AMD’s Ryzen AI Max is a one-of-a-kind graphics and AI powerhouse [Video]

AMD has launched what one executive called “the most advanced mobile X86 processor ever created” at CES 2025: The Ryzen AI Max and AI Max+, with absolutely massive capabilities to run graphics and AI workloads.

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 …