Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)

[DisEnchantment]

Speculate at will

 

[DrMrLordX]

btw for those wondering:

Strix Halo laptops selling on the secondary market are almost all $2300+, with many being above $3000. In the US at least. And that's just 32GB configurations. The miniPCs are around $1400-$1600 for 64GB models and $1900+ for 128GB models. That's not counting the weaker 380 which can be had from Framework for a bit less. But really who wants the 380?

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Strix Halo laptops selling on the secondary market are almost all $2300+, with many being above $3000.

There is only one laptop from HP, the Zbook Ultra G1a. Sales must have been so low that HP simply took it off some countries (like mine).

My guess is production and shipping halted due to no sales, so the thing became a collector's item since there are so few units around.

 

[MS_AT]

My guess is production and shipping halted due to no sales, so the thing became a collector's item since there are so few units around.

Probably that is why they are being dumped in EU, where stock seems plenty except for the 395, 128GB model, which is harder to get. With prices that generally seem to compare favorably with US, seeing they include the tax.

 

[gdansk]

Actually selling for a profit an already developed chip in volume production would mean a massive flop because... it would be in a product you're personally not interested in?

$1000 handhelds are not moving millions. Only the Steam Deck is moving millions, slowly. And it isn't using anything approaching Strix Halo in cost.
Just because you want it doesn't make it a viable product for AMD to order.

Secondly, Strix Halo even when chopped needs a structural die and interposer. N48 alone - a midrange GPU - is cheaper to make and possibly more profitable per wafer for AMD than a Strix Halo sold at a cost making it viable for $1000 handhelds. I'm sure the Zen team is thrilled at the prospect of selling CCDs at Radeon margins.

But ask yourself why would AMD order more Strix Halo only to sell it at a lower price than their other products? The big IOd is a burden, not a selling point. Handhelds are not an enticing diversion for AMD. It's lower margin than making almost anything else. Consumer CPUs destroy it in profit per wafer. Then there's Epyc and MI. Since 5nm is allegedly at capacity, what would AMD prioritize?

The best move during capacity limits is to avoid the sunk cost fallacy. Make Strix Halo when someone pays a premium. But otherwise stick to high margin products with proven demand. And unsurprisingly that seems to be AMD's approach. There's a reason it shows up only in $$$$ devices currently. That's the pricing AMD wants in order to justify its production over other products. There is no salvaging Strix Halo by selling it for less until 5nm capacity frees up.

Other than scraps left over from contractually obligatated production for HP/etc being repurposed into Shenzhen specials don't count on Strix Halo handhelds. And those will be so small volume why shouldn't they go crazy and use 16/40 at an absurd price?

 

[MS_AT]

active interposer

Isn't it using InFO? so more like a passive interposer? Or maybe I am reading to much into this https://chipsandcheese.com/p/amds-strix-halo-under-the-hood

That's a sea of wires. We use fan out, we're for level fan out in order to connect the two dies. So you get the lower latency, the lower power, it's stateless.

So everything - and almost instant on-and-off stateless - because it's just a sea of wires going across.

I think similar concept was used in RDNA3 DT parts.

 

[gdansk]

Isn't it using InFO? so more like a passive interposer? Or maybe I am reading to much into this https://chipsandcheese.com/p/amds-strix-halo-under-the-hood



I think similar concept was used in RDNA3 DT parts.

Yes, it is organic interposer with fanout. Cheap, not free but before you even responded I had corrected it in the original.

 

[DrMrLordX]

There is only one laptop from HP, the Zbook Ultra G1a. Sales must have been so low that HP simply took it off some countries (like mine).

My guess is production and shipping halted due to no sales, so the thing became a collector's item since there are so few units around.

Most of the units I see on eBay are from ASUS. As for them being "collectors items", somehow I doubt it. That's pretty rare for recent electronics. Usually what happens is that high-demand, limited run products sell for crazy prices due to supply/demand. The miniPCs, while not cheap, seem more plentiful and are also selling for more-reasonable prices.

 

[poke01]

There is only one laptop from HP, the Zbook Ultra G1a. Sales must have been so low that HP simply took it off some countries (like mine).

My guess is production and shipping halted due to no sales, so the thing became a collector's item since there are so few units around.

Its already on discounted price in Aus. the MSRP was $4,920 for this SKU which is insane

 

[MS_AT]

View attachment 127358

Its already on discounted price in Aus. the MSRP was $4,920 for this SKU which is insane

In light of previous comments about HP workstations I have read in other threads months ago, isn't it their buisness practice? Put extremely high price then discount it immediately? Either way it seems they sell seeing in few EU/UK shops they go in/out of stock frequently. The prices also seem kind of ok in EU.

 

[mmaenpaa]

There is only one laptop from HP, the Zbook Ultra G1a. Sales must have been so low that HP simply took it off some countries (like mine).

My guess is production and shipping halted due to no sales, so the thing became a collector's item since there are so few units around.

HP Zbook Ultra G1a actually is not that expensive if you really need the GPU for 3d stuff. It is the *only* 14" laptop around 1.5kg which has GPU perfomance around RTX3000ADA (which has only 8GB ram). For example if you compare those two. Halo has 77% faster MT, 64GB vs. 32GB ram, 2TB vs. 1TB ssd. 1.5kg vs. 2.2kg. And I would bet it has better battery life.

 

[poke01]

HP Zbook Ultra G1a actually is not that expensive if you really need the GPU for 3d stuff. It is the *only* 14" laptop around 1.5kg which has GPU perfomance around RTX3000ADA (which has only 8GB ram). For example if you compare those two. Halo has 77% faster MT, 64GB vs. 32GB ram, 2TB vs. 1TB ssd. 1.5kg vs. 2.2kg. And I would bet it has better battery life.

it’s priced well in Europe

 

[Abwx]

2800€ in Germany for the 395 + 64GB, 3600€ for 128GB, 19% VAT included.

Notebooks mit CPU-Familie AMD: Ryzen AI Max Preisvergleich Geizhals Deutschland

Preisvergleich und Bewertungen für Notebooks mit CPU-Familie AMD: Ryzen AI Max

geizhals.de

 

[poke01]

2800€ in Germany for the 395 + 64GB, 3600€ for 128GB, 19% VAT included.

Notebooks mit CPU-Familie AMD: Ryzen AI Max Preisvergleich Geizhals Deutschland

Preisvergleich und Bewertungen für Notebooks mit CPU-Familie AMD: Ryzen AI Max

geizhals.de

Seems the 64GB model is IPS 1200p. Which is the one to get, the OLED model has bad battery life

 

[Abwx]

Seems the 64GB model is IPS 1200p. Which is the one to get, the OLED model has bad battery life

Yes, but 128GB is cool, and people perceive OLED as a better tech than IPS.

 

[poke01]

Yes, but 128GB is cool, and people perceive OLED as a better tech than IPS.

Depends on what type of OLED. The one used by hp is crap

 

[igor_kavinski]

New image generation model for Ryzen AI NPU: https://www.amd.com/en/blogs/2025/worlds-first-bf16-sd3-medium-npu-model.html

 

[Abwx]

It exist :

GPD Win 5: First AMD Strix Halo gaming handheld revealed in official announcement

GPD has become the first company to tease a gaming handheld powered by AMD's Strix Halo architecture. Officially debuting in a few weeks, the GPD Win 5 will replace the long-running GPD Win 4 with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU and Radeon 8060S iGPU that it appears capable of cooling effectively...

www.notebookcheck.net

 

[Josh128]

It exist :

GPD Win 5: First AMD Strix Halo gaming handheld revealed in official announcement

GPD has become the first company to tease a gaming handheld powered by AMD's Strix Halo architecture. Officially debuting in a few weeks, the GPD Win 5 will replace the long-running GPD Win 4 with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU and Radeon 8060S iGPU that it appears capable of cooling effectively...

www.notebookcheck.net

For the low, low price of only $1299+. 61W of APU power in a handheld is totally ridiculous, completely absurd. Switch 2 is pulling less than 19W for the entire system in docked mode, probably half of that or less in handheld mode.

At the very least, Strix Halo in a handheld should be single CCD, dual is pointless.

 

[Thibsie]

For the low, low price of only $1299+. 61W of APU power in a handheld is totally ridiculous, completely absurd. Switch 2 is pulling less than 19W for the entire system in docked mode, probably half of that or less in handheld mode.

At the very least, Strix Halo in a handheld should be single CCD, dual is pointless.

You might as well complain about a Lamborghini drinking more gasoline than a Citroën 2CV.

As for the second CCD, I agree (although I might be wrong and it might be worth it but I doubtful it).

 

[Abwx]

For the low, low price of only $1299+. 61W of APU power in a handheld is totally ridiculous, completely absurd. Switch 2 is pulling less than 19W for the entire system in docked mode, probably half of that or less in handheld mode.

At the very least, Strix Halo in a handheld should be single CCD, dual is pointless.

Power is undoubtly scalable, and given that STH idle power is 2-3W it should largely outmatch STP at say 20W.

 

[LightningZ71]

I'm not so sure about that. STP is not heavily memory bound at 20w on mobile with good LPDDR5 ram, and it takes a lot of power to light up all the CUs on Strix Halo and it's memory controllers. You probably won't see a notable performance improvement for Strix Halo until you're at 30w or more. You finally see the CUs going fast enough to demand more memory throughput than what STP has available.

 

[Josh128]

You might as well complain about a Lamborghini drinking more gasoline than a Citroën 2CV.

As for the second CCD, I agree (although I might be wrong and it might be worth it but I doubtful it).

Not at all. If your metric is gaming perf/w, the delta is nowhere near your example...Switch 2 might actually be significantly ahead when both systems are drawing sub 10W.

 

[Abwx]

I'm not so sure about that. STP is not heavily memory bound at 20w on mobile with good LPDDR5 ram, and it takes a lot of power to light up all the CUs on Strix Halo and it's memory controllers. You probably won't see a notable performance improvement for Strix Halo until you're at 30w or more. You finally see the CUs going fast enough to demand more memory throughput than what STP has available.

At same power the 8060S is 2x faster than a 890M.

 

[Bigos]

No

 

[Abwx]

lol