The integrated GPU comes of age

Posted on February 9, 2025 at February 7, 2025 by Greg Corke

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With the launch of the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro ‘Strix Halo’ processor, AMD has changed the game for integrated GPUs, delivering graphics performance that should rival that of a mid-range discrete GPU. Greg Corke explores the story behind this brand-new chip and what it might mean for CAD,BIM, viz and more

For years, processors with integrated GPUs (iGPUs) — graphics processing units built into the same silicon as the CPU — have not been considered a serious option for 3D CAD, BIM, and especially visualisation — at least by this publication.

Such processors, predominantly manufactured by Intel, have generally offered just enough graphics performance to enable users to manipulate small 3D models smoothly within the viewport. However, until recently, Intel has not demonstrated anywhere near the same level of commitment to pro graphics driver optimisation and software certification as the established players – Nvidia and AMD.

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This gap has limited the appeal of all-in-one-processors for demanding professional workflows, leaving the combination of discrete pro GPU (e.g. Nvidia Quadro / RTX and AMD Radeon Pro) and separate CPU (Intel Core) as the preferred choice of most architects, engineers and designers.

A seed for progress

Things started to change in 2023, when AMD introduced the ‘Zen 4’ AMD Ryzen Pro 7000 Series, a family of laptop processors with integrated Radeon GPUs capable of going toe to toe with entry-level discrete GPUs in 3D performance.

What’s more, AMD backed this up with the same pro graphics drivers that it uses for its discrete AMD Radeon Pro GPUs. The chip family was introduced to the workstation sector by HP and Lenovo in compact, entry-level mobile workstations. In a market long dominated by Intel processors, securing two out of three major workstation OEMs was a major coup for AMD.

In 2024, both OEMs then adopted the slightly improved AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 Series processor and launched new 14-inch mobile workstations – the HP ZBook Firefly G11 A (read our review) and Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 (read our review).

Both laptops are an excellent choice for 3D CAD and BIM workflows and having tested them extensively, it’s fair to say we’ve been blown away by the capabilities of the AMD technology.

The flagship AMD Ryzen 9 Pro 8945HS processor with integrated AMD Radeon 780M GPU boasts graphics performance that genuinely rivals that of an entry-level discrete GPU. For instance, in Solidworks 3D CAD software, it smoothly handles a complex 2,000-component motorcycle assembly in “shaded with edges” mode.

However, the AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 Series processor is not just about 3D performance. What truly makes the chip stand out is the ability of the iGPU to access significantly more memory than a typical entry-level discrete GPU. Thanks to AMD’s shared memory architecture — refined over years of developing integrated processors for Xbox and PlayStation gaming consoles — the GPU has direct and fast access to a large, unified pool of system memory.

Up to 16 GB of the processor’s maximum 64 GB can be reserved for the GPU in the BIOS. If memory is tight and you’d rather not allocate as much to the GPU, smaller profiles from 512 MB to 8 GB can be selected. Remarkably, if the GPU runs out of its ringfenced memory, it seamlessly borrows additional system memory if available, temporarily expanding its capacity. Since this memory resides in the same physical location, access remains fast, and real-time performance in 3D CAD and BIM tools typically only drops by a few frames per second, maintaining that all-important smooth experience within the viewport.

In contrast, when a discrete GPU runs out of memory, it can have a big impact on 3D performance. Frame rates can fall dramatically, often making it very hard to re-position a 3D model in the viewport. While a discrete GPU can also ‘borrow’ from system memory, it must access it over the PCIe bus, which is much slower.

All of this means the AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 Series processor can handle certain workflows that simply aren’t possible with an entry-level discrete GPU, especially one with only 4 GB of onboard VRAM.

AMD is pushing the message that users no longer need to rely on a separate CPU and GPU. Could this mark the beginning of a decline in entry level to mid-range professional discrete GPUs?

To put this into a real-world workflow context: with our HP ZBook Firefly G11 A configured with 64 GB of system RAM, Solidworks Visualize was able to grab the 20 GB of GPU memory it needed to render a complex scene at 8K resolution. What’s even more impressive is that while Solidworks Visualize rendered in the background, we could continue working on the 3D design in Solidworks CAD without disruption.

While the amount of addressable memory makes workflows like these possible, the AMD Radeon 780M GPU does not really have enough graphics horsepower to deliver sufficient frames rates in real-time viz software such as Twinmotion, Enscape, and D5 Render.

For that you need a more powerful GPU, which is exactly what AMD has delivered in its new AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro ‘Strix Halo’ processor, which it announced this month.

AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro

The AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro will be available first in HP Z workstations, but unlike the AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 Series processor it’s not just restricted to laptops. In addition to the HP ZBook Ultra G1a mobile, HP has launched a micro desktop, the HP Z2 Mini G1a.

Although we haven’t had the chance to test these exciting new chips first hand, our experience with the AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 Series processor and the published specifications of the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro series give us a very good idea of what to expect.

In the top tier model, the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395, the integrated Radeon 8060S GPU is significantly more powerful than the Radeon 780M GPU in the Ryzen 9 Pro 8945HS processor.

It features 40 RDNA 3.5 graphics compute units — more than three times the 12 RDNA 3.0 compute units on offer in the 780M. This should make it capable of handling some relatively demanding workflows for real time visualisation.

But raw graphics performance only tells part of the story. The new Ryzen AI Max Pro platform can support up to 128 GB of 8,000MT/s LPDDR5X memory, and up to 96 GB of this can be allocated exclusively to the GPU. Typically, such vast quantities of GPU memory are only available in extremely powerful and expensive cloud-based GPUs. It’s the equivalent to the VRAM in two high-end desktop-class workstation GPUs, such as the Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada Generation.

Reports suggest the Ryzen AI Max Pro will rival the graphics performance of an Nvidia RTX 4070 laptop GPU, the consumer equivalent of the Nvidia RTX 3000 Ada Gen workstation laptop GPU.

However, while the Nvidia GPU comes with 8 GB of fixed VRAM, the Radeon 8060S GPU can scale much higher. And this could give AMD an advantage when working with very large models, particularly in real time viewports, or when multitasking.

Of course, while the GPU can access what is, quite frankly, an astonishing amount of memory, there will still be practical limits to the size of visualisation models it can handle. With patience, while you could render massive scenes in the background, don’t expect seamless navigation of these models in the viewport, particularly at high resolutions. For that level of 3D performance, a high-end dedicated GPU will almost certainly still be necessary.

The competitive barriers

The AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro looks to bring impressive new capabilities, but it doesn’t come without its challenges. In general, AMD GPUs lag behind Nvidia’s when ray tracing, a rendering technique which is becoming increasingly popular in real time arch viz tools.

Additionally, some AEC-focused independent software vendors (ISVs) depend on Nvidia GPUs to accelerate specific features. In reality modelling software Leica Cyclone 3DR, for example, AI classification is built around the Nvidia CUDA platform (read our workstations for reality modelling article).

The good news is AMD is actively collaborating with ISVs to broaden support for AMD GPUs, porting code from Nvidia CUDA to AMD’s HIP framework, and some have already announced support. For example, CAD-focused rendering software, KeyShot Studio, now works with AMD Radeon for GPU rendering, as Henrik Wann Jensen, chief scientist, KeyShot, explains. “We are particularly excited about the substantial frame buffer available on the Ryzen AI Max Pro.” Meanwhile, Altair, a specialist in simulation-driven design, has also announced support for AMD Radeon GPUs on Altair Inspire, including the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro.

AMD isn’t just playing catchup with Nvidia; it’s also paving the way for innovations in software development. According to Rob Jamieson, senior industry alliance manager at AMD, traditional GPU computation often requires duplicating data — one copy in system memory and another in GPU memory — that must stay in sync. AMD’s shared memory architecture changes the game by enabling a ‘zero copy’ approach, where the CPU and GPU can read from and write to a single data source. This approach not only has the potential to boost performance by not having to continually copy data back and forth, but also reduce overall memory footprint, he says.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

These days, no new processor is complete without an AI story, and the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro is no exception.

First off, the processor features an XDNA2-powered Neural Processing Unit (NPU), capable of dishing out 50 TOPS of AI performance, meeting Microsoft’s requirements for a CoPilot+ PC. This capability is particularly valuable for laptops, where it can accelerate simple AI tasks such as AutoFrame, Background Blur, and virtual backgrounds for video conferencing, more efficiently than a GPU, helping to extend battery life.

While 50 TOPS NPUs are not uncommon, it’s the amount of memory that the NPU and GPU can address that makes the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro particularly interesting for AI.

According to AMD, having access to large amounts of memory allows the processor to handle ‘incredibly large, high precision AI workloads’, referencing the ability to run a 70-billion parameter large language model (LLM) 2.2 times faster than a 24 GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU.

While edge cases like these show great promise, software compatibility will be a key factor in determining the success of the chip for AI workflows. One can’t deny that Nvidia currently holds a commanding lead in AI software development.

On a more practical level for architects and designers, the chip’s ability to handle large amounts of memory could offer an interesting proposition for AI-driven tools like Stable Diffusion, a text-to-image generator that can be used for ideation at the early stages of design.

Beyond the GPU

While it’s natural to be drawn to the GPU — being far more powerful than any iGPU that has come before — the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro doesn’t exactly hold back when it comes to the CPU. Compared to the AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 Series processor, the core count is doubled, boasting up to 16 ‘Zen 5’ cores. This means it should significantly outperform the eight ‘Zen 4’ cores of its predecessor in multi-threaded workflows like rendering.

On top of that, the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro platform supports much faster memory — 8,000MT/s LPDDR5X compared to DDR5-5600 on the AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 Series — so memory-intensive workflows like simulation and reality modelling should get an additional boost.

Laptop, desktop and datacentre

One of the most interesting aspects of the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro is that it is being deployed in laptops and micro desktops. This also extends to data centres as well, as the HP Z2 Mini G1a desktop is designed from the ground up to be rackable.

While the HP Z2 Mini G1a and HP ZBook Ultra G1a use the exact same silicon, which features a configurable Thermal Design Power (cTDP) of 45W – 120W, performance could vary significantly between the two devices. This is down to the amount of power that each workstation can draw.

The power supply in the HP Z2 Mini G1a desktop is rated at 300W—more than twice the 140W of the HP ZBook Ultra G1a laptop. While users shouldn’t notice any difference in single threaded or lightly threaded workflows like CAD or BIM, we expect performance in multi-threaded tasks, and possibly graphics-intensive tasks, to be superior on the desktop unit.

However, that still doesn’t mean the HP Z2 Mini G1a will get the absolute best out of the processor. It remains to be seen what clock speeds the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro processor will be able to maintain across its 16-cores, especially in highly multi-threaded workflows like rendering.

Conclusion

The AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro processor has the potential to make a significant impact in the workstation sector. On the desktop, AMD has already disrupted the high-end workstation space with its Threadripper Pro processors, severely impacting sales of Intel Xeon. Now, the company aims to bring this success to mobile and micro desktop workstations, with the promise of significantly improved graphics with buckets of addressable memory.

AMD is pushing the message that users no longer need to rely on a separate CPU and GPU. However, overcoming the long-standing perception that iGPUs are not great for 3D modelling is no small challenge, leaving AMD with significant work to do in educating the market. If AMD succeeds, could this mark the beginning of a decline in entry-level to mid-range professional discrete GPUs?

Much will also depend on cost. Neither AMD nor HP has announced pricing yet, but it stands to reason that a single chip solution should be more cost-effective than having two separate components.

Meanwhile, while the new chip promises impressive performance in all the right areas, that’s only one part of the equation. In the workstation sector, AMD’s greater challenge arguably lies in software. To compete effectively, the company needs to collaborate more closely with select ISVs to enhance compatibility and reduce reliance on Nvidia CUDA. Additionally, optimising its graphics drivers for better performance in certain professional 3D applications remains a critical area for improvement.

Furthermore, while the Ryzen AI Max Pro is expected to deliver impressive 3D performance in CAD, BIM, and mainstream real-time viz workflows, its ray tracing capabilities may not be as remarkable. And for architecture and product design, ray tracing is arguably more important than it is for games.

Ultimately, the success of the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro will depend on securing support from the other major workstation OEMs. So far, there’s been no official word from Lenovo or Dell, though Lenovo continues to offer the AMD Ryzen Pro 8000-based ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 (AMD), which is perfect for CAD, and Dell has announced plans to launch AMD-based mobile workstations later this year. AMD seems prepared to play the long game, much like it did with Threadripper Pro, laying the groundwork for future generations of processors with even more powerful integrated GPUs. We look forward to putting the AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro through its paces soon.

HP Z2 Mini G1a desktop workstation

HP is billing the HP Z2 Mini G1a with AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro processor as the world’s most powerful mini workstation, claiming that it can tackle the same workflows that previously required a much larger desktop workstation. On paper, much of this claim appears to be down to the amount of memory the GPU can address as HP’s Intelbased equivalent, the HP Z2 Mini G9, is limited to low profile GPUs, up to the 20 GB Nvidia RTX 4000 SFF Ada.

The HP Z2 Mini G1a also supports slightly more system memory than the Intel-based HP Z2 Mini G9 (128 GB vs 96 GB), although some of that memory will need to be allocated to the GPU. System memory in the HP Z2 Mini G1a is also significantly faster (8,000 MT/s vs 5,600 MT/s), which will benefit certain memory intensive workflows in areas including simulation and reality modelling. While the HP Z2 Mini G9 can support CPUs with a similar number of cores — up to the Intel Core i9-13900K (8 P-cores and 16 E-cores) — our past tests have shown that multi-core frequencies drop considerably under heavy sustained loads. It will be interesting to see if the energy efficient AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro processor can maintain higher clock speeds across its 16-cores.

Perhaps the most compelling use case of the HP Z2 Mini G1a will be when multiple units are deployed in a rack, as a centralised remote workstation resource.

With the HP Z2 Mini G9, both the power supply and the HP Anyware Remote System Controller, which provides remote ‘lights out’ management capabilities, were external. With the new HP Z2 Mini G1a the PSU is now fully integrated in the slightly smaller chassis, which should help increase density and airflow. Five HP Z2 Mini G1a workstations can be placed side by side in a 4U space.

HP ZBook Ultra G1a mobile workstation

HP is touting the HP ZBook Ultra G1a with AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro processor as the world’s most powerful 14- inch mobile workstation. It offers noteworthy upgrades over other 14-inch models, including double the number of CPU cores, double the system memory, and substantially improved graphics.

When compared to the considerably larger and heavier 16-inch HP ZBook Power G11 A—equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor and Nvidia RTX 3000 Ada laptop GPU—HP claims the HP ZBook Ultra G1a with an AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro 395 processor and Radeon 8060S GPU, delivers significant performance gains. These include 114% faster CPU rendering in Solidworks and 26% faster graphics performance in Autodesk 3ds Max.

The HP ZBook Ultra G1a isn’t just about performance. HP claims it’s the thinnest ZBook ever, just 18.5mm thick and weighing as little as 1.50kg. The HP Vaporforce thermal system incorporates a vapour chamber with large dual turbo fans, expanded rear ventilation, and a newly designed hinge that improves airflow. According to HP, this design boosts performance while keeping surface temperatures cooler and fan noise quieter.

HP is expecting up to 14 hours of battery life from the HP XLLong Life 4-cell, 74.5 Wh polymer battery. The device is paired with either a 100 W or 140 W USB Type-C slim adapter for charging.

For video conferencing, the laptop features a 5 MP IR camera with Poly Camera Pro software. Advanced features like AutoFrame, Spotlight, Background Blur, and virtual backgrounds are all powered by the 50 TOPS NPU, optimising power efficiency.

Additional highlights include a range of display options, with the top-tier configuration offering a 2,880 x 1,800 OLED panel (400 nits brightness, 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut), HP Onlooker detection that automatically blurs the screen if it detects that someone is peeking over your shoulder, up to 4 TB of NVMe TLC SSD storage, and support for Wi-Fi 7.

The competition

AMD is not the only company developing processors with integrated GPUs. Intel has made big strides in recent years, and the knowledge it has gained in graphics hardware and pro graphics drivers from its discrete Intel Arc Pro GPUs is now starting to trickle through to its Intel Core Ultra laptop processors.

Elsewhere, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips with Armbased CPU cores, have earned praise for their enviable blend of performance and power efficiency. However, there is no indication that any of the major OEMs are considering this chip for workstations and while x86 Windows apps are able to run on Arm-based Windows, ISVs would need to make their apps Arm-native to get the best performance.

Nvidia is also rumoured to be developing an Arm-based PC chip, but would face similar challenges to Qualcomm on the software front.