AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 vs AMD Ryzen 9 8945H

AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is a powerful Strix Point family processor that debuted in June 2024. The APU comes with 12 CPU cores running at 2.0 GHz to 5.1 GHz, the 16 CU RDNA 3+ Radeon 890M graphics adapter and the 50 TOPS XDNA 2 neural engine. Other noteworthy features include PCIe 4, USB 4 and LPDDR5x-8000 RAM support.

Of the 12 CPU cores, 4 are full Zen 5 cores and 8 are smaller Zen 5c cores. The latter run at significantly lower clock speeds than the former.

Architecture and Features

Strix Point family APUs are powered by Zen 5 and Zen 5c microarchitecture cores, the latter being a slightly slower, smaller and more energy-efficient version of the former. One of the differences between Zen 5 and Zen 5c is cache size; Zen 5 cores have larger caches to work with. According to AMD, Zen 5 delivers a 16% IPC improvement over Zen 4 thanks to branch prediction improvements and other refinements.

Elsewhere, the HX 370 supports LPDDR5x-8000 and DDR5-5600 RAM, and is natively compatible with USB 4 (and therefore Thunderbolt). It has PCIe 4.0 support for a throughput of 1.9 GB/s per lane, just like its 8000 series predecessors did. The integrated XDNA 2 NPU delivers up to 50 INT8 TOPS for accelerating various AI workloads.

Performance

Given the IPC improvement, we expect 4 Zen 5 cores combined with 8 Zen 5c cores to perform about as well as 16 Zen 4 cores meaning there is a real chance of the HX 370 dethroning the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D. We'll make sure to update this section once we get our hands on a laptop powered by the HX 370.

Graphics

The Radeon 890M is the most powerful iGPU that AMD has on offer right now. It features 16 RDNA 3+ architecture CUs (1024 unified shaders) running at up to 2,900 MHz. We expect the graphics adapter to deliver gaming performance good enough for playing 2023 and 2024 games in 1080p (Low detail settings).

Naturally, the 890M is capable of driving four SUHD 4320p60 monitors. It can also efficiently encode and decode the most popular video codecs including AVC, HEVC, VP9 and AV1. The latest addition to that list, the VVC codec, is not supported unlike it is with Intel Lunar Lake chips.

Power consumption

The HX 370 is supposed to have a base TDP of 28 W, with laptop makers free to crank it up to up to 54 W. Which they will most likely do to maximize performance.

The 4 nm TSMC process that the CPU cores are built with make for decent, as of mid 2024, energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 9 8945H

The Ryzen 9 8945H is a rebadged Ryzen 9 7940HS with higher clock speeds on the Ryzen AI NPU. To be more specific, this is a powerful Hawk Point family laptop chip that has eight Zen 4 cores running at 4.0 GHz to 5.2 GHz. All of its cores are SMT-enabled for a total of 16 processing threads.

Compared to the 8945HS, the H seems to be a local variant for China and offers the same specifications.

The Radeon 780M serves as the integrated graphics adapter.

Architecture & Features

Hawk Point family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Phoenix and Dragon Range family chips are. That's not to say there is no difference between the three. With Hawk Point, AMD is betting big on generative AI; these chips are promised to deliver an up to 40% increase in generative AI performance over 7040 series APUs making apps like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Photoshop even more powerful.

Unlike Zen 3, Zen 4 features AVX512 support and, thanks to a plethora of other improvements including larger caches/registers/buffers across the board, is slated to bring a double-digit IPC improvement over the former.

Elsewhere, the 8945H has 16 MB of L3 cache and support for super-fast RAM (up to LPDDR5x-7500 or DDR5-5600; no ECC support). The processor is compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt; PCIe support is limited to the 4.0 spec for a throughput of 1.97 GB/s per lane. 20 lanes are available.

OS support is limited to 64-bit editions of Windows 11 and Windows 10 and of course to Linux. Note that the chip isn't overclockable and neither is it user-replaceable as it gets soldered down for good (FP7, FP7r2, FP8 socket interfaces).

Performance

The 8945H is an R9 7940HS in disguise, so it's realistic to expect the chip to be just slightly faster than the Core i9-12900HK and also the Ryzen 7 7840HS, as far as multi-thread performance is concerned.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of your system is.

Graphics

The Radeon 780M has 12 CUs (768 shaders) running at up to 2,800 MHz. This is a very fast iGPU, as of late 2023. It will let you use up to 4 monitors with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p, and it is also capable of HW-encoding and HW-decoding the most widely used video codecs including AVC, HEVC and AV1. More importantly, it is fast enough for proper 1080p gaming as long as one is fine with low to medium detail settings.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, how competent the cooling solution of the system is, how fast the RAM of the system is (there is no dedicated VRAM here).

Power consumption

This Ryzen 9 series chip has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 35 W to 54 W, giving laptop makers a choice between longer battery life and higher performance. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for a system powered by this chip.

The 8945H is built with TSMC's 4 nm process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.