Powerhouse integrated graphics – AMD “Strix Halo” Zen 5 APU details leak
Thermal engineer sheds light on AMD’s upcoming “Strix Halo” Zen 5/RDNA 3.5 APU
New information about AMD’s long-rumoured Strix Halo APU has come to light, an upcoming Zen 5/RDNA 3.5 powered processor that promises to deliver breakthrough integrated graphics performance. This new information comes from the thermal specialist Sam Jiun-Wei Hu, who revealed information about an upcoming ASUS gaming tablet on his website. This information has since been removed from this website.
AMD’s upcoming Strix Halo APU apparently features two CPU CCDs and a large IO die that features a powerful RDNA 3.5 based graphics component. The CPU portion of this APU can reportedly consume up to 30 watts of power, while the GPU component can consume up to 80 watts of power. In a sense, this APU is a larger, more powerful version of AMD’s Strix Point APU. It has more CPU cores, and a larger GPU.
With this new APU, AMD aims to compete with systems with discrete graphics chips. Older rumours for AMD’s “Strix Point” APU claim that AMD is targeting RTX 4070 (mobile) performance levels with this new gaming chip. That’s a lot of performance for an integrated graphics chip.
This leak confirms that this APU can be attached to up to 128GB of LPDDR5X memory over a 256-bit memory bus. This memory is also stated to be LPDDR5X-8533 memory, which should be fast enough to keep this APU’s large RDNA 3.5 GPU fed.
Nvidia and Apple should be worried by Strix Halo
AMD’s new “Strix Halo” APU should worry both Apple and Nvidia. This design allows AMD to deliver high levels of CPU and GPU performance from a single chip. That’s great news for gamers and great news for creators. Having a single, larger, chip to cool will be easier for system makers than two separate pieces of silicon. This can result in lower manufacturing costs, and quieter, cooler-running systems.
Nvidia should be worried that their discrete graphics solutions are getting targeted by AMD integrated graphics. Apple should be worried by AMD’s high levels of single-chip performance. AMD will be able to power Mac-style systems and deliver a much better gaming experience than any Mac. Let’s face it, Macs still aren’t great for gaming.
With the power of Zen 5 and a large RDNA 3.5 GPU, Strix Halo appears to be an impressive product. However, AMD hasn’t revealed Strix Halo. That means that it won’t be launching soon. That gives AMD’s competitors some time to prep their next-generation products. Will Nvidia be able to release RTX 50 series mobile GPUs soon after Strix Halo? Can Apple impress with a new generation of M-series chips?
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