AMD Ryzen AI 9 7940HS APU Mini PC Impresses with 1080p Gaming Performance

AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 mini PC hits 60 FPS for 1080p gaming comfortably - no discrete GPU needed

There's already a mini PC packing a flagship (Strix Point) AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor kicking about, albeit a pre-release model, but it has been reviewed - and the results are impressive. VideoCardz reports that ETA Prime on YouTube grabbed the scoop here and put the compact prototype from SOUYO through its gaming paces, with the integrated RDNA 3.5 graphics (featuring a beefy 16 CUs) in the HX 370 carving out some nicely smooth frame rates. Okay, so the caveat here is that in 1080p resolution, the graphics are on low settings (or sometimes medium) - and FSR kicks up the frame rate, too - but still, you get a decent enough image quality, and a fluid 60 FPS across a range of games. For example, ETA Prime ran Cyberpunk 2077 at an average of 74 FPS (low, FSR balanced), Red Dead Redemption 2 reached 76 FPS (low, FSR balanced) and Starfield hit 78 FPS (low, 50% res scaling, with frame generation). These are quite demanding games running very nicely on a seriously compact PC box. In terms of other specs, this mini PC comes toting three M.2 slots inside (though the reviewer found that there was an issue with one of those slots, but doubtless that'll be fixed for release). Remember, this isn't the finished device - it's still a (review) sample, and we're expecting the likes of the SOUYO S to launch in October, with what'll likely be a few different takes on this kind of mini PC. It'll also be interesting to see what can be done with Windows 11 handhelds, too, powered by Strix Point. There is, of course, an even juicier prospect on the horizon from Team Red, namely the hotly anticipated Strix Halo. These will be the top-end APUs from AMD that should hopefully be revealed at CES 2025, according to the latest on the grapevine. Strix Halo is a huge step up from Strix Point and could be an immense CPU for mini PCs, with the only worry being that the memory bandwidth might hold back overall performance somewhat, even if the CPU is a monster. (And it really is, with the integrated RDNA 3.5 graphics in this case bristling with 40 CUs). Is the age of the discrete GPU over? Well, clearly not - but nonetheless, these kinds of mobile chips are going to be perfect for casual through to intermediate gaming needs, and maybe a bit more. Strix Halo has been equated to the RTX 4070 (mobile) performance-wise, in the past, after all.

AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU Tested In Mini PC Configuration, Radeon 890M iGPU Shines With Great 1080p Gaming Performance

The first Mini PC featuring AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU has been tested and its Radeon 890M iGPU shines in gaming benchmarks. It has been a few weeks since AMD launched its Zen 5-based Ryzen AI 300 APUs aka Strix-Point for gaming laptops and mobile platforms. Several notebook manufacturers have already announced new gaming laptops with the latest Strix APUs but we haven't seen a mini-PC being announced with one of these chips. Although the estimated date for these mini-PCs is early October, ETA Prime has showcased the first benchmarks for one of these Mini PCs before its official launch. ETA Prime has recently uploaded a video reviewing an early sample of the SOUYO S9 mini-PC based on the latest A<D Ryzen AI HX 370 APU with a clock speed of 2.0/5.1GHz(Base/Boost). The SOUYO S9 is a compact box, featuring the Zen 5 and Zen 5c architecture-based processor with 12 cores and 24 threads. The AMD Ryzen AI HX 370 has 4 Zen 5 and 8 Zen 5c cores and a Radeon 890M "RDNA 3" iGPU based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture overclockable up to 2900MHz. The RDNA 3.5 architecture brings 16 Compute Units for the Radeon 890M GPU, which makes it the current fastest iGPU in the market. This Mini PC will also be available with the standard Ryzen AI 9 365 configuration. Other specs include a non-upgradeable LPDDR5X memory and three slots for PCI-E 4.0 NVMe SSDs. The SOUYO S9 can have three different memory configurations: 16 GB, 32 GB, or 64 GB sizes, and can feature either 6400 MT/s or 7500 MT/s clock speed (the tested configuration features 7500 MT/s speeds). On the other hand, storage upgradeability is surprisingly good for a mini-PC as usually, most mini-PCs don't offer three M.2 slots. This early unit had problems with the middle M.2 slot and the front USB4 port was also not working but this is to be expected from early samples. ETA Prime benchmarked the mini-PC in several synthetic software as well as modern titles to test the capability of the mini-machine. Thankfully, the mini-PC didn't lack anywhere and had stable performance across all the apps and video games. The power numbers during gaming ranged between 50-70W. The performance was greatly improved over the last-gen Radeon 780M "RDNA 3" iGPU thanks to the new Radeon 890M "RDNA 3.5" graphics, which makes it a good fit for gaming without a discrete GPU. Here are the benchmark results of the synthetic apps and games: The performance is noticeably better than the Radeon 780M since the architecture is better as well as the Compute Units are increased from 12CU to 16CU. The Mini PC can play modern titles at 1080p with 60+ fps using low to medium-quality settings, which is a remarkable performance for a mini-PC since you can only expect this level of performance with something like a GTX 1650 or similar GPUs. The SOUYO S9 isn't yet officially available for purchase nor do we know its official price. Nonetheless, we can expect more such mini-PCs in October and possibly some handhelds based on the Ryzen AI 300 Strix Point CPUs pretty soon.