AIM Max+ laptop aims to bring AMD Strix Halo to the sub-$1000 market

The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 “Strix Halo” processor is a ridiculously powerful mobile chip that combines a 16-core, 32-thread CPU with a Radeon 8060S 40-core integrated GPU that offers the kind of performance you’d expect from discrete graphics. There’s also an NPU that supports up to 50 TOPS of AI performance.

But these chips ain’t cheap: so far most of the PCs powered by the processor have starting prices in the $1500 to $2000 range. That’s what makes the AIM Max+ laptop interesting. According to YouTuber ETA Prime, who got a chance to test a pre-release model, AIM Laptops is hoping to start selling this notebook in October with a starting price under $1000.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the company pulled a bait and switch and actually reserved that price for a model with a less powerful Strix Halo processor like the Ryzen AI Max 385 after making models with Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chips available to reviewers.

Still, it’d be nice to see more affordable Strix Halo options. But the low price might come with some compromises.

For example, ETA Prime says that this laptop may only be available with 32GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory. While that should be plenty for most day-to-day computing tasks, and even for gaming (you can allocate up to 24GB for use as dedicated graphics memory), AMD positions this chip as an AI powerhouse… but 32GB of RAM isn’t a lot if you want to run local AI models with a lot of parameters.

And if you don’t care about AI, then you might be better off just buying a gaming laptop with a discrete GPU that will likely offer similar or better performance for a similar price.

Overall though, the laptop doesn’t look too bad. It has a 16 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel IPS display with a 120 Hz variable refresh rate and up to 600 nits brightness, two M.2 2280 slots for storage, an 80 Wh  battery, and support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

It comes with a 230W power supply, but can also be used with a 140W USB-C charger. And there’s a backlit keyboard with a number pad.

In terms of performance, the laptop can handle recent games reasonably well. You can find a few examples in ETA Prime’s video, but I found it interesting that he specifically highlighted the 3DMark Time Spy score of 8845, which means that this laptop with integrated graphics scores higher on that gaming & graphics benchmark than my Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming notebook from a few years ago, which has a Ryzen 9 6900HS processor and Radeon RX 6700S discrete graphics, but only scored 7797 in the same test.