No doubt about it, AMD had a very good year. Our recap of AMD's highs, lows, and head-scratching moments of 2024 doesn't reveal too many mistakes. At times, Intel stumbled through 2024 like someone coming home from the pub on Christmas Eve. But AMD was steady, reliable, and mostly dependable. See if you agree with us as we walk through the best and worst of AMD's 2024, as we've done (or will do) for Microsoft, Google, and Intel.

Intel's new Arrow Lake architecture, aka the Core Ultra 200S series, brings AI capabilities onto Intel desktops. But the chip doesn't use the Copilot capabilities of Intel's mobile Lunar Lake chip -- its designers used the older NPU found on Meteor Lake instead. For now, this means that if you buy an Arrow Lake chip, you won't be able to use it with some of the new AI enhancements found within Windows 11's 2024 Update, like generative AI and the controversial Recall function. Arrow Lake's optimized NPU 3 only provides 13 TOPS, while Microsoft set 40 TOPS as the bar for Copilot status. Intel still plans to ship more than 40 million AI PCs in 2024, using the vaguer "AI PC" definition that accompanied the launch of Meteor Lake.

Intel's new Arrow Lake architecture, aka the Core Ultra 200S series, brings AI capabilities onto Intel desktops. But the chip doesn't use the Copilot capabilities of Intel's mobile Lunar Lake chip -- its designers used the older NPU found on Meteor Lake instead. For now, this means that if you buy an Arrow Lake chip, you won't be able to use it with some of the new AI enhancements found within Windows 11's 2024 Update, like generative AI and the controversial Recall function. Arrow Lake's optimized NPU 3 only provides 13 TOPS, while Microsoft set 40 TOPS as the bar for Copilot status. Intel still plans to ship more than 40 million AI PCs in 2024, using the vaguer "AI PC" definition that accompanied the launch of Meteor Lake. Arrow Lake is the not the first desktop PC architecture to include an NPU for AI.

The PC industry is currently obsessed with power efficiency, long battery life, and AI. But who's going to stand up for the people who want raw performance and don't care about anything else? That performance advocate could be you, AMD. You've got what it takes. So dig out that bomber jacket, put on those aviator shades, and lean in.

AMD today launched its most recent generation of business processors for business PCs, the Ryzen Pro 8000 series, for both desktop and laptops. For now, AMD will be the only CPU vendor offering AI-powered NPUs in business desktop PCs. AMD's launch arrives on the heels of Intel's 14th-gen vPro platform, which also offers desktop and mobile parts. The difference is that Intel launched its vPro refresh based upon the "Raptor Lake Refresh" architecture, which lacks AI; AMD's Ryzen Pro 8000 series is relatively consistent across both its mobile and desktop offerings. However, not every new Ryzen Pro 8000 mobile or desktop chip includes AI support.

Acer is refreshing its Swift Edge 16 and Swift Go 14 laptops, showcasing one of the first instances of AMD's latest Ryzen 8000 mobile family of processors as well as a new AI app which Acer is preloading on the PCs. Acer will shift its updated Swift Edge 16 beginning in March, for 1,299 and up. Acer's Swift Go 14 with the latest Ryzen chips inside will cost 699 and up, and will ship in April. Acer's Swift Edge 16 shipped last year with the older Ryzen 7840U inside. PCWorld's Swift Edge 16 (2023) review assigned it four out of five stars, praising its inky black display, strong performance, and light weight, but frowning at its plasticky construction and keyboard.

AMD may have just launched the Ryzen 8000 series of mobile processors, but company executives confirmed that its next mobile processor, Strix Point, will make the leap to the next-generation Zen 5 architecture. The disclosure was made by Dr. Lisa Su, AMD's chief executive officer, during the company's fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report. They reported a net income of 667 million, up 3,076 percent from 21 million in profits a year ago. Revenue climbed 10 percent to 6.168 billion. AMD launched its Ryzen 8000 mobile lineup in December and Su said Tuesday that the chips will begin shipping in notebooks in February.

Turnabout is fair play: At CES 2024, AMD launched desktop versions of its mobile Ryzen 8000 processors, bringing AI to the desktop alongside integrated graphics. And for AMD fans who aren't quite ready to make the leap to AMD's AM5 socket, whoa! There are new Ryzen 5000 desktop chips as well. AMD's launch adds four new Ryzen 8000 G-series processors to AMD's lineup. These are APUs, AMD's desktop chips that combine integrated graphics alongside the CPU die -- in this case, the RDNA 3- based Radeon 780M, Radeon 760M, and Radeon 740M that we saw integrated in the AMD Ryzen 8040 (8000) series chips AMD announced this December. All of the new Ryzen 8000 and 5000 chips will be available on Jan. 31.

AMD announced the Ryzen 8040 series of laptop processors at the company's AI-themed event, reframing what has been a conversation about CPU speed, power, and battery life into one that prioritizes AI. In January, AMD launched the Ryzen 7000 family, of which the Ryzen 7040 included the first use of what AMD then called its XDNA architecture, powering Ryzen AI. (When rival Intel disclosed its Meteor Lake processor this past summer, Intel began referring to the AI accelerator as an NPU, and the name stuck.) More than 50 laptop models already ship with Ryzen AI, executives said. In AMD's case, the XDNA NPU assists the Zen CPU, with the Radeon RDNA architecture of the GPU powering graphics. But all three logic components work harmoniously, contributing to the greater whole.