AMD’s new Ryzen chipset promises faster performance, better gaming, and smarter AI

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• AMD revealed the Ryzen AI 400 series.
• The company introduced new high-gaming CPUs. 
• AMD also revealed the Ryzen AI Max+ for workstations.

At CES 2026, AMD unveiled its upcoming next-generation of processors and new AI-powered software, all set to improve your workflow and gaming experience. The centerpiece of the announcements was the Ryzen AI 400 Series, a collection of mobile CPUs designed to power many 2026 laptops. Leading the seven chipsets is the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 475, which features 12 Zen 5 CPU cores, 24 CPU threads, 16 AMD RDNA 3.5 GPU cores, and an updated XDNA 2 NPU (neural processing unit) capable of up to 60 AI TOPS.

Also: CES 2026 live blog: Latest news on TVs, AI, phones, more

AMD said the chip will deliver up to 1.3x faster multitasking and 1.7x content creation compared to the previous generations. If you’re familiar with AMD’s hardware, you may not know that the Ryzen AI 9 HX 475 has similar specifications to the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375. Just about everything is the same, apart from the NPU.

Does this mean the new processor is going to run just like the old one? No, but it won’t be a significant upgrade either.

AMD also used the show to introduce its next wave of gaming processors, led by the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. This chip packs 16 Zen 5 CPU cores, 32 CPU threads, a huge 144MB cache, and a top clock speed of 5.7GHz, making it perfect for high-end gaming. A major feature of this series is AMD FSR Redstone, a new suite of AI-powered features designed to improve visual quality and frame rate. With Redstone enabled, AMD said certain games can average around 109 FPS, although support will be limited to around 200 titles.

Also: The 4 most exciting CES products you can buy right now

For the final bit of hardware news, AMD announced the Ryzen AI Max+ Series, a new class of processor meant for workstations and content creators. The flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 includes 16 Zen 5 CPU cores, 32 CPU threads, 40 AMD RDNA 3.6 CPU cores, and an NPU capable of hitting 50 AI TOPS. Computers with this chipset can prove to be serious rivals to the M5 MacBook Pro. AMD said a laptop housing the Max+ 395 will deliver up to 1.8x faster multitasking, nearly double the content creation performance, and 1.4x faster AI workloads compared to Apple’s machine.

Alongside the hardware, AMD revealed several AI-powered features, including a Personal AI Finance Manager, Liquid AI for building custom local models, and expanded support for AMD ROCm to improve LLM (large language model) performance. 

Ahead of CES, a leak surfaced hinting at AMD’s plans for the event. There was some correct information, like the announcement of the Ryzen AI 400 series, but some were a no-show, such as the Ryzen 9000G desktop APUs (accelerated processing unit). Although none of the leaked hardware appeared, it’s possible that they could show up later in the year.