Latest news with #StrixHalo
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
AMD Ryzen AI Max Geekbench scores reveal a power drop in 300-series APUs
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Not all laptop chips are created equal, and that's as true of AMD's innovative Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" APU as any. AMD unveiled the Strix Halo APU in January as the Ryzen AI Max 300 series, debuting three consumer chipset variants and four variants made for workstation-class machines. While we normally expect a large performance gap in between, say, a Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 9. But, with a name like Ryzen AI Max, you may not be expecting such a performance gap between the three APUs in the AI Max series. An APU, or accelerated processing unit, is a chipset that combines the CPU and an integrated graphics tile. AMD coined the term back in 2011. AMD uses APU for all of its mobile chipsets, from the Ryzen AI Max to the Ryzen AI 300 series. So far, we've seen only systems powered by the 16-core Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip, including the Asus ROG Flow Z 13 gaming laptop. However, the Ryzen AI Max family offers more budget-friendly options, too, from the 12-core Ryzen AI Max 390 down to the 8-core Ryzen AI Max 385. Last week, we finally saw the 8-core Strix Halo chipset's performance. An HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a featuring this budget-friendly APU has been benchmarked on Geekbench 6, and the results were uploaded to the Geekbench archives. So, how does the 8-core Ryzen AI Max PRO 385 stack up against the 16-core 395? Let's take a look. According to results uploaded to Geekbench on May 27, the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a with an AMD Ryzen AI Max PRO 385 APU scored a Geekbench single-core score of 2,489 and a multicore score of 14,136. We expected these scores to be higher. However, a few factors may explain the larger-than-expected performance gap. First, there's the hardware matchup (8 cores vs. 16). The Ryzen AI Max PRO 385 also has a lower max frequency than the flagship, which could explain the dip in single-core performance. The difference in RAM between the HP ZBook Ultra configuration Laptop reviewed and the ZBook scores uploaded to Geekbench could also be behind the score differences, as RAM affects how Geekbench scores are calculated. Our take: It has long battery life, a sharp, bright display, solid speakers, and incredible performance and graphics. Specs: Windows 11 Pro, AMD Ryzen™ AI Max+ PRO 395 (up to 5.1 GHz max boost clock, 64 MB L3 cache, 16 cores, 32 threads), 64 GB memory; 2 TB SSD storage, 14" diagonal 2.8K touch display, AMD Radeon™ 8060S Deal Geekbench's HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a (Ryzen AI Max PRO 385) Laptop Mag's HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a (Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395) Laptop Mag's Asus ROG Flow Z13 (Ryzen AI Max+ 395) Geekbench 6 Single-core (Higher is better) 2,489 2,837 2,995 Geekbench 6 Multicore (Higher is better) 14,136 17,721 19,457 Chipset CPU cores CPU threads GPU cores Max GHz Cache NPU cTDP Ryzen AI Max+ 395 16 cores 32 threads 40 cores 5.1GHz 80MB 50 TOPS 45-120W Ryzen AI Max 390 12 cores 24 threads 32 cores 5.0GHz 76MB 50 TOPS 45-120W Ryzen AI Max 385 8 cores 16 threads 32 cores 5.0GHz 40MB 50 TOPS 45-120W Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 16 cores 32 threads 40 cores 5.1GHz 80 MB 50 TOPS 45-120W Ryzen AI Max PRO 390 12 cores 24 threads 32 cores 5.0GHz 76MB 50 TOPS 45-120W Ryzen AI Max PRO 385 8 cores 16 threads 32 cores 5.0GHz 40MB 50 TOPS 45-120W Ryzen AI Max PRO 380 6 cores 12 threads 16 cores 4.9GHz 22MB 50 TOPS 45-120W While the Ryzen AI Max 385 and its professional variant will still be interesting chipsets — as both still feature the larger Radeon 8060S integrated graphics tile — these early benchmarks clarify a few things. The Ryzen AI Max 300 series starts at 385 and tops out at 395. The Ryzen AI 300 Strix Point series starts with the Ryzen AI 9 365 and tops out with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375. The Ryzen AI 7 350 and Ryzen AI 5 340 are both technically on AMD's Krackan Point architecture. Based on AMD's naming convention, the Ryzen AI Max 300 is designed to sit directly atop the Ryzen AI 300 series. So, as the entry-level Ryzen AI Max chip, the 385's Geekbench scores are just above what we've seen from the top end of the Ryzen AI 300 series. We're not certain yet how expensive the Ryzen AI Max 385 will be compared to its slightly less powerful Ryzen AI 300 series counterparts, as only two Ryzen AI Max systems are on the market so far. The HP ZBook Ultra with the Ryzen AI Max 385 starts at $2,599. Meanwhile, the Asus ROG Flow Z13 doesn't have a Ryzen AI Max 385 variant but costs $2,099 for the slightly more powerful Ryzen AI Max 390 chipset. But based on those prices, you are paying quite a bit more for the Ryzen AI Max chipset and its more powerful Radeon 8060S iGPU. The real question is, is the Ryzen AI Max worth its high price tag? Right now, that's still up for debate. Why Apple's next macOS might signal a shift. Here's why A 1mm fan inside your laptop's hard drive? Here's how the micro xMEMS fan works Don't buy an Nvidia RTX 5060 laptop, wait for the RTX 5050
Forbes
6 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
HP ZBook Ultra And AMD Ryzen AI Max: A Mobile Workstation Turning Point
HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 With AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 Right Side View The mobile workstation space is currently undergoing a transformation. Performance is no longer just about brute force, it's about smart silicon, AI acceleration, and doing more in even slimmer, lighter designs. I've been test-driving HP's new ZBook Ultra G1a 14, a relatively thin-and-light 14-inch laptop that combines portability with workstation-grade capabilities and a rather forward-looking processor known as AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395, aka Strix Halo. It's the first ZBook to ship with AMD's latest Ryzen AI-infused silicon, and it's part of a broader ecosystem shift that's rethinking how professionals work on the go. This machine tries to cater to professionals that need responsiveness and raw horsepower, but also unique capabilities for content creation and AI workloads. With the ZBook Ultra, HP may have hit a new sweet spot between traditional power users and the emerging generation of AI-driven developers and creators. HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 With AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 Let's start with the form factor. The ZBook Ultra G1a weighs just 3.46 pounds and measures only about 18 mm thick. It's a far cry from the bulkier mobile workstations of just a few years ago, but don't let the svelte design fool you. This machine meets MIL-STD-810 durability standards, with a magnesium-aluminum chassis that's built to handle field work, studio life, or business travel with ease. The HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14's Keyboard Is Spacious With A Large Trackpad And Comfortable Key Travel The model I've been working with sports a 14-inch 3K OLED display (2880x1800 resolution) and it offers a productivity-friendly 16:10 aspect ratio, wide color gamut support, and anti-glare coating. This is also a 120Hz refresh rate panel for users who want smoother UI interactions, for motion graphics work or even gaming. It's a gorgeous panel and whether you're sketching designs, editing code, or reviewing renders, this panel delivers on accuracy, clarity and responsiveness. HP also offers an FHD 1920x1200 standard refresh rate panel option as well, and that display will undoubtedly offer the best battery life for the machine. Despite its thin build, HP squeezes in a full suite of ports for the machine as well, including two USB-C ports (USB4), two USB-A, HDMI 2.1, and a headphone jack—plus support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. The machine also has a nano security lock slot and TPM 2.0 support for IT-managed deployments. AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 Processor What makes this ZBook more than just a premium ultra-portable is what's powering it. The Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 processor (yes that's a mouthful) from AMD represents the company's most advanced laptop silicon to date. Built on its latest Zen 5 CPU architecture, this 8-core/16-thread chip pushes clocks up to 5.1 GHz, but its triple-engine config and unified memory architecture (as I've covered in the past) are what sets it apart. The CPU, GPU, and Neural Processing Unit each play a distinct role in workload acceleration, but the chip's integrated GPU has access to a very large, contiguous memory pool, up to 96GB in total in the configuration I'm testing currently. You can configure the machine's BIOS settings to carve out up to 96GB from main system memory, if you have that much installed in the ZBook Ultra. Obviously, for lower-end configs, you'll have less memory available for this. Regardless, as a result, large language models that otherwise would be relegated to the cloud can run locally on this machine, taking advantage of its copious memory footprint and GPU accelerator. Meanwhile, the processor's NPU delivers over 50 TOPS of AI throughput, enabling on-device acceleration for light duty gen AI models, image enhancement, video conference background removal and tracking, voice transcription, etc. All in, these are the kind of hardware resources that can reshape creative workflows, productivity, AI development and real-time collaboration. HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 Left Side Ports Include Full-Sized HDMI, Thunderbolt 4, USB Type-C 10Gbps And ... More A Headphone Jack HP's ZBook Ultra 14 ships with up to 128GB of LPDDR5x-8533MHz memory (soldered to the motherboard), and up to 4TB of PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD storage. The machine's boot time is very quick, app switching is fluid, and there's enough bandwidth to handle simultaneous VMs, creative suites, or data-heavy AI dev environments that need to support the latest LLMs. Paired with integrated AMD Radeon 8060S graphics, the ZBook Ultra offers excellent graphics performance for its weight class as well. With roughly the horsepower of discrete GeForce RTX 4060 Ti or 4070 class mobile GPU, it handles CAD, GPU-accelerated AI inference, 3D workloads and gaming with surprising headroom. In fact, this is currently the fastest integrated graphics solution on the market for laptops, and for many users that could be a game-changer in a machine that weighs in at just a shade over 3 pounds. We ran a battery of performance benchmarks on the ZBook Ultra, comparing it against Intel Lunar Lake, Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered systems and older AMD Ryzen mobile platforms. Here's how HP's Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395-powered ZBook Ultra 14 fared: HP ZBook Ultra G1a Speedometer 3 Benchmark Results HP ZBook Ultra G1a Cinebench 2024 Benchmark Results HP ZBook Ultra G1a MLPerf Client Benchmark Results HP ZBook Ultra G1a Ul Procyon AI Machine Vision Benchmark Results These scores reflect not just a leap in performance from previous HP ZBook laptops powered by AMD, but also a big competitive edge against Intel Core Ultra and Qualcomm Snapdragon systems with integrated GPUs. The AI inference benchmarks in particular show strong results, especially for a device that doesn't rely on a discrete GPU like the ROG Zephyrus G14 in the Procyon AI benchmark. In terms of content creation, the new HP ZBook Ultra 14's Ryzen AI Max+ processor is an absolute mobile beast when it comes to multithreaded workloads, with respectably strong single-threaded performance to boot. HP ZBook Ultra G1a F1 24 Gaming Benchmark Results In terms of gaming, if you like to kick back after a hard day's grind of coding or designing, the ZBook Ultra G1a can also deliver here too, with the most powerful integrated GPU on the market for Windows laptops currently, as evidenced in this F1 24 racing simulation benchmark test. LM Studio Running Meta's Llama 3 8b Large Language Model I was also able to take the machine for a spin with LMStudio, successfully loading up Meta's Llama 3 8b Instruct large language model for a quick, amusing tutorial on how to solve a Rubik's Cube. I was able to realize a time to first token of .18 seconds or so, with a total token throughput of around 27.34 tokens per second, which is pretty snappy. All of this was running locally on the HP ZBook Ultra G1a, without the need to tap the cloud for processing. Thermal performance is another high point for the new ZBook. HP's cooling solution keeps the system within reasonable skin temps even under sustained load. Fan noise stays reasonable, and we observed relatively tame (less than 15%) thermal throttling during repeated Cinebench runs. HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 Video Playback Battery Life Test Results Battery life isn't exactly a strong suit for a machine this powerful, especially with the 3K OLED panel option we tested, but in our local video loop battery rundown test, the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 chalked up about 6.25 hours of continuous uptime. This puts the machine more in the territory of thin and light gaming laptops, though if you want to reclaim some battery life, going with the 1200p IPS display option would offer better durability. HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 With AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 Processor The HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a doesn't just raise the bar for what's possible in a thin-and-light modern mobile workstation, it redefines it. Though it's not cheap--starting at $2599 and $4049 currently as tested with 128GB of LPDDR5x, a 2TB SSD, the OLED display and AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 under the hood--this machine delivers performance traditionally reserved for much bulkier machines with discrete graphics. It's also is a very capable AI workhorse, whether you take advantage of its integrated NPU or integrated GPU and its bodacious unified memory architecture. For engineers, designers, content creators, and developers who need powerful, efficient, and AI-aware computing on the go, the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 is more than up to the task. It's class-leading for its size and weight and it's a truly unique, breakout product among commercial mobile workstations.
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Yahoo
Framework's first desktop PC is optimized for gaming and local AI inference
Framework, the company that is better known for its modular, repairable laptops, just released its first desktop computer. It's a small desktop PC that punches above its weight. The most interesting part is what's inside the device. Framework is one of the first companies to use AMD's recently announced Strix Halo architecture, also known as the Ryzen AI Max processors. It's an all-in-one processing unit that promises some serious performance. In other words, Framework just designed a PC for two types of customers: people looking for an extremely small gaming PC, or people who want to run large language models on their own computers. From the outside, the Framework Desktop looks more like a toy than a serious computer. It is a small 4.5L computer built around a mini-ITX mainboard, which makes it smaller than a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series X. It has a customizable front panel with 21 interchangeable plastic square tiles. When you buy a Framework Desktop on the company's website, you can select tile colors and patterns to create your own front panel. In addition to the usual ports that you usually get with a mini-ITX mainboard, you'll find Framework's iconic expansion cards at the bottom of the device — two at the front, and two at the back. You can select between a wide range of modules, such as USB-C or USB-A ports, a headphone jack, an SD card reader, or even a storage expansion card. The internals are quite simple: There's the mainboard with AMD's accelerated processing unit, a fan, a heat sink, a power supply, and two M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slots for storage. AMD's Strix Halo APU is soldered to the mainboard. Framework offers two different configurations — the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 and the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395. The top configuration comes with 16 CPU cores, 40 graphics cores, and 80MB of cache, while the entry-level configuration comes with 8 CPU cores, 32 graphics cores, and 40MB of cache. But where's the RAM? That's certainly going to be the most divisive design choice since Framework offers 32GB to 128GB of soldered-in RAM. You won't be able to buy more RAM or upgrade it down the road. 'There is one place we did have to step away from PC norms, though, which is on memory. To enable the massive 256GB/s memory bandwidth that Ryzen AI Max delivers, the LPDDR5x is soldered,' Framework CEO Nirav Patel wrote on the company's blog. 'We spent months working with AMD to explore ways around this, but ultimately determined that it wasn't technically feasible to land modular memory at high throughput with the 256-bit memory bus,' he added. Nevertheless, having as much as 128GB of unified memory unlocks many possibilities when it comes to large language models. Llama 3.3 70B can run without any hiccup using Ollama, and other open source tools for local AI workloads. Other open-weight models from Mistral, Nous, Hermes, or DeepSeek should also run fine. Framework also sells the mainboard without a case. For instance, the company has built a mini-rack with four Framework Desktop mainboards running in parallel for AI testing. The base model of the Framework Desktop starts at $1,099, while the top-end version costs $1,999. Like other Framework computers, the company promises support for Windows as well as popular Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, or its gaming-focused cousin Bazzite. Preorders are open now, but shipments will only start in early Q3 2025.
