The best AI hardware was thus introduced at Computex 2024, and these are it.
Lunar Lake, Intel
2024 has been a big year for laptop chips. With the release of Intel’s first NPU and chiplet design in December 2023, the corporation comfortably navigated into 2024 with the launch of its most recent generation of laptop CPUs, Meteor Lake. When Microsoft launched its Copilot+ AI PC platform at the same time as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite CPUs, the company jumped at the chance to take the lead.
The Snapdragon X Elite is also making its way to desktops!), but Intel’s new Lunar Lake laptop chips have taken some of the limelight away from Qualcomm. These chips promise significant improvements to integrated graphics, faster CPUs, faster NPUs, and significant battery life increases.
A Snapdragon X Elite chip, according to Intel, will process data in Stable Diffusion 1.5 1.4 times faster than a Lunar Lake chip. Additionally, the Lunar Lake NPU is expected to produce around 40 TOPS (tera operations per second), a significant increase over the 10 TOPS produced by its Meteor Lake chips.
The most intriguing Lunar Lake update, aside from AI, is completely integrated memory. Specific memory chips will not be included in the Intel Lunar Lake shipment. Rather, Intel will incorporate 16 or 32GB of memory into the architecture of the processor, which will increase efficiency and free up space.
Laptops with Nvidia GeForce RTX AI
Since Nvidia is the top producer of GPUs worldwide, it is in a great position to benefit from the global shift to expensive AI processing technology. Nvidia is now promoting services that maximize its Tensor cores with the launch of a new line of laptops under the “GeForce RTX AI” moniker.
Asus’s TUF A14 and A16 gaming laptops, ProArt PX13 and PX16 laptops, and the upgraded ROG Zephyrus G16 are among the latest GeForce RTX AI models. Acer, Dell, Gigabyte, Lenovo, Samsung, and other laptop manufacturers will soon release further models sporting the RTX AI logo, in addition to the recently released MSI Stealth A16 Studio.
While Nvidia’s GeForce RTX AI adds additional capabilities like Nvidia’s Project G-Assist, RTX Remix, Nvidia ACE, RTX Video, and more, the newly released RTX AI models are all Windows Copilot+ laptops.
Interestingly, Nvidia promises that its RTX AI will outperform other AI-enabled PCs and laptops, with up to 686 TOPS (as opposed to Lunar Lake’s 40+ TOPS). Nvidia credits its potent GPUs for the significant gain, whereas integrated AI chips like the Snapdragon X Elite and Lunar Lake are still constrained by CPUs.
Ryzen AI 300 AMD
Not to be outdone by Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Intel, AMD debuted their eagerly anticipated AI chips at Computex 2024. These chips are based on the company’s brand-new Zen 5 architecture—another AMD improvement that we have been eagerly anticipating.
Beginning at the top, AMDD states that the XDNA2 NPU in its new Ryzen AI 300-Series laptop CPUs will surpass both Lunar Lake and the Snapdragon X Elite by delivering up to 50 TOPS. Like Lunar Lake, though, the actual tests will occur when these chips are eventually released; thus far, only Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite has undergone field testing.
However, it indicates that a new generation of AMD AI-powered laptops is on the way. These laptops will be powered by the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, which has 12 Zen 5 cores and a maximum boost frequency of 5.1 GHz, or the Ryzen AI 9 365, which has 10 Zen 5 cores and a maximum boost clock of 5.0 GHz.
