AMD has announced that it has started shipping nine new mobile processors as part of the 8040 series* called “Hawk Point,” just nine months after it did so with the 7040 “Phoenix” series, but that's not the biggest news from yesterday's announcement.
Hawk Point appears to be just a stepping stone to Strix Point, which will launch in less than a year (shipping in 2024) and will feature a “next generation NPU for generative AI.”
Phoenix delivers 10 NPU TOPS for a total of 33 TOPS, Hawk Point adds a more powerful NPU (60% faster, 16 NPU TOPS/39 total TOPS), while Strix Point promises more than 3x generative AI NPU performance compared to Phoenix, thanks to the new XDNA 2 technology.
So that's at least 31 NPU TOPS for a total performance of at least 54 TOPS (but probably much more since Strix Point will likely introduce a new Zen architecture). Some serious firepower that could pave the way for transformative experiences and use cases at the edge.
Even as a transition platform, Hawk Point is significantly faster than the previous generation; AMD claims improvements of up to 40% on Llama 2 and Vision models, based on testing conducted in April 2023 (yes, April) and with two systems based on the Ryzen 9 7940HS system and the Ryzen 7 8840HS respectively.
AI mobile powerhouse
Small prints in AMD's marketing slides note that this is a projection from AMD's engineering staff and not an actual benchmark, so expect the numbers to vary depending on market conditions (i.e. how aggressive nemesis Intel is). Furthermore, we don't know exactly what parameters AMD used to measure AI performance. That keeps us from making direct apples-to-apples comparisons with other rivals.
The focus on AI underlines AMD's obsessive focus on what the company calls the “future of innovation” and the “most transformative technology in 50 years” and has managed to put together one of the most compelling AI hardware product lines in the technology space. systems, ranging from the data center, all the way to the end users and the edge.
Gaming was noticeably absent from the presentation we received, with creative solutions (Davinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, Boris FX) highlighted instead.
AMD has also quietly launched a global competition Hackster.io to encourage developers to come up with innovative applications that take advantage of the AI hardware. The AMD Pervasive AI competition has a total cash prize of $155,000 across three categories (Robotics AI, Generative AI, PC AI) and four product ranges. The challenge closes on May 31, 2024 and the winners will be announced on July 15 next year.
*At the time of writing, AMD has not yet confirmed whether a tenth CPU, the Ryzen 9 8940H, was also part of the announcement.