AMD Strix Halo is an upcoming laptop CPU architecture that leaks suggest will house by far the most powerful integrated GPU ever produced for PCs. So powerful is it that it outdoes the PS5 for graphics grunt. Rumored to be launching under the name AMD Ryzen AI Max, here’s everything we know so far about AMD Strix Halo.
With the expected sort of performance that should see laptops powered by these chips leap straight onto our best gaming laptop guide, AMD‘s latest chip contains both a CPU and GPU portion – often known as an APU – with the GPU-portion being the really exciting part. Rumors suggest it could be more powerful than an AMD Radeon RX 7600 desktop graphics card, which would be unheard of for a single chip.
Expected AMD Strix Halo specs
According to the latest leak, these are the AMD Strix Halo specifications, although these are all based on rumor and speculation, and AMD hasn’t officially confirmed any of these details.
| Ryzen AI Max+ 395 | Ryzen AI Max 390 | Ryzen AI Max 385 | |
| CPU cores | 16 | 12 | 8 |
| CPU architecture | AMD Zen 5 | AMD Zen 5 | AMD Zen 5 |
| GPU compute units | 40 | 40 | 32 |
| GPU stream processors | 2,560 | 2,560 | 2,048 |
| GPU architecture | AMD RDNA 3.5 | AMD RDNA 3.5 | AMD RDNA 3.5 |
| Codename | Strix Halo | Strix Halo | Strix Halo |
Current expectations are that there will be three variants of AMD Strix Halo, with the flagship part coming to market as the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 and including 16 CPU cores with a 40 compute unit GPU. The number of CPU cores is, frankly, excessive for most gaming laptop scenarios but the GPU is notably powerful with its 2,560 stream processors actually being more than the AMD Radeon RX 7600.
A second-tier model is set to be called the Ryzen AI Max 390, and it could be the Goldilocks of the trio thanks to it still including a 40 compute unit GPU but cutting back its CPU to 12 cores. That should make for cheaper laptops based on this unit but with very similar graphics power, and thus gaming performance, to the flagship model.
Finally, there’s the Ryzen AI Max 385, which cuts back the GPU slightly, but still only to be the same size in terms of compute units as the AMD Radeon RX 7600. The CPU is also lower in spec but eight cores is still more than enough for most gaming situations.
Not that these are finalised specs. These are still based on the latest AMD Strix Halo specs rumors. However, adding to those rumors is that the reported size of the the GPU in Strix Halo is huge.
A leak from from X (formerly Twitter) leaker @7931doomer111, purportedly shows the layout and size of the new chip, including the specific die sizes of the CPU and GPU portions of the design. The whole chip (the silicon dies and the substrate on which they’re mounted) measures 37.5 x 45mm, which is around the same size (footprint) as a desktop Intel LGA 1700 processor – that’s large for a laptop CPU.
Meanwhile, contained on the substrate are three separate silicon chips that consist of two CPU dies and one GPU die. Immediately, this is in contrast to the company’s latest laptop CPUs that use the Strix Point architecture and are available as the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series of processors. Those chips use a monolithic design, where the CPU and GPU are all contained in a single silicon chip.
The two CPU dies are known as CCDs (core chiplet dies) and each contains eight of the company’s Zen 5 CPU cores – thus the maximum 16-core configuration. These CCDs apparently have a relatively modest size of 7.327 x 9.055mm or 66.3mm2 but the GPU is something else entirely.
The Strix Halo GPU purportedly measures a massive 16.02 x 19.18mm or 307mm2, which is larger than the 294mm2 of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070‘s AD104 GPU. That’s not to say this GPU will be more powerful than a desktop RTX 4070, as the power limitations of a laptop GPU are different and AMD and Nvidia’s architectures differ considerably, but we’d hope for them to be in the same ballpark.
Speaking of power, there is also leaked thermal design data for these chips, with three configurations listed at 55W, 85W, and 120W. As a comparison, the Alienware M16 R2 laptop we just reviewed contains a laptop RTX 4070 and Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU (with a 6+8 core configuration), and it’s rated to a 175W thermal design power (TDP).
As such, AMD’s thermal design ratings hint at this chip either being more efficient than Intel’s design, or not as powerful. There may also be higher-power options that simply haven’t had their details leaked yet .
Also notable about this leaked TDP data is the fact that the ratings above are for the APU onlym whereas the full system TDP including memory rises as high as 133W, with the leak showing that 32GB of memory adds between 5W and 9Wm while 128GB adds between 10W and 13W. The leaked information also clearly states that these numbers are early test numbers, not final product numbers, so they shouldn’t be taken as exact. That of course goes for the entirety of this leak too, as none of this has been confirmed by AMD.
If you were wondering whether the power of Strix Halo could be used for a Steam Deck type of device, the above TDP ratings suggest it would be a stretch. The Steam Deck TDP is just 15W, while the Asus ROG Ally X and similar devices only rise to 30W, so with Strix Halo listed here with a minimum 55W TDP, it seems unlikely it would find a place in such small handhelds.
The final key aspect of this latest leak is a table that shows a TDP comparison between a test system using a Strix Halo chip, and one using an Intel CPU with a GPU labeled NV GN21-X6, which refers to an RTX 4070. The table doesn’t really tell us too much directly, other than AMD – or whoever this test data comes from – saw fit to compare Strix Halo to a setup of this power level. Notably, though, the RTX 4070 is only set to an 80W TDP, which is below its normal 115W maximum TDP.
AMD Strix Halo performance rumors
AMD Strix Halo performance data is still thin on the ground but one leak has shown how an engineering sample the chip performs in Geekbench. This AMD Strix Halo performance leak shows an 8-core chip – so we can retrospectively assume it’s the Ryzen AI Max 385 – having been run on Geekbench 5. The chips is romping along at a respectable 5.36GHz and produces a max single-core CPU score of 2177 followed by a max multi-core score of 13993 (each max obtained on different runs).
These scores are actually quite low, with them both being notably lower than the Ryzen AI 9 HX 365. However, because this is an engineering sample running on Lunix, performance of the final chips could be vastly different.
This leak also only gives us a hint at CPU speed, with GPU benchmark leaks not yet appearing.
AMD Strix Halo price estimate
The AMD Strix Halo price won’t be something that’s directly going to affect gamers, as you won’t be able to buy the chips directly. Instead, the price of the chips will be wrapped up in the total cost of a new gaming laptop or small form factor PC. However, there are reports that suggest the chips will be expensive, with them costing double that of AMD’s Strix Point laptop chips.
This is somewhat alarming but ultimately isn’t surprising as the huge GPUs on these chips mean you’re essentially getting a CPU and a separate laptop graphics card in one. As such, we would expect gaming laptops based on Strix Halo to be priced at roughly similar levels to powerful gaming laptops with separate graphics cards.
AMD Strix Halo release date estimate
The AMD Strix Halo release date hasn’t yet been confirmed but our expectation is that it will be unveiled at CES 2025 in January 2025. That would mean laptops based on the new chip will then become available throughout the first half of next year.
For more on AMD’s latest laptop wonders, check out all the details on its new Zen 5-powered Strix Point laptops that have just launched.