At Computex 2024, AMD unveiled its next generation of Ryzen laptop processors, the Ryzen AI 300 Series, designed for generative AI workloads. This new series is a re-branding of AMD’s high-end Ryzen 9 chips and retains the HX suffix, which no longer indicates power consumption but rather denotes the “top of stack” or best-performing Ryzen AI 300 chip.
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The Ryzen AI chips are built on AMD’s latest architectures: XDNA2 for the Neural Processing Unit (NPU), RDNA 3.5 for the integrated GPU (iGPU), and Zen 5 for the CPU. The series includes two initial models: the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the Ryzen AI 9 365. Both processors feature a 50 TOPS NPU, with the HX 370 being the higher-end model.
The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 boasts a 12-core/24-thread configuration, a maximum clock speed of 5.1GHz, 36MB of cache, and Radeon 890M graphics. The Ryzen AI 9 365, on the other hand, comes with a 10-core/20-thread setup, a maximum clock speed of 5.0GHz, 34MB of cache, and Radeon 880M graphics.
The Ryzen AI 300 series stands out with the highest TOPS among current NPU-configured chips. For comparison, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series offers 45 TOPS, Apple’s M4 has 38, and AMD’s previous Ryzen 8040 series featured only 16. Intel’s Meteor Lake Ultra 7 165H provides approximately 10 TOPS, though its upcoming Lunar Lake is expected to compete more closely.
AMD highlights that its XDNA2 NPU delivers five times more compute capacity and twice the power efficiency compared to the previous generation, thanks to its unique FP16 “block” architecture. This allows the NPU to handle both 8-bit performance (INT8) and 16-bit accuracy (FP16) generative AI workloads without quantization, a method that often reduces AI model accuracy. By avoiding quantization, AMD’s new chips promise fast and accurate AI processing.
Starting in July 2024, the Ryzen AI 300 series will be featured in several high-profile laptops, including the Asus Vivobook S 15 and HP OmniBook, as announced at Microsoft’s recent Surface event. Other compatible models include MSI’s Stealth A16, Summit A16, Prestige A16, and Creator A16; Asus’ Zenbook S 16, Vivobook S 14 and 16, and ProArt P16/X13; the Rog Zephyrus G16 and Tuf A14/A16 gaming laptops; and a range of Lenovo ThinkBooks, ThinkPads, and Yogas.
