AMD just toppled Snapdragon X NPU dominance with its Ryzen AI 300 chips ready for Copilot+

What you need to know

• AMD unveiled new Ryzen AI 300 mobile processors for laptops at Computex 2024.

• The new chips are built on AMD's new "Zen 5" architecture and are compatible with Copilot+.

• The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Ryzen AI 9 365 each have an NPU with 50 TOPS performance for local AI acceleration.

• Acer, ASUS, HP, Lenovo, and MSI have stated that the new Ryzen AI chips are coming to AI laptops.

Computex 2024 is underway in Taipei, Taiwan, and AMD was one of the first to unveil a bunch of new hardware at its keynote address. Alongside the new Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 desktop processors (CPU), AMD took the wrapping off of its Ryzen AI 300 chips. These are the long-rumored "Strix Point" APUs complete with Zen 5 CPU cores, RDNA 3.5 graphics, and XDNA 2 Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for localized AI acceleration.

The big news here if you're following the emerging world of AI PCs is AMD's offering of 50 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) of power from the NPU, making it more than capable enough to handle the new Copilot+ AI features coming to Windows 11. That also makes it more powerful than the Hexagon NPU in Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus chips, which comes in at 45 TOPS.

For anyone interested in Copilot+ without Windows on ARM, this is our first official look at what AMD has cooked up.

Strix Point has arrived with a rebrand

AMD unveiled two new chips from its Ryzen AI 300 series, which has been rebranded to hopefully help avoid some confusion when shopping for a new laptop.

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is the more powerful chip, offering a total of 12 cores and 24 threads. The cores are split into four standard Zen 5 and eight Zen 5c, which are essentially smaller Zen cores that are more efficient at the cost of overall performance, freeing up space for the GPU and NPU. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has a base TDP of 28W, but the configurable TDP (cTDP) ranges from 15W to 54W.

The Ryzen AI 9 365 is a tier below the flagship HX 370 model, offering 10 cores (four Zen 5 and six Zen 5c), 20 threads, and a boost clock up to 5.0GHz. It has the same 28W base TDP and wide configurable TDP range.

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has the new RDNA 3.5 Radeon 890M integrated GPU with 16 Compute Units (CU), while the Ryzen AI 9 365 has a Raden 880M with 12 CUs. AMD claims up to an average of 36% better gaming performance compared to Intel's integrated Arc graphics in its Core Ultra 185H CPU. That, of course, is comparing the top-tier Radeon 890M GPU. The Ryzen AI 9 365's integrated GPU with fewer CUs will come in with lower performance.

AMD Ryzen AI 300 chips have the fastest NPU so far

What I'm most excited about is the Ryzen AI NPU that AMD says can hit up to 50 TOPS. May 20, 2024, was a huge day in the world of Windows laptops thanks to Qualcomm, Microsoft, and major laptop brands teaming up to deliver a long list of new Copilot+ PCs.

Windows Central Editor-in-Chief Daniel Rubino called the combination of ARM64 and AI a "Great Reset" for Windows PCs, and we can't wait to get our hands on new laptops with Snapdragon X chips to test their power and efficiency.

A big part of Qualcomm's magic is its NPU with 45 TOPS of power for local AI acceleration. Until today this was the most powerful NPU available in a laptop chip, and it was the only entry into the world of Copilot+. AMD has now pulled ahead in the TOPS race, and it has opened up new laptop options for those who don't want a system running Windows on ARM.

Copilot+ requires an AI PC with Windows 11 and an NPU with at least 40 TOPS of power. That leaves, at this time, Qualcomm and AMD as your only announced options. It's said that Intel's next-gen "Lunar Lake" mobile chips will have an NPU with 45 TOPS, but that still leaves AMD in the lead.

Copilot+ features include Windows Recall, Live Caption, Windows Studio Effects improvements, Co-Creator local image and text creation, and more.

How much of a difference the extra 5 TOPS will make in local AI work remains to be seen, and AMD isn't talking much about efficiency compared to Qualcomm's ARM64 chips. AMD did, however, show off some graphs comparing the Snapdragon X Elite (no mention of SKU used to compare) and the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 in a number of benchmarks.

Part of AMD's Ryzen AI 300 announcement includes quotes from major laptop brands like Acer, ASUS, HP, Lenovo, and MSI. We know that Acer's Swift series will see the new Ryzen AI 300 chips, as will a wide range of ASUS laptops from the ROG Zephyrus, ProArt, Vivobook, Zenbook, and TUF Gaming brands.

Furthermore, HP says an OmniBook AI PC is getting Ryzen AI 300. Lenovo also plans on adding Ryzen AI 300 chips to its Yoga, ThinkPad, and ThinkBook stables. Finally, MSI says its Stealth, Summit, Prestige, and Creator laptops will get the chips later this year.