Zen5 APUs: Strix Point on track to launch this year, Strix Halo reportedly features 40, 32, 24 and 20 CU RDNA3.5 variants

AMD is reaffirming that Zen5 Ryzen products will be introduced this year. CEO Dr. Lisa Su claims that the introduction of these next-gen Ryzen “Strix Point” mobile processors will mark a major step in the company’s AI PC roadmap, representing a significant improvement in performance and energy efficiency.

The Strix series will be positioned in the premium segment occupied by high-end gaming laptops and next-gen Mini-PCs. The AMD Ryzen 7000 and 8000 series have seen noticeable growth in popularity, with new Zen4 systems being launched almost daily in China.

The AI PC products, when we look at the Strix products, it’s — they’re really well suited for the premium segments of the market. And I think that’s where you’re going to see some of the AI PC content strongest in the beginning. And then as we go into 2025, you would see it more across the rest of the portfolio.

Dr. Lisa Su, AMD CEO AMD

AMD has made no further comments on the Ryzen 9000 “Granite Ridge” desktop CPUs; however, the company has repeatedly hinted that the series is to be expected this year as well. In fact, it is very likely that the Computex keynote will heavily promote the new series, which should hopefully launch this summer and definitely before the holiday season. The current roadmap would look like this:

In a recent video, Moore’s Law is Dead and Cary Golomb discussed a new leak featuring AMD Strix Halo APU variants. The data allegedly comes from an early 2023 presentation that was pitched to OEMs, who may or may not consider using the said chip for next-generation devices. It is unclear how much the roadmap and product plans have changed since then.

Reportedly, AMD is planning as many as four variants featuring various configurations of CPU cores and GPU cores. The most high-end variant is expected to feature 16 Zen5 cores and up to 40 RDNA3.5 Compute Units, supposedly aimed at RTX 4070 (Laptop GPU) class performance.

Recently, there was a leak featuring a datasheet of Zen5 APUs, and one of the products was Halo. Before the document was taken down, the leaker mentioned that the Halo was demoed competing with an RTX 4060-class GPU. That said, the final performance may fall somewhere between those two NVIDIA SKUs, which is already a significant achievement considering it’s a single package replacing both CPU and discrete GPU. Reportedly, there are also 32 CU and 24 CU variants planned, all of which are said to feature a 256-bit memory bus with 270 GB/s of bandwidth.

The new rumor is about the LP variant, possibly referring to the Low-Power model. It would feature either 8 or 6 Zen5 cores and 20 RDNA3.5 CUs, competing performance per watt wise with GeForce RTX 3050 graphics.

Source: AMD