CES 2025: AMD Ryzen AI Max, Ryzen 9000HX CPUs Launched; Radeon RX9000 GPUs Teased

AMD has announced a slew of new Ryzen CPUs across its desktop, laptop and handheld product lines at CES 2025, introducing some new product tiers and expanding the options available in others. In addition, the company has confirmed that its next generation of GPUs will come to market with the Radeon RX9000 series name, although only a few details were teased. 

Starting with the all-new Ryzen AI Max 300 series, AMD is targeting demanding users who still want ultra-portable laptops with its Zen 5 CPU and RDNA 3.5 GPU architectures. These chips, codenamed “Strix Halo”, will also feature a next-gen XDNA integrated NPU. AMD claims up to 50 TOPs of AI processing power. There’s also a new memory architecture, with up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM supported in a unique new architecture that allows for up to 96GB of RAM to be dedicated to the GPU while the rest remains shared. AMD says this can dramatically speed up heavy workloads including AI processing. 

The top-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 features 16 cores with multi-threading, a 5.1GHz peak CPU clock speed, and 40 GPU cores. The TDP rating is 45-120W. Asus and HP are among the OEMs bringing portable workstations and gaming machines based on these CPUs to market this year. 

Also see: Interview: AMD's Plans for Ryzen AI, CoPilot+, and Boosting its Brand

The lower-end Ryzen AI 300 “Kraken Point” family gets some new lower-cost members, potentially bringing mobile AI acceleration and Windows Copilot+ functionality to more affordable price points. There will also be Pro versions of these CPUs for corporate customers who want additional security and remote manageability features. New Ryzen 200 “Hawk Point Refresh” models based on the previous-gen Zen 4 architecture have also been launched to address the entry-level market.

For mobile gamers, the new Ryzen 9000HX series codenamed “Fire Range” promises desktop-class performance when paired with a discrete GPU. This series features two models with AMD’s integrated 3D V-cache which can significantly boost gaming performance, now stacked below the CPU cores to improve thermal performance. The flagship Ryzen 9 9955HX3D has 16 Zen 5 cores, 144MB of total cache memory, and a peak boost speed of 5.4GHz. The TDP is 54W though battery life is not a priority for this laptop segment. Laptops with these chips should go on sale in H1 2025.

AMD has also finally updated 2023’s Ryzen Z1 which kicked off a new handheld gaming console PC segment. The new Ryzen Z2 series promises better performance and battery life. There are new octa-core Ryzen Z2 Extreme and Ryzen Z2 models, and the company has introduced a Z2 Go SKU with four cores for lower-cost handhelds. Details are still scarce, but manufacturers should show off their handhelds at CES or soon after, with availability set for Q1 2025.

Finally, desktop gamers get new 16-core, 170W Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 12-core, 120W Ryzen 9 9900X3D options with 3D V-cache, which AMD is calling the world’s best CPUs for gamers and creators. Retail pricing has not been announced, but they should go on sale in March this year. 

As for graphics, the upcoming Radeon RX 9000 series will be based on AMD’s RDNA4 graphics architecture. No specifications or prices have been announced, but we do now know the names of two modes: Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070. These will target mainstream gamers, with AMD not chasing the absolute performance crown which Nvidia has held for several years now.