A CES 2025 in Las VegasAMD has unveiled several new chips destined for devices ranging from desktops to gaming handhelds.
AMD is coming to this year's CES. Company indicated 28.7% share of the desktop CPU segment in Q3 2024, up 9.6 percentage points from the same quarter last year. In mobile, AMD captured 22.3% of the chip market in Q3, a 2.8-percentage-point increase over the previous fiscal year.
The company isn't resting on its laurels, though. AMD's 2025 strategy is aggressive and multifaceted — and it starts with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D.
Aimed at “gamers and creators,” the 9950X3D has 16 cores clocked at up to 5.7GHz based on AMD's Zen 5 architecture. According to the company's benchmarks, the 9950X3D averaged 8% faster in popular games like Hogwarts Legacy and Starfield vs. AMD's 7950X3D.
The 9950X3D, along with the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, a low-end processor with 12 cores up to 5.5GHz, will ship sometime in Q1 2025, AMD said.
To complement the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D, AMD also announced a new “Fire Range” lineup of chips aimed at 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 clocked between a maximum of 5.2GHz and 5.4GHz.
Notably, the Fire Range chips draw about ~54 watts of power — less than half the watts required by the 9950X3D (170 W).
AI PC chips
Bringing the next generation to power Copilot+ PC — Laptops and compact desktops with AI-accelerated Windows 11 features — AMD is introducing 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 specific AI workloads, such as text-summarizing language models or running Windows 11's AI-powered image editor.
The Ryzen 300 series of chips, which will hit the market in Q1/Q2 2025, pack between 6 and 8 cores clocked at up to 5GHz, and offer “24-plus-hours” of battery life under the best conditions (i.e. 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, it's AMD's flagship offering for Copilot+ PCs, with 6 to 16 cores clocked at up to 5.1GHz, paired with built-in graphics and a new memory interface. AMD claims that Ryzen AI Max chips can achieve leading 3D rendering and AI application performance.
The series SKUs — which include 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 in Q1 /Q2 to start.
Aimed at more budget-friendly, “mainstream” devices, AMD also debuted new Ryzen 200 series chips. The processors – most of which sport NPUs – have between 6 and 8 cores up to 5.2GHz, and will launch in Q2 2025.
Handheld processor
Handheld PCs, such as Valve's Steam Deck, continue to be a major growth area for AMD. To that end, the chipmaker has announced new processors in its Ryzen Z2 series, meant for lightweight and gaming-focused form factors.
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, whose cores top out at 5.1GHz and which packs 12 graphics cores.
All three Ryzen Z2 SKUs will be available in Q1 2025.
Graphics card
Finally, AMD released its next set of discrete, desktop-bound GPUs: the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070. They are based on the company's RDNA 4 architecture, a 4nm architecture that the company says has improved features. Ray tracing performance, improved media encoding quality, and improved AI acceleration.
The RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 cards will be available in Q1 2025 from manufacturers including Acer, Asus, Gigabyte, and XFX.
AMD highlighted its FidelityFX Super Resolution 4.0 upscaling technology, which it says was developed for RDNA 4 hardware. Super Resolution 4.0 uses AI algorithms to upscale game content up to 4K resolution with minimal latency, AMD says.
In a related development, AMD Adrenalin, AMD's software that allows users to manage and tune their AMD hardware, including Radeon graphics cards, has new AI features. Adrenaline can now generate images using a built-in image generation model, take advantage of local language models to summarize files like PDFs, and answer AMD-related questions through an AI-powered chatbot interface.