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AMD is positioning this "Strix Halo" chip as a sort of hybrid for graphics and AI workstations, comparing it to Nvidia's existing GeForce 4090 GPU in terms of running AI LLMs at up to 70 billion parameters. But the Ryzen AI Max offers more than just that.
It's an APU with graphics capabilities that push into discrete GPU territory — in the 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark, for example, the chip offers 258 percent the graphics performance of Intel's Core Ultra 9 288V (Arrow Lake) CPU. It also offers excellent AI performance, both with or without the NPU.
The subtext behind this announcement hearkens back to our report early last year that the NPU doesn't matter for AI capabilities as much as AMD, Intel, or Qualcomm originally hyped.
The NPU is the most efficient AI core on modern CPUs. But for raw horsepower, the GPU, especially a discrete GPU, far outperforms either the NPU or the GPU by its lonesome. What the AI Max appears to do is combine some of the NPU and GPU's best features, alongside an already powerful AMD Zen 5 CPU.
AMD will offer the Ryzen AI Max in both consumer and "Pro" versions, which the company will sell to businesses. At CES, AMD is touting three design wins, including the HP ZBook Ultra G1a and Z2 Mini G1a mini workstations, plus the Asus ROG Flow Z13 tablet.
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 The power button on the latest Mac mini is located on the bottom of the computer. If that bothers you, an upcoming accessory offers a solution.
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