AMD’s Strix Point CPUs for Copilot+ PCs aren’t even out, but their rumored names are already confusing everyone
AMD turns it up to 300
AMD’s Strix Point processors are important for AMD – key, even, as they are laptop chips that’ll serve as the engine for Copilot+ PCs – but if the rumor mill is anything to go by, one thing Team Red can’t settle on is a name.
This new leak on Strix Point comes from Golden Pig Upgrade, a regular on the hardware spillage scene. As VideoCardz noticed, over on Bilibili the leaker claims that AMD has now renamed its top-end Strix Point CPUs as Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the 365.
So, aside from being hopelessly clunky in our books – a five-part name in effect – this is now the Ryzen AI 300 series we’re looking at, when previously AMD was going to call them Ryzen AI 100.
And remember, before that, they were either Ryzen 8000 or Ryzen 9000 series laptop processors. But clearly, Team Red has decided that the name needs to reflect the AI acceleration on board Strix Point (which offers an NPU in the same ballpark as the new Snapdragon X Elite, meaning it can be used for Copilot+ PCs and their advanced AI features like Recall).
Confusion reigns
Confused? We wouldn’t blame you. As the leaker points out, this also has a rather childish aspect to it when we consider the name of Intel’s next-gen laptop CPUs with a heavyweight NPU on-board (also destined for those Copilot+ PCs). That generation is Lunar Lake, also known as Intel Core Ultra 200.
It seems that if this new rumor is right, someone at AMD was suddenly hit with a stark realization that Ryzen AI 100 and Core Ultra 200 made Intel sound ahead of the game with these next-gen mobile CPUs.
The obvious solution: Ryzen AI 300, which is clearly better than Core Ultra 200 (precisely ‘100’ better, in fact – you can’t argue with cold, hard numbers, after all).
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Okay, so yes, we can poke fun, roll our eyes, and so on, but, assuming this rumor is correct, there is a certain sad logic to the possibility. Some consumers may well be swayed by looking at a bigger number on the spec sheet of two similar looking laptops.
We get it, in a way, and so fair enough, AMD: go Ryzen AI 300 if that makes the marketing department happier. However, try to keep the rest of the clutter down a touch if possible, because as mentioned, we’re really not liking the feel of these rather lengthy purported five-part names.
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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).