AMD may have just launched the Ryzen 8000 series of mobile processors, but company executives confirmed that its next mobile processor, Strix Point, will make the leap to the next-generation Zen 5 architecture.
The disclosure was made by Dr. Lisa Su, AMD’s chief executive officer, during the company’s fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report. They reported a net income of $667 million, up 3,076 percent from $21 million in profits a year ago. Revenue climbed 10 percent to $6.168 billion.
AMD launched its Ryzen 8000 mobile lineup in December and Su said Tuesday that the chips will begin shipping in notebooks in February. But AMD is already looking ahead to Strix Point, the next-generation mobile chip scheduled to launch later this year. Like the recent Intel 14th-gen Core HX, the Ryzen 8000 series is very similar on paper to its predecessor, the Ryzen 7000 mobile chips.
“We are aggressively driving our Ryzen AI CPU roadmap to extend our AI leadership, including our next-gen Strix [Point] processors that are expected to deliver more than three times the AI performance of our Ryzen 7040 series processors,” Su said, according to a transcript provided by Marketbeat. “Strix combines our next-gen, Zen 5 core with enhanced RDNA graphics and an updated Ryzen AI engine to significantly increase the performance, energy efficiency and AI capabilities of PCs. Customer momentum for Strix is strong with the first notebooks on-track to launch later this year.”
Last year, AMD disclosed that Strix Point would offer triple the generative AI performance of the Ryzen 7040 series, launched in January 2023. (Interestingly, benchmarks like the UL Procyon series do not recognize the presence of the NPU inside the chip based on PCWorld tests, which AMD executives have said they’re working to fix.) However, AMD has not formally linked Strix Point to Zen 5. AMD has also not formally disclosed the graphics technology within its Zen 5 chips, reportedly using RDNA 3.5.
Su said that 2024 revenue was projected to grow more in the second half of the year, which is in line with normal seasonal expectations. “We continue to see strong growth opportunities for our client business as we ramp our current products, extend our AI PC leadership and launch our next wave of Zen 5 CPUs,” Su added.
AMD’s Strix Point will challenge Intel’s Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake, its next-gen mobile architecture that Intel says will also triple the performance of the NPU’s AI performance.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor
As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats. He has formerly written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.