AMD unveils new chips for notebooks, desktops and gaming hardware at CES 2025

At CES 2025 in Las VegasAMD has introduced a range of new chips designed for devices ranging from desktop PCs to gaming hardware.

AMD is standing tall at this year’s CES. Company ordered In the third quarter of 2024, the share of the desktop CPU segment was 28.7%, an increase of 9.6 percentage points compared to the same quarter of the previous year. In mobile, AMD captured 22.3% of the chip market in the latest quarter, a 2.8 percent increase from the previous fiscal period.

However, the company is not resting on its laurels. AMD’s 2025 strategy is aggressive and versatile – and it starts with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

Designed for “gamers and creators,” the 9950X3D features 16 cores based on AMD’s Zen 5 architecture clocked at up to 5.7 GHz. According to company estimates, the 9950X3D is an average of 8% faster than AMD’s 7950X3D in popular games like Hogwarts Legacy and Starfield.

The 9950X3D, along with the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, a lower-end 12-core processor clocked at up to 5.5GHz, will ship sometime in the first quarter of 2025, AMD said.

To complement the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D, AMD also announced a new “Fire Range” chipset aimed at mid-range notebooks and ultraportables. Set to launch in the first half of 2025, the series, which includes the Ryzen 9 9850HX, 9955HX and 9955HX3D, offers 12-16 cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.2GHz to 5.4GHz.

Note that the Fire Range chips draw about ~54W – less than half the wattage requirement of the 9950X3D (170W).

AI PC chips

For the empowerment of the next generation Copilot+ PC — notebooks and compact desktops featuring AI-accelerated Windows 11 — AMD introduces new and refreshed processor series: Ryzen AI 300 series and Ryzen AI Max series.

All chips in the series have a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) to accelerate certain AI workloads, such as the text generalization language model or Windows 11’s AI-powered image editor.

The Ryzen 300 series chips, which will hit the market in Q1/2 2025, have 6 and 8 cores clocked at up to 5 GHz and provide “24 hours” of 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.

As for Ryzen AI Max, this is AMD’s flagship offering for Copilot+ PCs, with 6 and 16 cores clocked at up to 5.1 GHz, combined with integrated graphics and a new memory interface. AMD claims that Ryzen AI Max chips can achieve leading 3D rendering and AI application performance.

SKUs in the series have been identified, 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. To start from the beginning of Q1/2.

Aiming for more budget-friendly, “core” devices, AMD also debuted its new Ryzen 200 series of chips. The processors, most of which are NPUs, have 6 and 8 cores with frequencies up to 5.2 GHz and are scheduled for launch in Q2 2025.

Hand processors

Handhelds such as Valve’s Steam Deck continue to be a key development area for AMD. To that end, the chipmaker has announced new processors in its Ryzen Z2 series, designed for lightweight and gaming-focused form factors.

There’s the Ryzen Z2 Go with four cores at 4.3GHz and 12 graphics cores, and the Ryzen Z2 Extreme with eight cores at 5.0GHz and 16 graphics cores. They join the octa-core Ryzen Z2, whose cores reach 5.1 GHz and include 12 graphics cores.

All three Ryzen Z2 SKUs will be available in Q1 2025.

Graphics cards

Finally, AMD has unveiled its next set of discrete, desktop-bound GPUs: the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070. They’re based on the company’s RDNA 4 architecture, a 4nm architecture that the company says features improved performance. ray tracing performance, better media encoding quality and improved AI acceleration.

The RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 cards will be available in the first quarter of 2025 from manufacturers including Acer, Asus, Gigabyte and XFX.

AMD highlighted its FidelityFX Super Resolution 4.0 enhancement technology, which is designed for RDNA 4 hardware. AMD says Super Resolution 4.0 uses AI algorithms to upscale game content to 4K resolution with minimal lag.

In a related development, AMD’s software AMD Adrenaline features new artificial intelligence that allows users to manage and tune AMD hardware, including Radeon graphics cards. Adrenaline can now generate images using its built-in image generation model, use a native language model to summarize files like PDFs, and answer AMD-related questions through an AI-powered chatbot interface.