AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D – the best processor for gamers and creatives – is among many new chips coming

Advanced micro devices Unveiled a new range of processors and graphics processing units (GPUs) in Consumer Electronics Show 2025 Press event. The large chip design company showed off processors for desktop computers, laptops and handheld gaming devices as well as new graphics chips.

AMD’s technology is revolutionizing industries from fish farming to nuclear power, where artificial intelligence processes massive amounts of data, said Jack Huynh, senior vice president of AMD’s Computing and Graphics Group.

“Whether you know it or not, you probably interact with AMD technology every day,” Huynh said. “And we’re just getting started” across gaming, AI PCs, and enterprise.

He said at a press event at the major technology trade show in Las Vegas that the company is launching the AMD Ryzen 9000 series, including “the world’s best processor for gamers and creators,” the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D. AMD said it “touches billions of lives” every day with its AI and gaming chips.

The chip has 16 Zen 5 CPU cores, or the fifth generation of cores that helped AMD beat Intel in x86 chip performance. The maximum boost frequency is 5.7GHz, and the total cache is 144MB with 2nd generation AMD V-Cache technology.

Matt Booty, Microsoft Xbox CEO, said in a guest message at the event that AMD was driving innovation across every level of gaming, from the latest PCs to Xbox game consoles.

The chip can run games 8% faster on average across 40 games tested, including Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth Wukong, compared to the previous AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

The company said it is 20% faster based on 40 games tested compared to the Intel Core i9 285K processor. The chip is also 13% faster on average when creating content in the 20-application test versus the AMD Ryzen 9 790X3D. It is 10% faster than Intel chip.

AMD said it has two versions available, one with 16 cores and 32 threads and the other with 12 cores and 24 threads. It will be available in the first quarter of 2025.

AMD mobile processor

AMD also introduced the Fire Range HX3D processor, which the company called the best mobile processor for creating games and content. This chip will come in the first half of 2025.

The HXD family ranges from 12 cores and 24 threads to 16 cores and 32 threads, with maximum boost frequency ranging from 5.2 GHz to 5.4 GHz. The cache ranges from 76MB to 144MB, and the TDP (power measurement) is 54W.

AMD graphics with RDNA 4

Meanwhile, AMD also showcased its RDNA 4 architecture for graphics and AI chips. It relies on improved arithmetic units, supercharged AI computation, improved ray tracing per CU, and improved media encoding quality.

AMD said the RDNA 4 architecture will be used in second-generation AI accelerators and will be built on a 4nm process. It will also be used in third-generation ray tracing accelerators and the second-generation AMD Radiance Display Engine.

AMD also said that AMD FidelityFX Supersolution 4 technology with machine learning-powered upscaling will enable high-quality 4K upscaling, high performance with FSR+FG and low latency with AMD Anti-Lag 2.

For gaming graphics, AMD offers the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and AMD Radeon RX 9070 processors. The chips will be available in Q1 2025 from Acer, Asus, Sapphire, XFX, ASRock, Gigabyte, PowerColor, and Yeston.

Mobile gaming processor

AMD also announced AMD Ryzen Z2 series processors targeting gaming laptops. It will house “console-class” games in a portable device and allow you to stay disconnected for hours to play wherever you roam.

These Z2 processors will be part of the Lenovo Legion Go, Asus ROG Ally, and Valve Steam Deck. SKUs include AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme with eight cores and 16 threads, AMD Ryzen Z2 with eight cores and 16 threads, and AMD Ryzen Z2 Go with four cores and eight threads. It will be available in the first quarter of 2024.

Artificial intelligence processors

AMD also introduced the AMD Ryzen AI Pro 300 series processors. It has the premium AMD Ryzen 9 series processor, with other processors including the AMD Ryzen AI 7 and AMD Ryzen AI 5.

AMD said the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 has the fastest multitasking performance in its class ahead of the Qualcomm X Plus X1P-42-100 and Intel Core Ultra 7 285V. It said the AMD Ryzen AI 7 has the world’s best performance in next-gen AI PCs running the Windows NPU in Procyon AI.

It also has a battery life of up to several days for mobile apps. The family is available in the first half of 2025.

AMD also revealed the Halo series, with AMD Ryzen AI Max+ and AMD Ryzen AI Max processors. These contain up to 16 Zen 5 performance cores, 40 RDNA 3.5 compute cores, 50 TOP cores with XDNA 2 NPU, and 256 GB/s bandwidth in a new memory interface.

The company said the performance of the Ryzen AI Max series will be up to 402% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V. Graphics performance will be 251% better. It also said that 3D display performance will be better than the Apple Mac M4 Pro.

It will be the world’s first Copilot+ PC processor to run the 70B LLM with 2.2x better performance than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 24GB and 87% lower power consumption. AI Max+ and AI Max Pro will be available in the first half. Among the devices that will use it will be the HP ZBook Ultra G1a, HP Z2 Mini G1a, and Asus ROG Flow Z13.

More than 150 Ryzen AI designs will be released in AI PCs in 2025, including devices from Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, Mechrev, MSI, NEC and Razer, Su said.

AMD also unveiled the AMD Ryzen 200 series for mainstream consumer and business options. These chips will debut in the second quarter of 2025.

More than 100 enterprise platforms will use Ryzen Pro technology in 2025, AMD said.