On April 27th, news surfaced online regarding an official AMD document confirming the core specifications of two upcoming laptop APUs: one being the mainstream Strix Point (referred to as STX) expected to launch mid-year, and the other being the flagship Strix Halo (referred to as STX Halo) anticipated to debut early next year.
AMD has previously confirmed that Strix Point will feature upgrades to the Zen5 CPU architecture, RDNA3+ GPU architecture (referred to as RDNA3.5 in this document's early stages), and XDNA2 NPU architecture. The NPU AI computing power is set to increase threefold, reaching approximately 50 TOPS.
According to the document, the CPU section of Strix Point will see an upgrade from the current Ryzen 8040 series (Hawk Point) with 6 cores and 12 threads to 12 cores and 24 threads. The L2 cache will double from 6MB to 12MB, and the L3 cache will increase twofold from 8MB to 24MB.
The GPU section will also see an expansion in scale, with the number of WGP groups increasing from two to eight, equivalent to 16 CU units.
In other aspects, the PCIe 4.0 bus channels will increase from 14 to 16, while memory specifications will continue with LPDDR5-5600 and LPDDR5X-7500.
The architecture of Stirx Halo remains the same, but it introduces a chiplet design for the first time, with the CPU section featuring two CCDs, totaling up to a maximum of 16 cores, 32 threads, 16MB L2 cache, and 32MB L3 cache.
Surprisingly, the GPU section will have 20 sets of WGP, equivalent to 40 sets of CU units. To put this into perspective, the RX 7600 XT only has 32 CU sets, meaning it can rival mainstream discrete graphics cards.
As we know, the performance of integrated graphics is influenced by the coordination of cache, memory, and power consumption.
Stirx Halo not only boosts memory frequency to LPDDR5X-8000 but also adds a special 32MB MALL cache, similar to the Infinity Cache found in current graphics cards. This cache can reduce the GPU's reliance on system memory, allowing for a more complete performance release.
According to some motherboard manufacturers, the GPU performance of Stirx Halo can even match that of the RTX 4060 Laptop on notebooks!
In other aspects, the NPU computing power is further increased to a maximum of 60 TOPS, the PCIe 4.0 lanes are expanded to 16, the default thermal design power is 70W, and it can be pushed up to 130W for maximum performance.
In fact, AMD also has a third new generation laptop APU, codenamed Fire Range, directly transplanting the Ryzen 9000 series from the desktop, also a multi-chip design, with up to 16 cores, 16MB L2 cache, and 32MB L3 cache.
However, the GPU section may still only have two RDNA2 architecture CU units, without an NPU AI engine, with a power consumption range of only 55-75W.
Moreover, it should be purely Zen5, while Strix Point/Halo is expected to be a combination of Zen5 and Zen5c.
Are Intel and NVIDIA already trembling?
