Ryzen Z2, Ryzen AI MAX and new Ryzen AI 300 expand AMD’s mobile line at CES!

AMD greatly expanded its portfolio of APU options for mobile devices of all types at CES 2025. The company officially announced the Ryzen Z2 series for portable console-style PCs, revealed the Ryzen AI MAX, based on Strix Halo and brought more options affordable, in the form of the new Ryzen AI 300, also known as Krackan Point. The company also presented the Ryzen 200, a Hawk Point refresh.

The Ryzen Z2 series is one of the only ones that AMD actually confirmed it would introduce this year. These are components specially optimized for the portable gaming PC market, also known as handhelds. As leaks have already pointed out, we have three models, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, the standard Z2 and the Z2 Go.

AMD’s announcement does not go into details of the products’ architecture, but previous leaks indicate that each one will have a different generation of GPU. So only the Ryzen Z2 Extreme would use RDNA 3.5. Additionally, the Z2 Go is rumored to be exclusive to the Lenovo Legion Go S. The Z2 lineup arrives in Q1 2025.

The arrival of the new Ryzen AI MAX line was one of the most anticipated announcements at the AMD event. Since their first leaks, these APUs have attracted attention for their advanced integrated GPUs, offering up to 40 CUs based on RDNA 3.5. The memory bandwidth goes up to 256GB/s in the most advanced model, the Ryzen AI MAX 395+.

To promote the potential of the line, AMD released comparisons of this model with a Core Ultra 9 288V in different situations. Below, synthetic 3D rendering tests:

We can see that the Ryzen AI MAX 395+ delivers more than double the performance in most tests, up to triple in Blender Classroom. Below, tests on more general graphics performance:

But this time it wasn’t just Intel that AMD wanted to pick a fight with its new Strix Halo. The company also put the processor to compete with the M4 Pro 12C and M4 Pro 14C, present in Apple MacBooks.

According to the manufacturer, the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 is the first processor in the world to deliver 70B LLM in a Copilot+ PC. But the component does not arrive alone. We will have three other Strix Halo, two of them in standard and PRO versions and one of them PRO only. Below is the complete table:

AMD Ryzen AI 350 and 340 arrive as a more affordable alternative

The Ryzen AI 350 and 340 have been appearing in leaks for some time now under the codename of the Krackan Point series. The products are now official as new, more affordable options for the Ryzen AI 300 series.

Since the new models are promoted for varied everyday use, AMD released graphs comparing the multi-tasking performance of the Ryzen AI 7 350 with competitors. He appears facing – and overcoming – the Snapdragon X Plus and the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V in the graphics below:

AMD also promises the fastest NPU for Windows, based on Procyon AI. The results below show the Ryzen AI 7 350 beating its rivals by a considerable margin:

The two Krackan Point models will have PRO variants as well. Standard APUs arrive in the first quarter of 2025, while professional versions are planned for Q2.

Only two Ryzen 200 models come without NPU

Denying rumors from the past, the Ryzen 200 series of “cheap processors” does not dispense with the NPU in all models. In fact, only the two input options do not come with the component to boost AI.

AMD did not go into many details about the performance of the components, but offered a table with details for all models in the line. There are several options arriving in the second quarter of 2025, and the company promises “great prices for the general public”.

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