AMD's Ryzen AI platform may have launched just this summer, but the highest-tier variant is still a mystery.
AMD's upcoming flagship silicon, referred to by the codename "Strix Halo" has been kept well under wraps, but the chip resurfaced this week thanks to a new graphics benchmark leak. VideoCardz spotted a new Geekbench Vulkan graphics benchmark for the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 with Radeon 8060S, confirming the official retail name for the "Strix Halo" platform.
Based on the latest leaks and previous rumors around the chip, we now know what to expect from the AMD APU, and can make some guesses about potential platforms, or even when we might see an official announcement. So let's get into it.
Strix Halo benchmarks
AMD considers "Strix Halo" or the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ chip to be an APU (accelerated processing unit). Essentially these chips combine a CPU and GPU into a single unit and function as a middle ground between GPUs integrated into the CPU and discrete GPUs.
The leaked "Strix Halo" Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 does have a Radeon 8060S GPU, but because this is an APU chipset, the graphics performance won't be comparable to a desktop 7600. So while the Geekbench Vulkan score of 67,004 for the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 is pretty far behind the Radeon RX 7600's Geekbench Vulkan score of 90,570, it isn't a surprise.
Previous leaks for the Strix Halo APU indicated the chip would have graphics performance that competes with the Nvidia RTX 4060. The 4060 Laptop GPU has a Geekbench Vulkan score of 87,178 which is a far sight higher than the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395. However, some of that could be optimization differences between the chips. We only have one Geekbench result for "Strix Halo" compared to years of benchmark optimization on the RTX 4060. Additionally, the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip that ran the Vulkan benchmark is part of AMD's Pro line of professional workstation chips so may not be as optimized for a Vulkan graphics benchmark compared to a gaming-class GPU. Additionally, this is an early benchmark so final scores once the Strix Halo APU officially launches may be higher.
Strix Halo appeared on the Geekbench 5 archives over the summer with a multicore average of 13,993. Of course, the Strix Halo APUs that hit Geekbench 5 were still in deep development, so those CPU benchmarks may not be accurate compared to the completed project. Additionally, it's worth noting that Geekbench 5 hasn't been updated since the launch of Geekbench 6 in February 2023, so Geekbench 5 may not be the best indication of performance for newer processors.
Strix Halo SKUs
The AMD "Strix Halo" lineup so far appears to include three different SKUs, each featuring AMD's latest Zen5 cores and RDNA 3.5 Compute Units.
The leak from VideoCardz includes a SKU breakdown for three variants of the Ryzen AI Max APU.
The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip that ran the Geekbench Vulkan test was part of the Ryzen Pro line of professional workstation chips, there may be consumer-level variants of Strix Halo once we get official confirmation from AMD.
Outlook
Those hoping to see "Strix Halo" on gaming platforms may be disappointed by the leaks. However, there's still hope that the Ryzen AI Max chip will come to gaming or general consumer platforms.
As for the Pro series APU, we can guess that AMD is working with OEMs on professional workstation platforms. So we may see more affordable thin and light Windows workstations powered by "Strix Halo" in the near future. Potentially targeting the MacBook Pro M4 series as competition.
Obviously, we're still in the pre-announcement phase for the Ryzen AI Max APU. While we do have confirmation that the chips are out and being tested on various benchmarks, with some indication of potential SKUs, it's unlikely we'll see anything official from AMD before CES 2025 in January. After all, another leak from AMD indicates the company has big plans for laptops in 2025.
