The two issues AMD subtly revealed at CES that really excite me

As we predicted, the world’s largest client electronics present was a little bit of a bust for players this 12 months! CES 2026 introduced us a number of neat gamepads, however barely any handhelds and no new desktop GPUs — not from Nvidia, not from Intel, and never from AMD.

But in the event you dig deep, AMD stated two issues at this 12 months’s present which might be worthy of consideration. Did you catch that the corporate’s about to make socketed cell chips once more? Or that its reply to Intel is to decrease the worth of its monster Strix Halo silicon?

Publicly, AMD barely acknowledged customers on the Consumer Electronics Show. “AMD failed us,” decried Gamers Nexus, declaring that the corporate’s keynote was nearly fully fixated on AI. Outside the keynote, the corporate’s few consumer-friendly bulletins — together with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D for gaming desktops and Ryzen AI 400 for laptops — are all retreads of current elements.

AMD additionally didn’t announce a brand new chip for handheld gaming PCs, no successor to the Z2 and Z2 Extreme it launched a 12 months in the past, whilst Intel publicly introduced plans for an “entire handheld gaming platform” and Qualcomm teased its personal handhelds for a doable March reveal.

Intel didn’t miss an opportunity to jab: “They’re selling ancient silicon, while we’re selling up-to-date processors specifically designed for this market,” Intel shopper product administration director Nish Neelalojanan told PCWorld.

Yet AMD claims these so-called “ancient” processors are greater than a match for Intel’s new Panther Lake silicon. AMD shopper chip boss Rahul Tikoo told Tom’s Hardware that AMD’s Strix Halo / Ryzen AI Max chip “will kill” Panther Lake. He stated, “It’s not even a fair fight at that point, because it’s discrete-level graphics.”

Tikoo additionally advised Tom’s Hardware that Intel’s gaming-grade Panther Lake chips is perhaps pricier than you anticipate: “And, oh, by the way, that 12 Xe [Panther Lake]… Wait until you see the price point on that. It’s gonna be, you know. Enough said.”

Price has been the issue with AMD’s Strix Halo too — each highly effective Ryzen handheld, mini desktop, and monster pill we’ve seen has value round $2,000, even earlier than the RAM crunch. But that brings me to the primary thrilling factor for players AMD quietly revealed at CES: The value of its highly effective Strix Halo programs is nearly definitely about to return down.

AMD launched two new cut-down variations of Strix Halo final week with their full-fat graphics intact; Tikoo advised us that gaming corporations particularly had been asking for elements like the brand new Ryzen AI Max Plus 388 and 392.

And once I caught up with AMD’s Jason Banta, who’s in command of interfacing with these corporations, he stated AMD genuinely expects the 2 new chips will result in decrease Strix Halo system costs, beneath $2,000 even whenever you issue within the runaway worth of RAM. (I requested the query a number of other ways to make certain of his reply.)

Banta wouldn’t inform me if the corporate has any different plans to defend its tiny handheld empire (the Steam Deck, Xbox Ally, Legion Go, and extra all use AMD chips, as do the PlayStation and Xbox) when Intel and Qualcomm come knocking later this 12 months. “We believe imitation is a great form of flattery,” is all he’d actually say. “When we’re creating the segment, innovating the segment, we expect others to enter.”

Banta isn’t afraid of Intel and Qualcomm handheld chips taking his prospects away. “What they’ve seen is we’ve proven we can execute, and not just execute: When we see a quirk with a game, we follow up, we update, we optimize. […] That has a very big influence on those design decisions for every one of these OEMs,” he stated. Banta stated AMD’s handheld enterprise continues to be rising, too, and the corporate nonetheless plans to maintain investing.

Most PC makers don’t appear able to climb aboard Intel’s handheld bandwagon simply but. If you are taking an in depth take a look at Intel’s keynote slide, the one main distributors listed are Acer and MSI, and the one boutique handheld makers are GPD and OneXPlayer, each nonetheless massive on AMD. The remainder of Intel’s companions (Compal, Foxconn, Inventec, Pegatron, Quanta, and Wistron) aren’t manufacturers, however slightly the ODM contract manufacturing companies that’ll be combating for his or her enterprise.

While I used to be chatting with AMD’s Jason Banta on the present, he introduced my consideration to at least one extra piece of stories that was easy to miss. The second probably thrilling factor for players is that AMD is making socketed cell processors once more — Ryzen AI 400 laptop computer chips that aren’t soldered down, however match right into a socket like a desktop CPU, so you’ll be able to exchange or probably even improve them sooner or later.

He stated they’ll start to look in desktops within the early a part of this 12 months, particularly focusing on Q2. Banta thinks socketed cell chips are going to unlock gaming and productiveness designs of all styles and sizes: “That socketed Ryzen AI 400, we’re expecting to see that everywhere from 1-liter designs all the way to 30-liter designs,” he says. (Mobile processors can be a good match for beefy desktop GPUs, since most video games don’t require all that a lot CPU energy at excessive decision.)

These socketed chips aren’t only for players, thoughts; it seems like they had been truly focused at AI PCs to start out. “What we’re seeing is folks that want the flexibility of the socketed design, but they want to try out Copilot Plus, they want to try out some local models that can actually leverage the NPU and run directly on that,” he stated.

When I requested if the socket means we should always anticipate upgradable laptops, Banta gently throws some chilly water on that concept. “In general, what we find is people want the thinnest system they can get, even if they’re enthusiast users,” and that each the socket itself and a socketed CPU’s built-in warmth spreader add undesirable thickness to a laptop computer.

But he appears to assume it’ll occur in mini PCs: “What we’re seeing is BGA, LGA, everyone’s experimenting in a lot of different ways within those 1-liter, 2-liter designs, things you can fit on your desk.”

While I didn’t spot a mini PC with a socketed CPU on the present, I ran into one with tiny modular desktop graphics playing cards — this Steam Machine competitor from Minisforum — and it makes me excited for a doable future the place we will improve the CPU, too. Why ought to solely bigger PCs be absolutely upgradable? The new Steam Machine isn’t, and the Framework Desktop requires you to improve an entire mainboard at a time, but it surely doesn’t must be that approach.

For that to occur, although, AMD would additionally must promote its socketed cell processors at retail the way in which it sells its desktop ones, and AMD’s not but keen to decide to that right this moment.

“What can I say… we have active partnerships with OEMs on Ryzen AI 400 socketed designs. DIY is not something we’re communicating information about at this time, so more to come later,” Banta stated.