AMD offers Ryzen 8040 series AI PC chips to compete with Intel Core Ultra
/AMD first unveiled its new Hawk Point processors at its AI event in December, now branded as the Ryzen 8040 series of APUs. Ahead of CES this week in Vegas, the company briefed me on some new performance metrics of interest that it plans to show off in its exhibit area, across a range of AI tests, content creation, and gaming.
Even more interesting now is the inclusion of results from Intel Core Ultra Meteor Lake systems that weren’t in market yet for AMD’s first round of disclosures. I think the results will raise some eyebrows and its clear that AMD isn't backing down just because Intel's new product is making splash.
New Ryzen 8040U series of APUs for laptops coming in systems this February
8040U chips offer improved NPU performance, and a combined 39 TOPS of AI compute across all on-chip IP
AMD shows performance leadership vs new Intel Core Ultra Meteor Lake platforms on four different AI models
Integrated graphics performance on Ryzen 8000-series APUs still looks very strong, with data points supplied by AMD having it faster than the Intel Arc graphics integrated on Meteor Lake
New desktop Ryzen 8000G family of APUs improve graphics performance on DT platforms, far faster than what Intel has on its desktop CPUs
Ryzen 8000G is the first to offer Ryzen AI and a dedicated NPU on a desktop system
AMD brought on “virtual” stage HP, Lenovo, and ASUS as OEMs supporting and releasing Ryzen 8040-powered systems this year
Hugging Face CEO featured pledging support for Ryzen AI and excitement for bringing AI acceleration to a wide audience
Still lots of third-party testing and validation needed to measure these claims in what will be a long 2024 filled with competitive battles and marketing!
AMD has been offering its Ryzen AI accelerator on a small number of the current shipping Ryzen 7040 series APUs, but the new 8040 chips improve performance thanks to higher NPU clocks. And the mobile GPU continues to put up a great fight against the integration of Intel Arc Graphics on Meteor Lake.
Source: AMD
AMD shows four different AI models running on its new Ryzen APUs with advantages up to 79% compared to the Intel Core Ultra 155H. I know that Intel will be shouting this from the rooftops, and it’s a fair point: model performance in these specific configurations is interesting but it’s the performance in real-world applications TODAY that will matter to consumers looking to buy. Still, these results showcase the potential of the Ryzen AI NPU integration and with software enablement and even some OS level inclusions from Microsoft, the future looks solid for Ryzen.
Source: AMD
Here we have some performance results using Stable Diffusion (specifically the Microsoft Olive implementation) and an AI-enhanced video upscaling feature from Davinci Resolve that has an 85% perf advantage over the Core Ultra CPUs when running on the integrated graphics. GPUs will continue to be an important factor for AI performance in notebook CPUs, and the 780M fares well compared to Arc.
Source: AMD
Speaking of those integrated graphics comparisons, though Intel Arc on MTL is absolutely a big deal for Intel, AMD is showing 7 different titles here where the Radeon 780M is faster, despite the new 8040U chips only getting minimal performance uplift compared to the 7040U series.
Source: AMD
This is a very data heavy briefing, including a collection of creation and productivity tests…
Source: AMD
…and even a bold claim on CPU efficiency! Considering the messaging from Intel about the Core Ultra parts being their most power efficient to date, claims like this from AMD are interesting and will deserve a deep dive on accuracy.
The Ryzen 8040U APUs look like very compelling options for OEMs and consumers despite the introduction of the Intel Core Ultra platforms. AMD has work to do to prove that it can keep up with Intel in terms of AI application enablement and compatibility, a tough task considering the amount of software resources Intel could potentially throw at this problem. But the Ryzen AI implementation looks powerful, and the integrated GPU is still holding its own compared to the Intel Arc GPU on MTL.
Another interesting new piece of hardware from AMD at CES is the Ryzen 8000G series of desktop APUs. Intel has not upgraded the integrated graphics on its desktop line in any substantial way in a while (that has been relegated to the notebook products), and it clearly shows in a set of data like this from AMD.
Source: AMD
Though desktop chips not paired with a discrete card are often not considered gaming systems, there are lot of use cases for it, including small factor designs. With the data points here showing 2-4x performance advantages for the new Ryzen family of chips over the Core i7-14700K when running titles at 1080p low, AMD is clearly trying take ownership of any segment of the market looking for this combination of capability.
Source: AMD
AMD even makes the case that its APU is a better performer, and better value, than a combination of the Intel Core i5-13400F and GeForce 1650 discrete graphics card. These are always interesting data points to consider, and really talk to the budget minded consumers building $400-600 machines for gaming and other productivity uses.
Source: AMD
The Ryzen 8700G and 8600G parts are also integrate a dedicated NPU, making them the first “AI PC” processors for desktop systems. AMD claims a total of 39 TOPS across the NPU, CPU, and GPU on the 8700G, and considering that Intel doesn’t appear to have plans to make Meteor Lake architecture widely available on the desktop, AMD will have an advantage in this space for some time. What can they do with it though? And will Microsoft Windows with the AI capabilities rolling out this year take advantage of it?
Source: AMD
AMD supplied this chart of over 100 “AI experiences” that are available today on its platforms, a combination of workloads and functions within different applications that are using AI (either on the NPU or GPU. Intel has its own list like this, and it will be an arms race of sorts to see who can grow their list the fastest, to the broadest set of consumers. Intel will have the advantage of scale with its Intel Core Ultra design wins, no doubt, but if AMD can tag along or play fast-follower then the Ryzen family of APUs on both notebook and desktop could grow the company’s share in the market.
I’ll have more from Intel, AMD, and even Qualcomm in the days and weeks ahead as the battle for “AI PC” mindshare really kicks into high gear.