerful AI Capabilities

AMD Confirms Ryzen AI Max 300 "Strix Halo" APUs In Latest Chipset Driver: Up To 16 CPU & 40 GPU Cores

AMD Strix Halo is mentioned as "Ryzen AI MAX 300" in the latest chipset driver release notes on ASUS's official website. AMD chipset driver v6.10.02.1849 confirms the "Ryzen AI MAX 300" naming convention for next-gen Strix Halo "Premium" APUs Turns out that the "Ryzen AI Max 300" naming convention is real. We had a few reports previously that claimed that the upcoming high-performance Strix Halo APUs from AMD will bring a naming convention similar to Strix Point chips. The recent leak comes from ASUS's official website through the leaker @9550pro(HXL), which found out that the latest AMD chipset driver v6.10.02.1849 supports the upcoming Ryzen AI MAX 300 chips or Strix Halo. The series is mentioned in the release notes along with other CPU series. AMD Ryzen AI Max 300 or Strix Halo will be the most powerful APU series to date, featuring up to 16 Zen 5 cores and 40 Compute Units for its RDNA 3.5-based integrated graphics. Currently, the maximum number of Compute Units we have is 16 on the Strix Point APUs, which feature up to Radeon 890M graphics. The Strix Point APUs aka Ryzen AI 300 processors are quite sufficient for playing most games at 1080p but the Ryzen AI Max 300 will upgrade the gaming performance drastically. Apart from the gaming systems, the chips are reportedly also designed for workstations as we previously found on Geekbench. As these chips boast powerful integrated graphics, the workstation or the gaming systems won't necessarily require a dedicated GPU, especially if the horsepower needed is equivalent to budget graphics cards such as GTX 1660 or similar. As per the leaked reports, there are three SKUs in the lineup, featuring 8 cores to 16 core configurations and GPUs with 32-40 CUs. AMD Ryzen AI MAX 300 "Strix Halo" APU Lineup: The AMD Ryzen AI Max 300 "Strix Halo" APUs will feature support on the FP11 socket with a total of 2077 pins arrange in a BGA array. AMD Ryzen AI HX Strix Halo Expected Features and Specs: Thankfully, the Strix Halo APUs will have their integrated graphics supported on ROCm as well. This will equip developers with powerful tools not seen before on platforms bringing just integrated graphics. The AMD Ryzen AI 300 Max chips are expected to be revealed at CES 2025 along with some Ryzen 9000X3D CPUs. Apart from Ryzen AI 300 Max, there are a couple of more affordable Zen 5-based chips such as Krackan Point and Z2 Extreme, which AMD is planning to release in early 2025 for gaming handhelds to ensure better performance and improved battery life.

AMD Ryzen AI 300 MAX series APU support spotted in latest chipset driver from Asus

It seems that AMD's newest chipset drivers are now available, and courtesy of hardware leaker HXL, the release notes mention support for the "Ryzen AI 300 MAX" line-up. This finding was sourced from ASUS, who has the latest drivers available to download for its X670E series of motherboards. The gist is that AMD has seemingly confirmed the existence of the Ryzen AI 300 MAX series, whose rumored codename is Strix Halo. The source of the confirmation comes via a chipset driver download from Asus, and is located in the Chipset folder on page 3 of ReleaseNotes_6.10.02.1849.rtf. Strix Halo is AMD's yet-to-launch flagship mainstream APU offering. The top configuration allegedly packs 16 Zen 5 cores at 5.8GHz and a 40 CU-equipped iGPU based on RDNA 3.5. This beast is designed for workstations and premium top-of-the-line laptops and is expected to consume nearly 130W of power. A previous leak gave us some insight regarding the internals of this chip, based on which Strix Halo contains three chiplets; two CCDs and one large SoC die. The SoC die packs a massive 40 CU iGPU clocked at 3 GHz, eclipsing the RX 7600 XT, 32MB of MALL (Memory Access at Last Level) cache which we assume will work similarly to Infinity Cache and may also be usable by the CPU cores as a possible L4 cache. Surrounding the package, we have eight LPPDR5X-8533 memory modules possibly indicating a 256-bit memory interface in the SoC die. On the I/O and expansion side, Strix Halo is rumored to have four PCIe 5.0 and eight PCIe 4.0 lanes alongside two USB 4.0 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports each. To satisfy Microsoft's AI PC requirements, AMD will leverage its XDNA2 architecture for Strix Halo's NPU. Given the larger die size, the NPU TOPS might be slightly higher than what Strix can currently push. Strix Halo is an ambitious project by AMD and may render many discrete mobile GPUs obsolete. AMD has already made strides in the iGPU segment with its Radeon 600/700/800M offerings. The looming question is pricing since Strix Halo will not only be more expensive to make, but we must also factor in the cost of packaging. In any case, we expect AMD to unveil the Ryzen AI 300 MAX series at CES 2025.

AMD Kinda Confirms Ryzen AI MAX 300 as Official Name for Strix Halo Processors in New Chipset Drivers

It seems AMD has officially named the Ryzen AI MAX 300 as part of its upcoming Strix Halo processor lineup, as detailed in the latest chipset driver updates released by ASUS for X670E motherboards. The driver patch notes reference the Ryzen AI MAX 300, a designation that has been associated with the Strix Halo series since late September. This confirmation establishes the branding strategy AMD will employ for this new series of processors, which are anticipated to deliver significant performance improvements. The Strix Halo processors are designed as Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), integrating multiple Zen 5-based CPU chiplets with a robust RDNA 3.5 GPU architecture. These processors support configurations with up to 128GB of RAM, targeting high-performance computing needs, particularly within the laptop market. Unlike AMD's current lineup of laptop processors, the Ryzen AI MAX 300 series introduces new branding, indicating a distinct tier within AMD's product offerings. The combination of advanced CPU and GPU components in these APUs aims to provide enhanced computational and graphical performance, addressing the demands of modern computing tasks effectively. Additional information about the Ryzen AI MAX 300 series remains limited, with most details emerging from industry insiders and reputable leakers. A notable source, the Weibo user Golden Pig Upgrade Pack, initially introduced the Ryzen AI MAX name and suggested that the series will include three models: the Ryzen AI MAX 395 featuring 16 CPU cores and a GPU with 40 compute units, the Ryzen AI MAX 390 with 12 cores and 40 compute units, and the Ryzen AI MAX 385 equipped with 8 cores and 32 compute units. These specifications indicate a scalable approach to meet various performance requirements across different devices. AMD is expected to formally announce these processors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early 2025, where further technical specifications and performance benchmarks are likely to be disclosed. Source: HXL