[HN Gopher] AMD's Chiplet APU: An Overview of Strix Halo
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AMD's Chiplet APU: An Overview of Strix Halo
Author : zdw
Score : 155 points
Date : 2025-10-18 04:26 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chipsandcheese.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chipsandcheese.com)
| oDot wrote:
| I read somewhere, but can't remember where, that a major reason
| those APUs aren't as efficient as the Apple ones is a conscious
| decision to share the architecture with Epyc and therefore accept
| worse efficiency at lower wattage as a tradeoff.
|
| Can someone confirm/refute that?
| christkv wrote:
| They are ok but yeah they do not have anything like the memory
| bandwidth of an m3 ultra. But they also cost a lot less. I'm
| primarily looking to replace my older desktop but just have to
| make sure i can run an external gpu like the A6000 that i can
| borrow from work without having to spend a week fiddling with
| settings or parameters
| jeswin wrote:
| In this review, Hardware Canucks tested [1] the M4 Pro (3nm 2nd
| gen) and the 395+ (4nm) at 50w and found the performance being
| somewhat comparable. The differences can be explained away by
| 3nm vs 4nm.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7HUud7IvAo
| aurareturn wrote:
| It isn't comparable at all. In MT, maybe it is comparable
| with the M4 Pro still winning. In ST, it is 3-4x ahead of
| Strix Halo in efficiency.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| How the heck is a 3.6x faster single thread M4 Pro
| 'comparable'? Which by the way you can buy in a $600 prebuilt
| not $2500 if you can even find this unobtanium chip.
| christkv wrote:
| I love the concept of it and have been thinking about getting one
| the only problem I see right now is no ability as far as I can
| see to get an external dock to run an additional external gpu in
| the future.
| izacus wrote:
| I'm not sure what do you mean? I'm running eGPU with my Strix
| Point laptop via Thunderbolt.
|
| I've also seen quite a few mini PCs with Oculink port and Strix
| Halo CPUs.
| christkv wrote:
| I was reading people having problems getting the external
| cards working if they had a lot of memory?
| Maxious wrote:
| > In a Linux context I got some GPUs working and I can add
| some [external] GPU devices. Minis forum when I reached out
| to them said they don't officially support either via the
| Thunderbolt compatibility USB 4, USB4 v2 or even the built-
| in PCIe slot. Yeah, not technically officially supported
| and it's because of the resource allocation and the BAR
| space and they need somebody on the BIOS team to understand
| that to fix it.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvNYpyA1ZGk
|
| There are ways to manage BAR better in linux or with UEFI
| preboot environments for windows as hobbyists have been
| doing for ages due to bad BIOS support
| https://github.com/xCuri0/ReBarUEFI
| InTheArena wrote:
| Thanks for the pointer. I have been struggling to get
| either a oculink or USB4 PCIe tunnel to work with the
| framework desktop. HOpefully some clues here.
| rcarmo wrote:
| There are plenty of mini-PCs with USB4 and Oculink, and you can
| get an M.2 adapter (might be tricky to retrofit into a laptop
| though).
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| So potentially competitive with a 5070M for graphics? Sounds very
| nice, as long as price and power draw are reasonable.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Power draw is around 75W. It can be manual boosted, but will
| stay below 100W under all circumstances (from memory, as I was
| researching the Z13)
|
| The chip itself should accept higher power draws, and ASUS
| usually isn't shy on feeding 130+W to a laptop, so the 75W
| figure was quite a surprise to me.
| ivape wrote:
| I was just thinking the other day that AMD can match Nvidia pound
| for pound on the raw hardware specs, and if they don't just yet,
| they get pretty close. If AI is a bubble, then AMD should not
| catch up. If there isn't a bubble, then there is no choice but to
| learn to use whatever is out there and AMD is truly set to be
| another trillion dollar company. The 10% stake OpenAI took is
| going to look like a Google buying YouTube moment in the long
| run.
|
| And it's worth noting, AMD has always matched up with Nvidia
| hardware wise for decades, plus or minus. They are an interesting
| company in that they took on both Nvidia and Intel, and is still
| continuing to do so.
| chao- wrote:
| Comparing this against mobile dGPUs and the (finally real) DGX
| Spark, this feels like a latent market segment that has not
| arrived at its final form. I don't know what delayed the DGX
| Spark so long, but it granted AMD a huge boon by allowing them
| capture some market mindshare first.
|
| Compared to discrete GPUs (mobile or not), the advantage of a
| dGPU is memory bandwidth. The disadvantage of a dGPU is power
| draw and memory capacity--if we set aside CUDA, which I grant is
| a HUGE thing to just "set aside".
|
| If we mix in the small DGX Spark desktops, then those have an
| additional advantage in the dual 200Gb network ports that allow
| for RDMA across multiple boxes. One could get more from of a
| small stack (2, 3 or 4) of those than from the same number of
| Strix Halo 395 boxes. However, as sexy as my homelab-brain finds
| a small stack of DGX Spark boxes with RDMA, I would think that
| for professional use, I would rather have a GPU server (or
| Threadripper GPU workstation) than four DGX Spark boxes?
|
| Because the DGX Spark isn't being sold in a laptop (AFAIK,
| CMIIW), that is another differentiator in favor of the Strix
| Halo. Once again, it points to this being a weird, emerging
| market segment, and I expect the next generation or two will
| iterate towards how these capabilities really ought to be
| packaged.
| wffurr wrote:
| "dGPU" usually means "discrete GPU". Do you mean "iGPU" for
| "integrated GPU" instead?
|
| Strix Halo is also being marketed for gaming but the
| performance profile is all wrong for that. The CPU is too fast
| and the iGPU still not strong enough.
|
| I am sure it's amazing at matmul though.
| chao- wrote:
| Yes, I intended to use the term "discrete GPU" before using
| "dGPU" as a shorthand for that exact reason (in the second
| paragraph). I now see that I edited the first paragraph to
| use "dGPU" without first defining it as such.
|
| I also agree that they aren't for gaming (something I know
| little about). My comment was with respect to compute
| workloads, but I never specified that. Apologies.
| speed_spread wrote:
| As a casual gamer I'm already okay with the RTX 3050 dGPU on
| my laptop. Reports put Strix Halo at RTX 4070 level which is
| massive for an iGPU and certainly allows for 2k single screen
| gaming. Hardcore gaming will always require a desktop with
| PCIe boards.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Strix Halo is nowhere near RTX 4070 (desktop at least, not
| familiar with laptop GPUs).
| speed_spread wrote:
| Maybe there's been some selective optimization and
| careful marketing but to even be in that ballpark for
| some games now means that more is coming.
|
| https://www.techspot.com/news/106835-amd-ryzen-strix-
| halo-la...
| lostmsu wrote:
| This link is a terrible source. In one of the graphs 4060
| is faster than 4070. This speaks to the quality of
| testing.
| kimixa wrote:
| In some power constrained scenarios that sort of thing is
| often petty reproducible.
|
| Especially if the different SKUs have different power
| budgets. Laptop GPU naming and performance is a bit of a
| mess, as in the example shown (the 4060 on the Asus TUF
| Gaming A16 has a limit of 140w GPU+CPU, while the 4070 on
| the Asus Proart PX13 has 115w GPU+CPU - and even that is
| a "custom" non-default mode with 95w being the actual
| out-of-the-box limit).
|
| With wildly varying power profiles laptop graphics need
| to be compared by chassis (and the cooling/power supply
| that implies) as much as by GPU SKU.
| lostmsu wrote:
| That just proves the point about the source, right?
| AmVess wrote:
| I have one. Framework Desktop mainboard that I put into a
| larger ITX chassis and regular power supply.
|
| It's fine for 1440p gaming. I don't use it for that, but it
| would not be a bother if that was all I had.
| dismalaf wrote:
| From what I've seen the gaming benchmarks are fantastic.
| Beats the mobile 5070 for some games and settings, or
| slightly behind on others. While being very far ahead of
| every other iGPU.
|
| I have a laptop with an Nvidia GPU. Ruins battery life and
| makes it run very hot. I'd pay a lot for a powerful iGPU.
| justincormack wrote:
| Fyi its not dual 200Gb its 1x 200 or 2x 100Gb
| justinclift wrote:
| How sure are you of that? :)
|
| Everything I've seen says it's 2x 200GbE.
|
| One of many examples:
| https://www.storagereview.com/review/nvidia-dgx-spark-
| review...
| wmf wrote:
| That review says "Allows for a maximum of 200G bandwidth"
| between the two ports.
| linuxftw wrote:
| The DGX Spark seems to have one intended usecase: local AI
| model development and testing. The Strix Halo is an amd64 with
| iGPU, it can be used for any traditional PC workload, and is a
| reasonable local-ai target device.
|
| For me, the Strix Halo is the first nail in the coffin of
| discrete GPUs inside laptops for amd64. I think Nvidia knows
| this, which is why they're partnering with Intel to make an
| iGPU setup.
| InTheArena wrote:
| I think it's beyond that even - it's for local AI toolchain
| model development and testing or those people who have a ore-
| exisitng nvidia deployment infrastructure
|
| It feels like nVidia spent a ton of money here on a piece of
| infrastructure (the big network pipes) that very few people
| will ever leverage, and that the rest of the infrastructure
| constrains somewhat.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Next gen, AMD has the Medusa Halo with (reportedly) a 384bit
| LPDDR6 bus. This should get you twice the memory of what Strix
| Halo has with 1.7 times the throughput when using memory that's
| already announced, with even better modules coming later.
|
| I think with the success of Strix Halo as an inference
| platform, this market segment is here to stay.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I'm really excited and looking forward to this refresh. The
| APU spec leaks for the upcoming PS6 and XBox have some clues
| as well. My wishlist: more memory bandwidth, more GPU/NPU
| cores, actual unified memory rather than designating, more
| PCIe lanes. Of course there could be more/new AMD packaging
| magic sprinkled in too.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The saddest part of this is the lack of availability: at this
| point there's 2 standard laptops using this chip, the Z13 being
| the only high perf one. There's the Framework lines as well, but
| they aren't available in many countries, and it's a very specific
| public.
|
| And that's after half a year after the first machines to come to
| the market.
|
| I love the Z13, but it's clearly a niche machine, so I'm assuming
| they are having a really hard time manufacturing the chips ? All
| the capacity is getting eaten by Apple ?
| voidmain0001 wrote:
| HP ZBook Ultra G1a is a great option and can be bought with up
| to 128GB RAM.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Yes. It looks to be the more standard option form factor
| wise, which is a blessing and a curse.
|
| For instance they went for the standard lower resolution
| display (1920x1440 for 14" vs 2560x1600 for 13" on the Z13).
| The thermals also looked better on the Z13, which comes
| partly with the form factor, partly with Asus optimizing for
| that for so many years.
|
| Of cours the Z13 keyboard is meh, I expect most owners to
| have it detached 90% of the time and handle the machine more
| like a standalone screen/touch/pen input.
| ThreatSystems wrote:
| Cognisant US pricing for the HP Z Book Ultra was astronomical,
| within the EU it's on par with standard laptops and to good
| effect. The only regret I have is ordering on release day and
| not wanting to wait for the 128gb version; but battery life and
| power has remain unmatched to any of the pretty large workloads
| I have thrown at it!
|
| Outside of laptops, Beelink and co. are making NUCs with them
| which are relatively affordable!
|
| I do agree, the scarcity has limited their opportunity to
| assess the growth opportunity.
| green7ea wrote:
| I also have one with 64gb -- best laptop I've ever used :-).
| I have the same regret of not waiting for the 128gb version
| to be available before buying.
| wmf wrote:
| Beelink, GMKtec, Minisforum, Corsair...
| dontlaugh wrote:
| You can't even buy the Z13 with more than 32 GB in most of
| Europe and certainly not with the 2-3 years of warranty most
| employers require for hardware they purchase.
|
| I'm annoyed that I'll probably have to pick a Framework 13 with
| less CPU and much less GPU merely because of availability.
| mumber_typhoon wrote:
| I wonder if higher TDP is possible with framework desktop. That
| one probably has much better cooling than these laptops with the
| same chip and if numbers are different.
| AmVess wrote:
| I haven't tested the power draw, but I have the mainboard from
| Framework that I put into a larger ITX case for better cooling.
|
| My main PC is a 7950X3D which has the same core count/threads
| as the Strix unit, and the Strix benches within margin of error
| as the 7950X3D. Which is to say the performance is the same.
|
| That you can get the same computer power in a laptop is crazy.
| rcarmo wrote:
| I would love to try out one of the mini-PCs that ship this, but
| they seem to be made of either platinum (hugely overpriced in EU)
| or unobtainium (no retailers carry them here, and getting
| something direct from China is dicey warranty-wise). ROCm 7 looks
| to be working already under most Linux distros and having this as
| a workstation with a local LLM or a "home inference server" with
| Ollama and a few services seems like a great solution.
| dangus wrote:
| ROCm is making great progress but I've had enough hiccups
| (desktop with RX9070XT) that I'd still recommend those looking
| for AI capability to continue using an Nvidia or Apple solution
| for the time being.
|
| Still, I think it'll be quite equivalent soon.
|
| I think one of the best AI systems in terms of
| price/performance is still just to build a desktop with dual
| RTX 3090's (of course you'll need an board that supports dual
| cards) and toss it in a closet.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| It depends on what you are doing. A lot of people who want to
| do local inference want to do it using much larger models
| than what can be fit onto a RTX3090, and Strix Halo is such a
| hit because it gives you reasonable (not great, but good
| enough to not be outright painful) performance with 128GB of
| memory.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Also, Vulkan is great, and much more stable. Plus tends to
| work great for new, and even very old, graphics cards.
| dismalaf wrote:
| At this point Vulkan will just take over. AMD and Intel are
| fumbling ROCm and SYCL, whereas Vulkan already ships nearly
| everywhere.
| almostgotcaught wrote:
| > ROCm is making great progress
|
| is the progress in the room with us?
| cpburns2009 wrote:
| Have you looked at Corsair's AI Workstation 300 Desktop PC? [1]
| It's 2000-2700 EURO depending on model, and taking VAT into
| consideration it's comparable to the 1700-2300 USD pretax
| prices.
|
| [1]: https://www.corsair.com/eu/en/c/ai-workstations
| rcarmo wrote:
| No, but it falls into the platinum side of the equation. I
| can rent a cloud GPU for a few hours a month and come out
| ahead.
| overfeed wrote:
| If the economics don't work out, perhaps this product is
| not for you and you're better off renting.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| I don't think there's any computer hardware that is now
| economical to buy and use a couple hours a month than to
| rent
| hau wrote:
| I generally agree with gp. Checkout with your link says "This
| item is currently on pre-order" btw. Retail mini-pcs are
| somehow harder to obtain than general purpose ones.
| mandelken wrote:
| I ordered the framework desktop 395 - 128Gb edition for just
| under 1900 eur. With some extras I paid just over 2000 incl
| shipping to EU. Didn't feel overpriced to me.
| erinnh wrote:
| I looked just now and it cost 2500 euro without any storage.
|
| Was it on sale or something?
| mandelken wrote:
| Huh, indeed, above 2300 eur now. I made a deposit earlier
| this year and it shipped in August, didn't see the price
| increased.
| nexle wrote:
| High Yield has a video that deep dive into the 395 chip on the
| silicon level: https://youtu.be/maH6KZ0YkXU
| InTheArena wrote:
| I picked up a framework desktop and am running it through it's
| paces right now. So far, it's a impressive little box. I'm really
| hopeful that this continues to drive more and more enthusiast
| support and engagement. Getting strong vulcan or rocm supported
| infrastructure would be great for everyone.
| runjake wrote:
| Related question: Can I buy a desktop Zen 5 CPU and something
| like an RX 7600 XT and some RAM and have a high shared memory
| bandwidth situation between the system memory and the GPU ala
| Strix Halo and Apple Silicon without spending a ton of money?
|
| And get pretty reasonable local LLM performance on some of the
| larger models for hobbyist use?
|
| Edit: I don't have a good grasp on this but I'm thinking I can
| only do shared memory when I'm using an APU and not a discrete
| GPU. Is this correct?
| Rohansi wrote:
| No, memory is not "unified" when you have a physically separate
| GPU. In that case memory is accessed through the PCIe bus which
| will be a significant bandwidth bottleneck. PCIe tops out at
| 64GB/s for 16 lanes of PCIe 5 and not all GPUs support that.
| dzonga wrote:
| how does the gpu compare though to the ones in m-series macs ?
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