Four AMD Strix Halo SKUs with up to RTX 4070 performance were apparently pitched to OEMs in 2023

AMD is expected to officially unveil the Zen 5 CPUs at Computex 2024 scheduled for June 3rd. Alongside the Ryzen 9000 processors, chances are quite high that we will see the company’s next-generation Zen 5 and RDNA 3+ APUs, Strix Point and Strix Halo. While Strix Halo is reportedly a 2025 product, notebooks featuring the Strix Point APUs should be available to buy in H2 2024.

On the topic of Strix-based notebooks, an interesting report from Moore’s Law Is Dead has revealed the possible Strix Halo SKUs that AMD initially presented to OEMs. In early 2023, AMD reportedly pitched four different Strix Halo configurations starting from the top-of-the-line Strix Halo “Best” and going all the way down to the Strix Halo LP.

On the top end, AMD’s proposed Strix Halo “Best” featured 8/12/16 Zen 5 cores alongside a 40 Compute Unit (CU) iGPU with a 256-bit wide memory bus and roughly 270 GB/s of bandwidth. The iGPU was said to be rivaling the RTX 4070 laptop. Previous leaks have alleged that the 40 CU Strix Halo iGPU could land ahead of the desktop RX 7600 XT (Available on Amazon). Since the laptop RTX 4070 performs only 6% better than the vanilla RX 7600 desktop in the 3DMark Time Spy Graphics per our testing, the Strix Halo with its RX 7600 XT-beating performance should fair quite well against the RTX 4070 laptop GPU.

One step down the ladder, we have the Strix Halo “Better” APU which aimed to deliver RTX 4060 laptop-level performance with its 8/12 Zen 5 cores, 32 CU iGPU, 256-bit bus, and 270 GB/s of bandwidth. Additionally, AMD also put forward a Strix Halo “Good” with the same bus width, bandwidth, a lower-clocked 32 CU iGPU, and a 6/8-core CPU. However, the iGPU could also be configured with 24 CUs. The iGPU was supposedly capable enough to provide RTX 4050 levels of performance.

Finally, the Strix Halo LP or Halo 128-bit occupied the bottom of AMD’s chart with a 128-bit wide bus for 135 GB/s of total bandwidth, a 6/8-core Zen 5 CPU, and a 20 CU iGPU for “RTX 3050 perf/W class”.

In essence, if AMD has stuck to its plans, the Strix Halo could be available ranging from a low-power 6-core CPU/20 CU APU to a beastly 16-core/40 CU product. This undoubtedly provides OEMs, especially the ones considering next-gen handheld gaming systems, with a lot of flexibility.

But since the chart is from a year ago, the proposed Strix Halo SKUs have likely undergone considerable revisions. Therefore, take the information with a grain of salt.

Nevertheless, Strix Halo excites us about what lies ahead, especially regarding notebook PCs and handhelds.