AMD may completely dominate CES 2025

AMD might really go all out during CES 2025 this January. According to a known leaker on the Chiphell forums, AMD is readying a slew of consumer products, ranging from more X3D desktop CPUs to handheld chips and RDNA 4 graphics cards. Here’s what we have to look forward to.

The tantalizing bit of gossip comes from Zhangzhonghao, a leaker who’s been known to discuss new releases ahead of time. Starting with laptops, AMD is reportedly set to release next-gen Kraken (or “Krackan” as referred to by this leaker) Point APUs alongside Ryzen AI Max (or Strix Halo), and lastly, Fire Range CPUs.

That’s a lot of different product ranges, so for a quick refresher, Kraken Point is expected to be the successor to AMD’s current Ryzen 8040 series. Leakers claim that it’ll come with up to four standard Zen 5 cores and four Zen 5c cores as well as RDNA 3.5 graphics with up to eight compute units (CUs).

Strix Halo processors are more on the high end of the scale, and AMD may launch three laptop CPUs to start with, all under the Ryzen AI Max umbrella: The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 with 16 cores, the Ryzen AI Max 390 with 12 cores, and lastly, the Ryzen AI Max 385 with eight cores. All of them will offer built-in RDNA 3.5 graphics. Fire Range is the successor to Dragon Range and will essentially be the laptop version of Zen 5 desktop CPUs, aimed at high-performance laptops for gamers. Zhangzhonghao also claims that AMD will unveil X3D CPUs for laptops at the same time.

Those on the hunt for some of the best gaming handhelds will be able to look forward to a mix of new chips, including the Ryzen Z2, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, and the Ryzen Z2G. The Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip powered many successful handheld PCs, so I’m curious to see what kind of improvements AMD will introduce with its next-gen options.