AMD is upping the ante as it readies for competition in AI chip sector with its latest announcements at CES 2025. The company announced its Ryzen AI Max Series for premium thin and light notebooks, along with the Ryzen AI 300 Series featuring “Zen 5” architecture and the Ryzen 200 Series for everyday productivity. This development comes as competitors Qualcomm and Intel unveiled their respective new AI chip lineups at the same event. AI chips are primarily used for training and deploying models like ChatGPT and Gemini.
AMD also integrates AMD PRO Technologies into its Ryzen AI Max, Ryzen AI 300, and Ryzen AI 200 Series processors. These PRO Series processors offer enterprise-level security and various manageability tools. Targeting gamers and creators, the new Ryzen AI Max Series processors feature 16 Zen 5 CPU cores, up to 40 AMD RDNA 3.5 graphics compute units, and XDNA 2 Neural Processing Unit (NPU) with up to 50 TOPS of AI processing power.
The company also introduces Ryzen AI 300 Series processors for premium AI experiences in notebooks. These are packed with up to 8 Zen 5 CPU cores and the latest RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture. Meanwhile, the new Ryzen 200 Series processors bring “Zen 4” AI capabilities to a broader range. These processors are expected to be available starting in the first quarter of 2025.
These chips are specifically crafted to drive the next generation of Copilot+ PCs, including laptops and compact desktops with AI-boosted Windows 11 features. Notably, these new processor series debuted as AMD captured approximately 28.7% of the desktop CPU market share in Q3 2024.
In addition, AMD introduces new gaming products, including the Ryzen 9900X3D and 9950X3D desktop processor series. The company claims the 9950X3D is – on average – 8% faster in popular games like Hogwarts Legacy and Starfield compared to AMD’s 7950X3D. In mobile gaming, the company launches Ryzen 9000HX Series processors with 16 cores, offering 32 threads of processing performance.
“With the new ROG systems powered by the AMD Ryzen 9000HX Series processors, gamers can push their limits and experience extreme power and performance in top-of-the-line notebooks,” said Samson Hu, co-CEO, ASUS while commenting on new processors.
Talking about financials, AMD’s revenue for the third quarter of 2024 was $6.8 billion, with a gross margin of 50%. The company reported an operating income of $724 million and a net income of $771 million. AMD is putting aggressive efforts into increasing its pace in the AI chip race, but the company is still far behind NVIDIA. In fact, NVIDIA alone holds more than 70% of the market share.
