You Need a Heap of RAM
While these chips back a lot of AI processing power, it’s not all that useful if you don’t have enough RAM to take advantage of it. As of this writing, the WIndows CoPilot+ features that need an NPU to work are still unavailable for x86 systems, but over in ARM country the minimum requirement is 16GB of RAM. If you want to run other software that can take advantage of the NPU you may need much more RAM than that.
Image Credit: AMD
Remember that these systems have unified memory, so all processors of every type share the same pool. So expect 24GB or 32GB as a reasonable target for many AI apps. Since you can’t usually upgrade the RAM on ultrabooks later, you should choose carefully at the time of purchase.
Great CPUs, Even Without the AI
Since these chips are being marketed and sold as AI chips, it’s easy to forget that they’re also normal laptop CPUs.
It turns out that these low-power ultrabook chips are decent performers with even a little light gaming possible thanks to the Radeon GPU built into the chip package.
At the same time, power consumption is low for x86 chips, though don’t expect these laptops to post the sorts of battery endurance numbers you see from ARM laptops, including the latest Windows for ARM models.
Your Next Laptop Might Have a Brain Inside
AMD seems to have a winning new series of chips on its hands, and the ultrabook category is hotter than it's ever been. Apple doesn’t have it sewn up as much as it did with the launch of Apple Silicon, and if AMD keeps innovating in this direction, we might even get some decent light-workstation systems that are as thin as MacBooks, but punch like a bigger system.
