AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 vs Intel Core i9-12900H

AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395

The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 is a powerful Strix Halo family processor that debuted in January 2025. The APU comes with 16 Zen 5 CPU cores running at up to 5.1 GHz, the 40 CU RDNA 3+ Radeon 8060S graphics adapter and the 50 TOPS XDNA 2 neural engine. Other noteworthy features include PCIe 4, USB 4 and LPDDR5x-8000 RAM support and a whole lot of L3 cache.

Architecture and Features

Unlike Strix Point, Strix Halo parts are powered by Zen 5 cores - no Zen 5c here. It's not clear if this is the desktop Zen 5 implementation with full AVX512 throughput or the mobile one. According to AMD, Zen 5 delivers a 16% IPC improvement over Zen 4 thanks to branch prediction improvements and other refinements.

Elsewhere, the AI Max+ chip supports RAM as fast as LPDDR5x-8000, 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 had. The integrated XDNA 2 NPU delivers up to 50 INT8 TOPS for accelerating various AI workloads.

Performance

From leaks, we know that the Ryzen delivers around 20,700 Geekbench 6.3 Multi points, meaning it trades blow with very powerful desktop CPUs like the Ryzen 9 9900X.

Graphics

The Radeon 8060S is the most powerful iGPU that AMD has on offer, as of Jan 2025. It features 40 RDNA 3+ architecture CUs (2560 unified shaders) that could see it outcompeting lower mid-range desktop graphics cards like the GeForce RTX 4050. This GPU will undoubtedly run any game at 1080p on Ultra, however, the ultimate question is whether or not the cooling solution of the laptop will be powerful enough to let the iGPU shine.

Naturally, the Radeon 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 AI Max+ 395 can eat up to 120 W depending on the system and its TDP power targets, with 45 W named as the minimum TDP.

The 4 nm TSMC process that the CPU cores are built with make for decent, as of Jan 2025, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i9-12900H

The Intel Core i9-12900H is a high-end mobile CPU for laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers 6 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 20 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.5 to 5 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.8 to 3.8 GHz on the efficient cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare to the Core i7-6920HQ). All cores can use up to 24 MB L3 cache. Compared to the 12900HK, the 12900H does not offer the open multiplicator (for overclocking) but the full "Enterprise" set of vPro features (for remote management).

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5-5200, and LPDDR4x-4267. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU only supports PCIe 4.0 (x8 for a GPU and two x4 for SSDs).

The integrated graphics card is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.45 GHz.

Performance

The average 12900H in our database proves to be an outrageously fast CPU, ripping the Ryzen 9 6900HX to pieces as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. Perhaps surprisingly, the i9's multi-thread performance is not much higher than that of the Core i7-12700H, suggesting the latter might be a better bang for the buck.

With its decent cooling solution and a long-term Power Limit of 110 W, the Asus StudioBook 16 H7600ZW is one of the fastest laptops built around the i9-12900H that we know of. It can be more than 80% faster than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, depending on the circumstances.

Power consumption

The Core i9 has a "minimum assured" power consumption of 35 W, with 45 W being its Base power consumption. The CPU's maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption sits at 115 W.

The i9-12900H is built with Intel's 4th generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for lower than average, as of mid 2023, energy efficiency.