AMD's Strix Halo APU model list has leaked, including preliminary specs.

AMD appears to have gone for a full-on generic tech-word salad with its upcoming Strix Halo APU. We present the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, not a joint venture with Apple, but the top chip of a range unprecedentedly powerful APUs designed for laptops, and hopefully desktops too.

According to a Weibo posting by the Golden Pig Upgrade Pack, we can expect three models at first of AMD's high-performance APU. The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, which is the model mentioned above, has 16 Zen 5 cores with 40 RDNA 3.5 GPU compute units.

The Ryzen AI max 390 is next, sporting 12 cores with 40 compute units. The Ryzen AI max 385 follows with eight cores with 32 compute units. There's no word yet on the clockspeeds or pricing. These chips are not expected to be available until 2025.

Strix Halo is believed to be a departure for AMD APUs, as it will take a chiplet-based approach rather than being a monolithic silicon slice.

Strix Halo rumours from the past suggest that it will consist of a large chiplet or SoC tiles containing graphics hardware plus I/O and memory controller, as well as an AI-accelerating NPU. AMD will add one or two CPU cores chiplets to the main SoC tile. Some sources claim that these will be the same Zen CPU chiplets found in the new desktop Ryzen 9000 processors.

Strix Halo also has a 256-bit memory interface and a memory bandwidth of 500GB/s, which is shared by the CPU and graphics. This is as important as the GPU in many ways. Previous AMD APUs had busses that were limited to 128 bits, which put a limit on bandwidth.

AMD's new monolithic AMD APU for laptops (codenamed Strix Point, and branded Ryzen AI without the "Max") has up to 16 graphics computing units. Strix Halo, then, is on an entirely different level. The biggest question is, arguably, the power footprint of the new uber APU and, therefore, what type of devices will it be used in.

Laptops with gaming capabilities seem to be a logical choice. Will it be efficient enough to fit into thinner and lighter laptops, though? What about handhelds? The specs of the CPU and graphics certainly look like they could be used in a handheld. But do they consume too much power?

Could we also hope for the desktop version? Strix Halo in an NUC-like small box would be a great thing, wouldn't you say? Strix Halo won't be available until 2025, which is a shame. Originally, it was rumored that the game would launch around now. That would have been a big deal.

A launch in 2025 would mean that a new generation discrete graphics cards would have appeared. This will change expectations about graphics performance to some extent, and may compromise the value proposition of the APU.

The RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture will also look a little bit dated with the new discrete GPUs that AMD and Nvidia are releasing. A much more powerful APU, perhaps in the style of a games console, is still an interesting prospect. We are eager to see what the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395" turns out to be. Even if it seems like AMD ran out ideas and raided Apple's parts bin for tech product naming schemes.