AMD at CES 2026: Ryzen Max and 9850X3D Cement High-End Gaming Dominance

AMD has officially set the stage at CES 2026 by placing a massive wager on the future of AI-driven hardware. With the debut of the Ryzen Max, enthusiasts are seeing a significant leap in how gaming rigs and everyday workstations might operate. This launch marks a pivotal moment for the PC industry as it adapts to a new era of intelligent processing.

While Intel and Qualcomm arrive at CES 2026 loudly championing their latest processors for ultra-thin portables, AMD is taking a more composed route to the event, quietly rolling out a diverse collection of silicon for mobile, desktop and gaming hardware. Headlining this release is the Ryzen AI 400 family, which is slated to appear across a wide range of notebooks throughout the exhibition.

The Quiet Arrival: AMD's Calculated Entry at CES 2026

Following the path set by the 300 series in 2024, these AI 400 chips are built to drive the current wave of Copilot+ PCs. Utilising the Zen 5 microarchitecture, the line-up reaches its peak with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 475, a component boasting 12 cores and 24 threads. With a boost clock of 5.2GHz, AMD claims this processor offers a modest step-up in handling concurrent tasks compared to its predecessor.

Rather than featuring the latest RDNA 4 architecture—which excludes native support for the 'Redstone' upscaling technology—the integrated graphics on this silicon rely on 16 RDNA 3.5 cores running at a 3.1 GHz boost frequency.

This flagship processor features a Neural Processing Unit capable of 60 TOPS—or trillions of operations per second. Since this figure is a theoretical estimate that only loosely reflects real-world AI performance, it is best not to dwell on how it stacks up against the 80 TOPS found in the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2.

For the majority of consumer portables, the standard will likely be the Ryzen AI 7 450, which offers eight cores, a 5.1GHz clock rate and 24MB of cache alongside a 50 TOPS NPU.

The Ryzen AI Max Wildcard

On the whole, this represents a modest refinement of a core AMD product line. While the manufacturer claims these x86 processors enable 'multi-day' battery endurance, actual results will vary across different hardware configurations.

Most of these components are expected to populate this year's collection of slim notebooks, yet the Ryzen AI+ Max series stands out as the real dark horse for 2026. These premium accelerated processing units significantly extend graphical power beyond what is typically expected from an integrated solution.

AMD's newest Ryzen AI Max silicon is emerging as an unexpected favourite for gamers. This line-up features the Ryzen AI Max+ 392 and Max+ 388, with the latter being an eight-core, 16-thread processor that surprisingly retains the full 40 graphics compute units typically reserved for the flagship Max+ 395.

Gizmodo has already extensively tested this APU in the Framework Desktop and on hardware like the Asus ROG Flow Z13, finding its graphics performance particularly impressive. These results prompted Kyle Barr, Gizmodo's staff reporter, to question AMD about whether the 388 was specifically designed for gaming.

During a virtual briefing, Rahul Tikoo, AMD's senior VP of client business, informed Gizmodo that 'the 388 is an eight-core chip that's really targeted for gamers.' The manufacturer suggested that 2026 will see a wider variety of gaming hardware powered by these potentially more affordable Max processors.

Such an APU presents an appealing option for portable gaming consoles or other compact builds. It is easy to envision a device similar to a Steam Machine utilising these specifications to handle gaming at 1440p or even 4K resolutions.

A New Gaming Benchmark

Regarding premium gaming desktops, AMD has introduced a successor to the component previously hailed as the standout processor of 2025. Aligning with prior rumours, the company is refreshing the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with the newly unveiled Ryzen 7 9850X3D.

This latest iteration retains the established eight-core Zen 5 architecture and stacked 3D cache, yet increases the boost frequency to 5.6GHz from the original 5.2GHz. While this represents a relatively minor internal shift, the chip is still poised to outperform any rival gaming silicon from either Intel or AMD's own catalogue.

AMD claims the 9850X3D delivers gaming gains reaching 32% in Cyberpunk 2077 and 27% in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Does this represent a massive leap over the 9800X3D? Likely not in every scenario, but for those seeking the absolute pinnacle of processor power for a gaming build, this is the chip that will take that spot.