Supercharging AI: AMD's Ryzen AI 300 Series Unleashes Next-Gen Power in Copilot+ AI PCs

AMD has made a massive jump into the future of AI-powered personal computing with its Ryzen AI 300 series mobile processors, codenamed ‘Strix Point’. The new series spans from the mighty 8256-core Ryzen AI 380 processor at the top end of the spectrum, the 14442-core Ryzen AI 360, all the way down to the Ryzen AI 340 and 320 models with modest 1000- and 640-core counts respectively. These mobile processors are based on AMD’s newest ‘Zen 5’ microarchitecture, the XDNA 2 architecture for its Neural Processing Unit (NPU), and the RDNA 3+ graphics architecture. They come with a blend of cutting-edge technologies that set new performance records and will greatly enhance the capabilities of next-gen Copilot+ AI PCs.

The Zen 5 Microarchitecture: A Performance BOOST Like No Other

This is all possible thanks to the ‘Zen 5’ microarchitecture at the heart of Ryzen AI 300 series processors, which brings a 16 per cent IPC (instructions per cycle) generational uplift over ‘Zen 4’ (although the ‘Zen 6’ due in 2025 is expected to take things up another notch with a potentially whopping 25 per cent). Inspiration for parallelism is also part of the picture, with wider execution pipelines, more intra core bandwidth and a completely redesigned Floating Point Unit (FPU), which doubles the performance of AI and AVX-512 workloads. ‘Zen 5’ does more, with less power, and does it faster and more accurately. Sounds like what we need to create the computing experiences of the future.

BOOSTING Core Counts for Maximum Performance

AMD doubled core counts in the Ryzen AI 300 series, with up to 12-cores/24-threads. This means that you can run more processes at the same time, and with less of a hair-pulling experience when running demanding applications and games. The ‘Strix Point’ processors use a combination of the ‘Zen 5’ and ‘Zen 5c’ cores for more efficient performance without sacrificing the top boost frequencies achievable by the ‘Zen 5’ cores. Essentially, you get peak performance when you need it, and efficiency the rest of the time.

A BOOST in iGPU Gaming Performance

This integrated Graphics Processing Unit (iGPU) gains a 33 per cent increase in compute unit (CU) count from the previous generation and it delivers a gaming experience that’s tough to beat. In fact, for gamers, Ryzen AI 300 series surely has the most robust integrated performance of any other Ryzen processor lineup.

XDNA 2 NPU: Tripling AI Inference Performance

The XDNA 2 NPU architecture of the Ryzen AI 300 series processors delivers more than 3X AI inference performance over its predecessors to reach up to 50 AI TOPS, enabling the Ryzen AI 300 series to surpass the high bar of Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI PC specifications.

Is The Competition Keeping Up?

While the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series is leaping forward, an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H 'Meteor Lake' comparison shows the advantage in both productivity and iGPU gaming. The Ryzen AI 300 Series manufacturing will effectively set a new performance standard for the competition to cope with. And with an improved power efficiency and AI capabilities, the Ryzen AI portfolio shows that AMD will still push itself to the limits of what technology can offer.

Revolutionizing the Future of Computing

Standing at the threshold of a new era of self-contained personal computing, powered by the synergy of accelerated innovation in artificial intelligence and machine learning, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series processors are leading the charge. With unprecedented performance, efficiency and artificial intelligence (AI) enhancements, each of the Ryzen AI 300 series processors enhances the computing experience and, indeed, how we use and interact with computers. Whether it’s gaming or enterprise productivity, the Ryzen AI 300 series processors are set to change the game and set a new standard.

Understanding "BOOST" in Computing

Today we’ll wrap up our three-part series with a computing term that’s been around for decades but whose precise context is often misunderstood: boost. Generally speaking, boost refers to the temporary increase a processor’s clock speed above the base operating frequency to sustain demand for more performance during challenging tasks. Essentially, boost is a short-lived increase in the speed at which a computer operates to respond to the needs of the user, or the power of the workload at hand. This is particularly important for processing-intensive tasks like gaming, as well as hardcore professional workloads and even relentless, real-world multitasking. For each successive generation of processors, it’s increasingly common to see ‘boost’ capabilities honed and enhanced, so that system users have access the latest high-performance capabilities, whenever they need it the most.