What just happened? The new Ryzen AI 9 365 and AI 9 HX 370 chips are generating a lot of buzz for bringing solid performance and efficiency gains over their predecessors as well as the competition. But a new 'hypothetical' benchmark now shows how well the flagship AI 9 HX 370 could perform in a gaming handheld form factor if given the chance.
The first hints of the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370's gaming prowess came last month when leaked benchmarks showed its integrated Radeon 890M iGPU trading blows with discrete GPUs like the RX 580 and GTX 1070 in OpenCL and Vulkan tests. Of course, those numbers were likely at the chip's full 54W TDP. The real test is how it handles the power constraints of a portable device.
Thanks to AMD APU Gaming on YouTube, we now have a glimpse of the Strix Point chip's handheld gaming chops at 1080p when capped at just 17W TDP – and the results pretty much speak for themselves.
In demanding titles like Doom Eternal, the 370 maintained a buttery smooth 60fps experience on high settings, albeit with dynamic resolution scaling enabled. Without that, it likely would have still pushed over 45fps, which is more than playable. Maxed out versions of GTA V and F1 2023 also breezed past 60fps and 50fps bars respectively.
The APU didn't break a sweat running God of War either, consistently hitting over 40fps. It even managed a playable performance of 30-40fps in more graphically intense games like Resident Evil 4 at high and Red Dead Redemption 2 at medium settings.
Most impressively, it delivered a consistent 30fps experience on the super-demanding Hellblade 2, which was released only in May. Those framerates were registered at a mix of high/medium settings and with FSR upscaling.
Again, these numbers are just simulations, but they illustrate the AI 9 HX 370's immense potential in actual handheld consoles. Things start to look even more impressive when you realize that AMD APU Gaming was clearly aiming to achieve the best possible visuals over sheer framerates with these tests.
Reviews for handhelds like ROG Ally X observed that games can't come close to using its 120Hz panels to the fullest. But once the 370 hits the handheld gaming market, toning down the graphics settings should let you achieve framerates to match across many AAA titles… except maybe Hellblade 2.