AMD's Ryzen AI Max chips came as a huge surprise at CES 2025. They're basically super-powered versions of the company's Ryzen AI hardware with up to 16 CPU cores and 50 RDNA 3.5 graphics cores, alongside a pool of as much as 128GB integrated RAM.

AMD promised eventual “mobile gaming dominance” back in 2022, and it feels like we’re getting closer every day. Today, the company is announcing not one, not two, but three different families of chips designed to take it there, including final confirmation of the long-rumored “Strix Halo” and “Fire Range” laptop chips.

AMD announced its Ryzen AI Max processors at CES, ushering in a new series of AMD -based AI PCs and laptops. The chipmaker also unveiled low- and midrange CPUs with AI capabilities, ensuring that buyers with different budgets have a chance to snag an AI PC. All of these chips are set to become available over the course of 2025.

AMD is targeting both low-end and high-end AI PCs at CES 2025. The company unveiled a new family of Ryzen AI Max chips meant for "halo" Copilot+ AI PCs, which will sit above existing Ryzen AI 9 systems.

AMD is pushing into more mainstream computing with the launch of new Ryzen AI 300 chips and a new Ryzen 200 CPU family.

What this enables is some truly monstrous improvements over Intel’s Core Ultra 9 288V. For example, for creative workloads, the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 has an average 2.6x faster rendering time in the likes of Blender and Cinebench. As for games, you’re seeing an average 1.4x faster GPU performance in 3DMark tests.

AMD's latest Ryzen AI Max chips probably wouldn't have existed without Apple, an AMD executive has admitted, thanks to the popularity of Apple Silicon.

Not only has Apple left its CPUs in the dust, but AMD’s new Ryzan AI Max chips claim to do the same to Intel’s flagship Core Ultra 9 288V. The new chips take the same approach as Apple Silicon in combining CPU,