It’s hard not to feel sympathy for Intel these days. With Apple surpassing its CPUs, AMD’s latest Ryzan AI Max chips are now poised to outshine Intel’s premier Core Ultra 9 288V.
The new processors emulate the strategy of Apple Silicon by integrating CPU, GPU, and unified memory. While AMD does not publicly credit Apple for this concept, it acknowledges that the chip’s existence owes much to Apple’s influence.
According to Engadget, these chips can feature up to 16 CPU cores, 50 graphics cores, and 128GB of unified memory. AMD asserts that this combination allows for rendering 3D graphics over two and a half times faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V.
Despite the similarities, AMD insists it is not merely following Apple’s lead.
You might assume that AMD drew some inspiration from Apple Silicon with its efficient CPU cores, graphics, and unified memory. However, VP Joe Macri states that AMD’s vision was in development long before Apple’s innovations. “We were creating APUs [chips that integrate CPUs and Radeon graphics] while Apple was still utilizing discrete GPUs, which were actually our discrete GPUs. Therefore, I don’t attribute the concept to Apple,” he explains.
Nevertheless, Macri concedes that Apple’s influence may have been pivotal in bringing this latest chip to fruition.
Macri acknowledges Apple’s role in demonstrating that powerful computers don’t necessarily rely on discrete graphics. “Many in the PC world believed that superior graphics required discrete solutions, or else users would perceive them as inferior,” he noted.
Apple has shown that what truly matters to consumers is performance, not the distinction between integrated and discrete graphics. This clarity helped Macri navigate the corporate landscape to secure the green light for the Ryzan AI Max’s development.
Thanks to Apple Silicon’s success, Macri was finally permitted to allocate a “mind-blowing” budget towards the Ryzen AI Max project. “I always believed, based on our experience with APUs and my long-term push for a major APU, that I could create a system that was smaller, quicker, and could deliver significantly higher performance without increasing power consumption,” he said.
The first opportunity to purchase a laptop featuring this innovative chip will arrive in the first half of this year, with the ASUS ROG Flow Z13 and ZBook Ultra G1a (seriously, what’s with PC naming this year?!) among the devices expected to harness its power.
Image: AMD
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