AMD will bring its “Ryzen AI” processors to standard desktop PCs for the first time

Like previous Ryzen G-series chips, this is essentially laptop silicon repackaged for desktop systems. They share most of their specifications in common with the Ryzen AI 300 laptop processors, despite their Ryzen AI 400 branding. The two generations of chips are extremely similar overall, but the Ryzen AI 400 series laptop processors include slightly faster 55 TOPS NPUs.

Unlike previous launches, AMD isn’t shipping its high-end laptop silicon for desktop use, at least not yet. None of these chips include the full 12 CPU cores you can get in the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 or 370; you also can’t get the Radeon 880M or Radeon 890M integrated GPUs. All three models announced today by AMD have 8 CPU cores (likely split evenly between the faster Zen 5 cores and the slower, smaller, more power-efficient Zen 5c cores) and an integrated Radeon 860M GPU with 8 RDNA 3.5 graphics cores.

AMD could still decide to offer higher-end processor options at a later date, but the fact is that it doesn’t make financial sense to try to build mini gaming PCs around socket AM5 processors right now. These need pairs of fast DDR5 sticks to maximize their performance, and prices for fast DDR5 sticks have soared into the stratosphere over the past year. It’s hard to make financial sense of any kind of gaming PC right now, but the number of frames per second per dollar you get with a desktop iGPU makes them particularly unappealing. This may explain why processors are targeting professional desktops first.

The announcement of the Ryzen AI 400 desktop processor is in line with what AMD announced at CES earlier this year: discrete iterations on existing technology that do little to push the boundaries. That’s perhaps the best we can expect, given current RAM and storage shortages and the fact that most of the world’s chipmakers are all competing for TSMC’s manufacturing capacity.