AMD’s upcoming Ryzen AI Max series, codenamed ‘Strix Halo,’ is making waves in the tech world, and the latest buzz centers around its integration into HP’s new ZBook Ultra 14 mobile workstation. This powerful machine has been spotted sporting an AMD Ryzen AI Max 390 ‘Strix Halo’ APU in its engineering sample (ES) form, showcasing its impressive capabilities on Geekbench.
The AMD Ryzen AI Max 390 ‘Strix Halo’ APU boasts a formidable 12 cores and 24 threads of Zen 5 CPU power, coupled with a massive 40 Compute Units of RDNA 3.5 integrated GPU. This powerhouse is further enhanced with support for up to 96GB of RAM, surpassing the limitations of Intel’s upcoming Core Ultra 200V series ‘Lunar Lake’ processors, which are capped at a mere 32GB of on-package memory.
The Geekbench result page reveals an identifier for the CPU as “AuthenticAMD Family 26 Model 112 Stepping 0.” The HP ZBook Ultra 14-inch G1a Mobile Workstation PC achieved impressive AI benchmark scores with 4733 points in single precision, 4944 in half-precision, and 13944 in quantized tests. This benchmark data also indicates a base CPU frequency of 3.2GHz, which is significantly higher than the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 ‘Strix Point’ APU’s base clock of 2.0GHz.
While the Ryzen AI Max 390 ‘Strix Halo’ APU is a formidable force, it’s not the top of the line. AMD is reportedly working on a flagship 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen AI Max+ 395 ‘Strix Halo’ APU, boasting the same potent RDNA 3.5 GPU. This signifies a significant leap in performance, pushing the boundaries of mobile computing.
The AMD Ryzen AI Max ‘Strix Halo’ APU family is expected to include three SKUs: the Ryzen AI Max+ 395, Ryzen AI Max 390, and Ryzen AI Max 385, each with unique CPU and GPU configurations. All these APUs share the ability to support up to 96GB of DDR5 RAM, which is a game-changer for mobile workstations demanding high-performance applications and demanding workloads.
AMD’s strategy with the Ryzen AI Max ‘Strix Halo’ APUs seems to be about providing a much more flexible platform. While Intel’s Lunar Lake CPUs are impressive with their on-package memory, the 32GB hard limit falls short in today’s demanding mobile computing landscape. The ability to scale up to 96GB of RAM is a significant advantage, especially as software demands grow in the coming years. It seems like AMD is making a strong push into the mobile workstation market, and the future looks bright for the Ryzen AI Max ‘Strix Halo’ APUs.
