Tag Archives: Zen 5

Computers, Gaming

MSI Brings Thin and Light to Gaming and Creator Laptops with the Stealth A16 AI+ & the Creator A16 AI+

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MSI is bringing thin and light to a 16-inch form factor. What’s more, these laptops are not just normal laptops, they’re gaming and creator laptops. The Stealth A16 AI+ and Creator A16 AI+ were both launched at COMPUTEX 2024. These laptops combine cutting-edge AI, impressive gaming capabilities, and content creation prowess in a portable design.

The Stealth A16 AI+ and Creator A16 AI+ are equipped with the latest AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Processors, featuring a new processor architecture, integrated graphics, and a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU). This combination delivers exceptional processor performance, stunning visuals, and robust AI computing power.

MSI Stealth Creator AI

The new XDNA 2 architecture within the processors offers up to three times faster AI performance compared to previous generations. This allows for running generative AI tools or large language models directly on the laptops. The integrated Radeon 800M series graphics boast up to 33% more graphics cores, resulting in smooth gaming experiences on a lightweight chassis. Additionally, the processor unit boasts the latest Zen 5 architecture, supporting up to 12 cores and 50% more on-chip memory compared to predecessors, translating to industry-leading processor performance.

For those seeking the ultimate in AI computing power, both the Stealth A16 AI+ and Creator A16 AI+ can be configured with the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards. These graphics cards feature specialized AI Tensor Cores, delivering cutting-edge performance and revolutionary capabilities for enhanced creativity, efficient workflows, and blisteringly fast gaming.

The Stealth A16 AI+ and Creator A16 AI+ feature a lightweight magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis, ensuring portability without too much compromise on durability. MSI’s Cooler Boost 5 cooling system keeps thermals in check during demanding tasks. A wealth of ports allows for versatile connectivity options. This combination of features makes these laptops some of the most well-balanced lightweight gaming and creator options available.

In addition to the gaming and content creation focused models, MSI also unveiled the Summit A16 AI+ and Prestige A16 AI+, business and productivity laptops powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Processors. These laptops combine the latest processors with a large 82Wh battery and a lightweight design, catering to mobile business professionals seeking exceptional performance and portability.

Pricing & Availability

Specific pricing and availability information for the Stealth A16 AI+, Creator A16 AI+, Summit A16 AI+, and Prestige A16 AI+ laptops will be revealed on the official MSI website.

Business, Computers, News

AMD’s New Ryzen 9000 Series Processors Pack Even More Performance with Lower TDPs

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AMD is really letting the floodgates open in Computex with a bevvy of announcements that will take us through to 2025. One of the announcements that the company made is its new generation of Ryzen processors. The new 9000 series processors will be leveraging the Zen 5 architecture like its Ryzen AI brethren and are pushing performance boundaries with the same AM5 socket.

Ryzen 9000 7
Source: AMD

The new Ryzen 9000 series processors will benefit from what AMD calls a sweeping upgrade that will impact performance and power efficiency with its new Zen 5 architecture. The new updates to the Zen 5 increase branch prediction and accuracy as well as support higher data throughputs. This translates into a marked increase in performance of up to 16% in instructions per cycle. The new Zen 5 Architecture is also designed for parallelism. This will allow power users to run multiple processors in parallel to derive even more gains and higher compute.

New Chipsets to Leverage Larger Throughputs

The Ryzen 9000 series processors will continue to support the AM5 socket which AMD launched back in 2022. However, the company has also announced new chipsets that will allow users to leverage the full performance of the new processors. The new X870 and X870E chipsets come with USB 4.0, PCIe Gen 5 and NVMe as a standard and are designed to support DDR5 memory. Overclockers will be able to squeeze more performance out of these processors. The X870 and X870E feature a total of 44 PCIe lanes and direct-to-processor PCIe 5.0 NVMe connectivity. The X870E takes it further with 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes with 16 lanes dedicated to graphics. It also offers twice the bandwidth when both sets of lanes are enabled at the same time.

Ryzen 9000 Delidded 1
Ryzen 9000 8

However, as always, the Ryzen 9000 series processors will work with older chipsets with the AM5 socket. This will allow users to upgrade to better processors without the need to spend on new chipsets.

SKUs and Availability

The new Ryzen 9000 series processors will be available starting in July 2024. A total of 4 SKUs have been announced at Computex. Details are as follows.

ModelCores / ThreadsBoost9 / Base FrequencyTotal CachePCIe®TDP
AMD Ryzen™ 9 9950X16 / 32Up to 5.7 GHz / 4.3 GHz80MBGen 5170W
AMD Ryzen™ 9 9900X12 / 24Up to 5.6 GHz / 4.4 GHz76MBGen 5120W
AMD Ryzen™ 7 9700X8 / 16Up to 5.5 GHz / 3.8 GHz40MBGen 565W
AMD Ryzen™ 5 9600X6 / 12Up to 5.4 GHz / 3.9 GHz38MBGen 565W

New AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Processors Prolong AM4 Longevity

In addition to the new Ryzen 9000 series processors, AMD also announced two new Ryzen 5000 series processors. These new processors will support the AM4 socket extending the socket’s longevity yet again; notably beyond AMD’s initial promise of supporting it through to 2020 from 2016.

The new processors feature more performance at lower TDPs for better power efficiency. These are the details for the two new SKUs. They will be available starting in July 2024.

ModelCores / ThreadsBoost9 / Base FrequencyTotal CachePCIe®TDP
AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900XT16 / 32Up to 4.8 GHz / 3.3 GHz72MBGen 4105W
AMD Ryzen™ 7 5800XT8 / 16Up to 4.8 GHz / 3.8 GHz36MBGen 4105W
Business, Computers, News

AMD Has Announced the Ryzen AI 300 Series Laptop Processors and It’s Pushing Real Hard

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AMD‘s Ryzen laptop chips are getting supercharged with AI performance this year. The new laptop SoCs are not just getting powered up, they’ll be getting a new naming convention too. The new “Ryzen AI” chips are focused on bringing the same performance we’re seeing with ARM’s x64-based chips to its own x86-based chipsets. In fact, if AMD’s own claims are to be believed, it would seem that it’s already well on the way to blowing its competition out of the water.

Ryzen AI 300 4
Source: AMD

Leveraging Zen 5 with AMD’s XDNA2 Architecture

Ryzen AI processors are the first with the company’s new Zen 5 architecture. The new architecture leverages a 4nm fabrication process that allows it to increase performance and efficiency. The Zen 5 architecture also allows for increased branch prediction and accuracy as well as higher throughputs. The architecture is also designed from the ground up for parallelism.

Ryzen AI Brief 1

Ryzen AI Brief 1

Ryzen AI 300 1
Source: AMD

The main difference between the Ryzen AI 300 series processors and the mainstream Ryzen 9000 is AMD’s own XDNA2 architecture. This architecture complements the performance of the Zen 5 based SoC with a new NPU. This NPU is capable of achieving an AI performance of 50 TOPS. This outperforms Microsoft’s minimum requirement of 40 TOPS for Copilot+ PCs. XDNA2 NPUs also combine the benefits of both 8-bit and 16-bit performance bringing both performance and accuracy to the platform without quantization.

The new Ryzen AI 300 series processors are equipped with 12 high-performance CPU cores with 24 threads and 50% more on-chip L3 cache memory over Zen 4 processors for thin and light laptops. AMD emphasizes that the NPU performance will be crucial to achieving power efficiency on laptops with AI performance. These NPUs can even be leveraged to drive better gaming performance. It’s also worth noting that these Ryzen AI 300 series processors also come with RDNA 3.5 GPUs in the Radeon 800M graphics.

Ryzen AI Brief 3
Source: AMD

New Naming, Better Value and New Laptops

Together with the new architecture, AMD is also streamlining the nomenclature of its Ryzen AI processors. Ryzen AI processors will now feature the Line (ie. Ryzen AI 9 or Ryzen AI 5) followed by the SKU and then the model. So, a high-performance Ryzen AI 9 processor would be labelled as Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. Where the line is denoted by “Ryzen AI 9”, the “HX” denotes the high-performance SKU and the model is denoted by the “370”. Also notable is the reduction in numbers for the nomenclature from 4 digits to 3.

Ryzen AI 9 Radeon Badge
Source: AMD

Well, aside from the shiny new name and architecture, the latest AMD Ryzen AI 300 series comes with a whole value set. The processors are undoubtedly part of the AI revolution that is happening when it comes to mobile compute. The AI platform shit will deliver immense value when it comes to performance and power efficiency with laptops. We can expect to see laptops running the Ryzen AI 300 series processors having longer battery life with higher performance thanks to the XDNA2 NPUs that come in the SoC.

We can expect to see laptops with Ryzen AI 300 series processors hit the market in the coming months. Partners like ASUS, MSI, Acer, HP and Lenovo already throwing their backing with laptops in the works. In fact, ASUS has already mentioned a yet-to-be-announced stable of laptops including the ROG Zephyrus G16, ProArt P16 and PX13, Zenbook S 16, ASUS Vivobook S 14, S 15 and S 16, and TUF Gaming A14 and A16. MSI has also already announced the Stealth A16 AI+, Summit A16 AI+, Prestige A16 AI+ and Creator A16 AI+.

SKUs and Availability

Ryzen AI Brief 2
Source: AMD

For now, AMD has announced 2 SKUs of the new Ryzen AI 300 series processors. We can expect to see laptops with these processors hit shelves as early as July 2024. SKU Specifications are as follows:

ModelCores / ThreadsBoost[i] / Base FrequencyTotal CacheGraphics ModelcTDPNPU
AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX 37012 / 245.1 GHz / 2.0 GHz36MBAMD Radeon™ 890M Graphics15-54WYes
(50 TOPs)
AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 36510 / 205.0 GHz / 2.0GHz34MBAMD Radeon™ 880M Graphics15-54WYes
(50 TOPs)

[i] Max boost for AMD Ryzen processors is the maximum frequency achievable by a single core on the processor running a bursty single-threaded workload. Max boost will vary based on several factors, including, but not limited to: thermal paste; system cooling; motherboard design and BIOS; the latest AMD chipset driver; and the latest OS updates. GD-150