AMD heard you like powerful gaming portables — so here are new Strix Halo chips
But all of these machines cost around $2,000, even before the current global RAM shortage. Perhaps that will change now that AMD is announcing two lower-end Ryzen AI Max Plus components with full graphics but fewer CPU cores, aimed specifically at gaming devices.
They still have 40 graphics computing units for 60 teraflops, but the Ryzen AI Max Plus 392 has 12 cores instead of 16, and the Max Plus 388 only has eight CPU cores.
“The reason we introduced the 392 and 388 chips is because these are the right products for the gamers that we are bringing in,” Rahul Tikoo, head of AMD client chips, told us during a press briefing. “These two products were introduced because we had specific customer requests regarding the gaming SKUs we wanted to bring to market.”
It’s not 100% certain that the new Strix Halo devices will be more affordable than previous ones now that the price of RAM is skyrocketing, but take this as you will: Tikoo says that AI Max systems “can cost upwards of $1,000 to $1,500” compared to vanilla Ryzen AI systems which typically start at just $500. “$1,000 to $1,500” certainly seems to be cheaper than $2,000, but I don’t want to read too much into what might be an offhand remark.
