Ryzen 7 8745HS will be AMD’s new Hawk Point APU without an NPU [RUMOR]

AMD is reportedly working on a new Hawk Point-generation APU with its XDNA core disabled. The rumored Ryzen 7 8745HS would be identical to the 8845HS, but without the dedicated NPU for AI processing.

The information comes from the Chinese social network Weibo, through a post by a well-known “leaker”. The mysterious person explains very directly that the Ryzen 8745HS is the same as the 8845HS, minus the NPU. The post also states that the new APU will be launched soon.

If the processors are, in fact, identical, we already know the specifications of the new product. We will have an 8-core CPU, based on Zen 4, with 16 threads. It comes with 16MB of L3 cache and 8MB of L2 cache. Being an APU, we also have integrated graphics, based on RDNA 3. The Ryzen 7 8845HS uses a Radeon 780M with 12 compute units (CUs). The clock will be at 3.8GHz base and up to 5.1GHz boost, if AMD doesn’t change even that for the new model.

The only possible reason to launch such a similar product without an NPU is to increase the price range. We can expect cheaper notebook lines with the processor, while AMD continues to market itself as worth investing more for AI.

Ryzen 7 8745HS won’t be able to use AI without NPU?

The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) is a component that has been appearing in APUs with the promise of speeding up AI processing. While the feature can be useful, “necessary” seems like too strong a word to describe these units.

Microsoft has been trying to push the need for NPUs with its Copilot+ label for AI-enabled Windows PCs. That policy was shaken when it was revealed that several of the technology’s features could be used in Windows 11 without the presence of a dedicated unit.

Ironically, the XDNA platform found in Hawk Point APUs isn’t certified for Copilot+ anyway. That’s because, according to VideoCardz, those NPUs would be too slow. Later this month, however, we should see the debut of XDNA 2 in Strix Point products.

Fonte: WCCFTech