At CES 2025 in Las Vegas, AMD announced several new chips aimed at devices ranging from desktops to handheld games. AMD has stepped up at CES this year. The company commanded a 28.7% share of the desktop CPU segment in Q3 2024, up 9.6 percentage points compared to the same quarter a year earlier. In mobile, AMD held 22.3% of the chip market in the last Q3, up 2.8-percentage-points from the previous fiscal period. However, the company is not resting. AMD’s 2025 strategy is aggressive and multi-pronged – and it starts with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Aimed at “gamers and creators,” the 9950X3D has 16 cores based on AMD’s Zen 5 architecture clocked at up to 5.7GHz. According to the company’s benchmarks, the 9950X3D is an average of 8% faster in popular games like Hogwarts Legacy and Starfield versus AMD’s 7950X3D. Image Credit: AMD The 9950X3D, along with the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, a lower-end processor with 12 cores clocked at up to 5.5GHz, will ship in Q1 2025, AMD said. To complement the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D, AMD also announced a new lineup of “Fire Range” chips targeting midrange laptops and ultraportables. Set to launch in the first half of 2025, the series – which includes the Ryzen 9 9850HX, 9955HX, and 9955HX3D – offers 12 to 16 cores with maximum clocks between 5.2GHz and 5.4GHz. Notably, the Fire Range chip draws around ~54 W of power – less than half of the 9950X3D’s wattage requirement (170 W). AI PC Chips To power the next generation of Copilot+ PCs — compact laptops and desktops with AI-accelerated Windows 11 features — AMD is launching a new and fresh series of processors: the Ryzen AI 300 series and the Ryzen AI Max series. All chips in the series have dedicated neural processing units (NPUs) to speed up specific AI workloads, such as using the text summary language model or the AI-powered image editor of Windows 11. Ryzen 300 series chips, which will hit the market in Q1/Q2 2025 , packs between 6 and 8 cores with clocks up to 5GHz, and offers “24-hour” battery life in the best case scenario (e.g. only light work. ). There are four SKUs: Ryzen AI 7 350, Ryzen AI 5 340, Ryzen AI 7 Pro 350, and Ryzen AI 5 Pro 340. Image Credit: AMD As for Ryzen AI Max, it’s AMD’s flagship offering for Copilot+ PCs, with between 6 and 16 cores clocked at up to 5.1GHz, paired with built-in graphics and a new memory interface. AMD claims that its Ryzen AI Max chips can achieve superior 3D rendering and AI application performance. SKUs in the series – including Ryzen AI Max+ 395, Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395, Ryzen AI Max 390, Ryzen AI Max Pro 390, Ryzen AI Max 385, Ryzen AI Max Pro 385, and Ryzen AI Max Pro 380 – are set to launch start Q1 / Q2. Targeting more budget-friendly “mainstream” devices, AMD also debuted its new Ryzen 200 series of chips. Processors – most of which sport NPUs – between 6 and 8 cores clocked up to 5.2GHz, and scheduled to start in Q2 2025. Handheld PC processors like Valve’s Steam Deck continue to be the main growth area for AMD. To that end, the chipmaker announced a new processor in the Ryzen Z2 series, which is intended for a lightweight form factor and focused on gaming. There’s the Ryzen Z2 Go, which has four cores clocked at up to 4.3GHz and 12 graphics cores, and the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, which has eight cores clocked at up to 5.0Ghz and 16 graphics cores. They join the eight-core Ryzen Z2, which tops out at 5.1GHz and packs 12 graphics cores. Three Ryzen Z2 SKUs will be available in Q1 2025. Graphics cards Finally, AMD announced the next set of discrete, desktop-bound GPUs: Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070. These are based on the company’s RDNA 4 architecture, a 4nm architecture that the company says has performance better ray tracing, better media encoding quality, and better AI acceleration. The RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 cards will be available from manufacturers including Acer, Asus, Gigabyte, and XFX in Q1 2025. Image Credit: AMD AMD is highlighting its FidelityFX Super Resolution 4.0 upscaling technology, developed for RDNA 4 hardware. Super Resolution 4.0 uses AI algorithms to enhance gaming content up to 4K resolution with minimal latency, says AMD. In a related development, AMD Adrenalin, AMD’s software that allows users to manage and tune AMD hardware, including Radeon graphics cards, has new AI features. Adrenaline can now generate images using a built-in image generation model, use local language models to summarize PDF-like files, and answer AMD-related questions through an AI-powered chatbot interface.
