AMD: Ryzen AI Max+ that wrecks Nvidia RTX 5070, Apple M5 & Intel get two new 5GHz APUs

At CES 2026, AMD today unveiled its new Ryzen AI 400 series APUs and explained how the new parts are often much better for gaming, content creation and work than Intel. Speaking of work, alongside the new 400 series APUs, AMD today also released some new Ryzen AI Max+ APUs.

If you want a refresher, AMD launched Max+ and Max APUs at last year's CES. The lineup was pegged as an uber-productive APU series that could take on and beat out the likes of Nvidia RTX 4090, Intel Ultra, and Apple's M4.

What sets the Max/Max+ processors apart is that they have a very powerful on-board graphics as they pack up to 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units (CUs) or graphics shader cores on Max+ SKUs, and 32 CUs in case of the Max models. In contrast, the Ryzen AI 300/400 series APU lineup tops out at 16 CUs.

Also, the CPU part packs four more cores with 16 compared to 12 cores on the 400/300 series. The only thing that does not quite stack up is the clocks, although in this regard to the Max/Max+ chips follow closely behind with the flagship part hitting 5.1 GHz when boosting.

Previously, AMD had released four Ryzen Max and Max+ SKUs which were the 395, 390, 385, and 380. However, the company has now added two new variants in the form of the 392 and the 388 Max+ SKUs. This means the two new models also come with 40 CUs although the rest of the core specifications remain similar.

One cool feature about the 40CU iGP on the Ryzen Max/Max+ APUs is that they can have up to 96GB of system memory all to themselves out of the total 128GB unifited coherent memory that it supports. AMD noted that this can prove quite helpful when crunching through large AI/ML data sets.

As mentioned previously, AMD has touted in the past about the capabilities of the Max models as Nvidia 4090 and Apple M4 besting chips. With this year's update, the company has reiterated on that stating that the these "AI Powerhouse" APUs are better than Nvidia's G10 Superchip- powered DGX Spark and Apple's MacBook Pro (M5). For anyone wondering, the GB10 is roughly equivalent to the RTX 5070.

Detailed performance benchmarks were also shared by AMD against the 5070-equivalent DGX Spark and MacBook Pro M5. The Santa Clara company claims up to 70% and 80% better average AI performance than Nvidia and Apple respectively.

Against Intel Core Ultra, AMD once again promises absolutely spectacular performance numbers.

Systems with the new Ryzen AI Max+ APUs will join the existing lineup of devices from various AMD partner vendors like Acer, Asus, Framework, HP, Lenovo, and lots more.

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Posted Wednesday 7 January 2026 at 6:31 am AEST (my time).

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