AMD’s Newest Chips Are Betting Large on Avid gamers

Intel and Qualcomm are each coming to CES 2026, beating the drum onerous for his or her next-gen light-weight laptop computer CPUs. In the meantime, AMD is slipping into the celebration by the again door with its ordinary laid-back swagger, showcasing a variety of latest CPUs for laptops, desktops, and gaming-specific units. The primary on the checklist is the AMD Ryzen AI 400 collection that you just’ll discover in a metric ton of laptops at this 12 months’s showcase.

The AI 400 collection, like 2024’s 300 series, is designed to energy this era of Copilot+ PCs. They’re operating on Zen 5 CPU microarchitecture and high out with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 475 with a 12-core, 24-thread configuration. The CPU hits a 5.2GHz enhance clock, and AMD promised this CPU must be barely higher at multitasking than the earlier era. The brand new chip’s GPU isn’t packing any of the latest RDNA 4 GPU structure (which suggests no official entry to AMD’s Redstone upscaler), however as an alternative consists of 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores with a 3.1 GHz enhance clock.

The best-end CPU additionally comes with an NPU that hits 60 TOPS, which stands for trillions of operations per second. It’s a derived worth that solely vaguely approximates AI processing capabilities, so you actually shouldn’t spend an excessive amount of time evaluating it to the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2’s 80 TOPS NPU. Most chips you’ll see in laptops will max out with the Ryzen AI 7 450, an 8-core CPU with a 5.1GHz clock velocity and 24MB cache with solely a 50 TOPS NPU.

General, it’s a subdued replace to one among AMD’s most prevalent CPUs. AMD guarantees these newest x86 chips will enable for “multi-day” battery life, although the precise numbers will depend upon every laptop computer spec. We are able to already guess a majority of those chips will make their approach inside this 12 months’s slate of light-weight notebooks. Nonetheless, the actual darkish horse of 2026 could possibly be the Ryzen AI+ Max collection. There are much more of the company’s high-end APUs (accelerated processing models) which can be stressing GPU efficiency past what you usually count on from a single chip.

AMD’s newest Ryzen AI Max chips are darkish horse gaming powerhouses

That features the brand new Ryzen AI Max+ 392 and Max+ 388. The lower-end chip is an eight-core, 16-thread chip that additionally manages to pack within the 40 graphics compute models (AMD’s model of core clusters) discovered within the top-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395. We’ve had loads of expertise with that APU due to the Framework Desktop and different units just like the Asus ROG Circulation Z13. The graphics capabilities of that chip proved further attractive. That’s why I requested AMD if the 388 was engineered for gaming.

“The 388 is an eight-core chip that’s actually focused for avid gamers,” AMD’s senior VP of shopper enterprise Rahul Tikoo advised Gizmodo throughout a digital briefing. AMD implied there’ll certainly be extra gaming-related merchandise that includes these (hopefully) cheaper Max chips all through 2026. The APU could possibly be an attractive prospect for handheld gaming PCs or different light-weight designs. We are able to’t assist however think about some type of Steam Machine-like machine operating with these specs for gaming at 1440p and 4K.

As for high-end gaming desktops, AMD additionally has an replace to what we already known as the best CPU of 2025. Simply as earlier leaks suggested, AMD is pushing an replace to the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D with a Ryzen 7 9850X3D. The brand new chip makes use of the identical layered 3D cache and eight-core Zen 5 CPU structure, but it surely additionally has an upgraded 5.6GHz enhance clock in comparison with 5.2GHz. That might not be such a serious improve, although both approach it’ll nonetheless probably be higher than some other Intel- or AMD-made different for gaming.

AMD guarantees the 9850X3D pushes higher efficiency in video games upwards of 32% or 27% in titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle, respectively. Is that so a lot better than the 9800X3D? Most likely not, however in the event you’re searching for the absolute best CPU on your gaming rig, it’ll in all probability be this one.

Gizmodo is on the bottom in Las Vegas all week bringing you every thing it’s essential know in regards to the tech unveiled at CES 2026. You may comply with our CES live blog here and find all our coverage here.