AMD at CES 2024: Affordable GPUs and AI-Enhanced CPUs
By Eric Franklin
AMD announced a new Radeon graphics card and two new CPUs at CES this year. The Radeon RX 7600 XT is a $329 graphics card aimed at mainstream gaming desktops. The two new CPUs include the first desktop CPU with an NPU, or Neural Processing Unit, for AI-specific calculations.
A $329 1080 Card to Hit the Sweet Spot
AMD's latest entry into the graphics card market, the Radeon RX 7600 XT, includes 16GB of GDDR6 memory and is designed to handle games smoothly at up to a 1440p resolution. This is an upgraded version of the previously released Radeon RX 7600. The new card features AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution and is compatible with AMD's FSR 2 and 3, which are upsampling methods that attempt to keep framerates high, while delivering high-quality game visuals.
According to Steam survey data via AMD, the Radeon RX 7600 XT "outperforms rivals in select 1080p games by up to 1.9 times" in some of the more popular games of 2023, like Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield.
Beyond games, AMD says the RX 7600 XT will also take advantage of optimizations made to its video encoding pipeline and should deliver higher resolution images when encoding video. AMD also says that thanks to its 16GB of RAM, the card will be ready to take advantage of upcoming AI-based content creation applications.
The RX 7600 XT should be available on January 24 for $329.
New CPUs, One with an AI Twist
Shifting focus to CPUs, AMD's Ryzen 8000G Series desktop processors are aimed at both gaming and content creation. Utilizing the company's Zen 4 architecture, these processors attempt to balance energy efficiency with performance, supporting up to eight cores and 16 threads.
The Ryzen 7 8700G, the series' flagship, features 24MB of Cache, and integrated Radeon 780M graphics. The 8700G marks a significant development in desktop CPU technology, featuring the first-ever NPU on a desktop CPU, called Ryzen AI, aimed at improving efficiency and productivity in AI-assisted tasks.
OEMs like Acer, Lenovo and Razer unveiled several products using AMD's 8040 Series processors. Ranging from gaming laptops to productivity laptops, these new devices will take advantage of the extra AI computing power of the 8040, as it, too includes an NPU on chip.
Lastly, AMD is extending its Ryzen 5000 Series with four new processors, including the Ryzen 7 5700X3D. Based on Zen 3 architecture, with AMD 3D V-Cache technology, the processor promises improved gaming performance, and should cater to both high-end gaming and multitasking needs.
AMD's announcements at CES 2024 reflect how the company demonstrated its dual focus on pushing the envelope in desktop computing and maintaining a lineup of reasonably priced GPUs for the consumer market.
