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AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit

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Re: AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit

#241

Post by freedomben »

phs318u wrote: post #236
chucklenorris wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

biggest mistake was buying an amd laptop. this thing had gpu crashes from day one, and it got worse as time went on. now just playing a video and closing the lid will crash the kernel 100% of the time. amd - never again

Without further info that’s a lot to pin on the bottom layer of the stack. I have an Asus ProArt Ryzen AI HX 390 with 64GB RAM. Running CachyOS and Pop! the thing kept falling over at random times. Running Fedora workstation, it’s rock solid. YMMV.

Same, I have an all AMD framework laptop 16 with the gaming GPU, and running fedora, and it has been rock solid. I really couldn't ask for more

Re: AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit

#242

Post by anaisbetts »

kamranjon wrote: post #2

In case it saves anyone some time (from the article): "The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395(Strix Halo) processor has been available since Spring 2025 and the Halo doesn’t offer anything new on that front." It has the same 256 GB/s memory bandwidth limit as every board previously, not sure why this is even being released right now as if it's some new fangled thing - you can go get a Framework Desktop for roughly the same price…

The extremely charitable answer is that this is AMD's chance to control the built-in software, so they can ship a bunch of built-in AI stuff and a controlled environment similar to what NVIDIA does with their DGX OS, rather than e.g. Framework which is going to give you a stock Linux distro.

(I agree that you almost certainly don't need this)

Re: AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit

#245

Post by icedchai »

anakaine wrote: post #232
icedchai wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "ROCm" situation with Strix Halo was pretty bad for a while. I think it finally stabilized late last year. You needed the right combo of ROCm, Linux kernel, and kernel firmware for it to work reliably. Whenever I rebuild llama.cpp, I wind up using the Vulkan build anyway.

And thats a pretty big annoyance. You need to perfectly line up all the holes in the swiss cheese for the AMD stack to work, then their dev team kicks you in the nuts anyway. They have made a few attempts at investing in the hardware, but the software side is letting them down hard, and that part is almost entirely their own fault. They have underinvestment in their own stack, and into popular standard and Community…

Yep, it definitely wasn't an "out-of-box" experience. This was on Ubuntu 25.10. Maybe other distros are better?

Also, when you do Python work, you have to remember to install dependencies like pytorch from an alternate repo, otherwise you wind up with the CUDA versions that only use the CPU and not the GPU through ROCm.

Re: AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit

#246

Post by warmwaffles »

moffkalast wrote: post #156
cowmix wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got the EVO-X2 for $1,599! In 44+ years of buying computers, I've seen some appreciation, but nothing like this. Going from $1,599 to ~$3,500 in a year is just insane.

128GB of the most in demand chip on the planet will do that to you.

128GB of the most in demand consumer chip when all the manufacturers are switching to HBM manufacturing because the margins are far better there will do that to you. It sucks.

Re: AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit

#247

Post by gessha »

prima-facie wrote: post #237
gessha wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s about the price of a workstation-class Nvidia GPU nowadays and if you splurge double, you can get a PCIe version of a data center card.

Sure but where do you stop spending? :) https://github.com/jamesob/local-llm

Until your agents have their own PCs and a little army of agents. :)

Re: AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit

#248

Post by cyberax »

kamranjon wrote: post #226
cyberax wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not space-constrained, why go with a Framework Desktop? Just get a normal tower or a server rack computer.

One of the big benefits I’ve heard about for the framework, especially with the Noctua cooler, is that it’s virtually silent.

You can put Noctua fans in server rack computers. I even modified my NAS to use them: https://pics.ealex.net/s/noctua-fans-ftw

Re: AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit

#250

Post by sixothree »

dabinat wrote: post #62
Tenoke wrote: post #51

I really want a 128gb+ machine but it's brutal to be at only 256 GB/s for $4k (especially with the drawbacks of both ARM and AMD). I fear that by the time the RTX Spark comes out it'd have to be $6k, and by the time a 128gb or more machine with 700+ GB/s comes out it'd be at $10k, way out of most consumers' hands. Edit: capitalized gb/s to GB/s.

A Mac Studio is a much better buy in terms of memory bandwidth, but impossible to buy in a 128 GB configuration. Honestly there aren’t great options right now and it’s probably better to wait for the market to be less insane.

MacBook Pro can come configured with 128GB M5 Max.
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