AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 Breaks Cover With Beastly Discrete-Class Radeon 8060S iGPU

When AMD revealed the Ryzen AI Max 300 series, also known by its codename "Strix Halo", there were only three models: the eight-core 385, the twelve-core 390, and the 16-core "Max+ 395". That plus sign on the "Max" in the product name is meaningful; it indicates that the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 has the complete GPU, with no less than 20 RDNA 3.5 Workgroup Processors, which equates to 40 compute units—the same number as in a Radeon RX 7700. It turns out that there are actually two newer SKUs, though--the Ryzen AI Max+ 388 and Max+ 392.


It doesn't take a genius to figure out the differences. The Ryzen AI Max+ 388 has eight Zen 5 CPU cores and the full-fat 20-WGP GPU. Likewise, the Ryzen AI Max+ 392 has twelve Zen 5 CPU cores and the same maxed-out GPU configuration. These configs, particularly the Max+ 388, are hotly desired by enthusiasts who want to use Strix Halo for a low-power gaming system, especially in a handheld form factor, as the extra CPU cores of the Max+ 395 simply don't benefit most gaming workloads, yet the extra GPU horsepower certainly could.


Strictly speaking, these chips were reported to exist as far back as August, when the well-known Golden Pig Upgrade leaked details of the then-upcoming parts. However, they were officially confirmed nearly a month ago when Chinese vendor SIXUNITED, while promoting its upcoming products, showed what clearly appears to be an AMD slide listing all of the Ryzen AI Max processors including the 388 and 392. Being as we don't read Chinese, we missed that leak back when it happened, so that's why we're reporting on it now.


Notably, a benchmark result for the Ryzen AI Max+ 388 just appeared in the Passmark database. The result itself isn't that interesting—it's similar to other 8-core Zen 5 processors, like the Ryzen 7 9700X—but it does confirm both the 8-core, 16-thread nature of the chip as well as the presence of the Radeon 8060S. We don't know if GPU clock rates vary from the Ryzen AI Max+ 395, but it seems unlikely to us. That means that we're looking at an 8-core machine with an integrated GPU that roughly matches the mobile GeForce RTX 4070—more than enough horsepower for even the latest games, like Borderlands 4, in 1080p, and able to run many games at 1440p.


The question is whether the pricing on these parts will make any sense for gaming PCs. Strix Halo is a big, expensive chip that requires more advanced packaging than AMD's usual chiplet processors thanks to the use of a denser interconnect between the CPU chiplet(s) and the cIOD-plus-GPU chiplet. Most of the extant Ryzen AI Max systems are not priced competitively with DIY desktops for a purely gaming use case. It will be interesting if this new 8-core SKU can bring pricing down without sacrificing GPU throughput.