AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 socket: FP11

What the Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 is

The Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 is the flagship of AMD's Gorgon Halo refresh, a 16-core and 32-thread mobile APU that AMD introduced in May 2026 for high end laptops, compact desktops and mini workstations. Its 16 uniform Zen 5 cores run at 3.1 GHz and boost to 5.2 GHz, which is 100 MHz above the Strix Halo flagship at both ends of the range. Behind the cores sit 16 MB of L2 cache and 64 MB of shared L3 cache, with a 32 MB MALL cache beside the graphics engine, all built on TSMC 4 nm FinFET process technology.

Graphics is the reason the Halo package exists, and the 495 carries the full configuration in the form of Radeon 8065S graphics with 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units at up to 3000 MHz. An XDNA 2 NPU rated at up to 55 TOPS sits beside the graphics engine, and AMD rates the whole chip at up to 131 TOPS of combined throughput across CPU, GPU and NPU. The memory subsystem is a soldered 256-bit LPDDR5X interface at up to 8533 MT/s with up to 192 GB of unified memory shared by all three engines, which lets large language models stay resident instead of being copied between separate pools.

AMD sets the default TDP at 55 W inside a 45 to 120 W configurable window that the system maker selects for each chassis, from thin laptops near the low end to desktops with stronger cooling near the high end. The maximum junction temperature is 100 degrees. As a PRO part it also carries AMD PRO Technologies for manageability and security, including DASH support and Memory Guard, which matter to IT departments that buy workstations in volume and manage them over several years.

Socket and motherboard compatibility

The Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 is soldered to its board in the FP11 ball grid array and cannot be replaced, removed or upgraded in the field. The 2,077-ball joint is made once at the factory on a 37.5 × 45 mm substrate, so the choice of SKU, memory size and thermal design is final at purchase and lasts the service life of the machine.

AMD lists the form factor as Laptops and Desktops, and the first announced systems show what that means in practice. Framework has shown a Desktop configuration built around this chip with up to 192 GB of soldered memory and about 273 GB/s of bandwidth, while MINISFORUM has teased the MS-S1 MAX-P495 mini workstation with the same processor and up to 192 GB of unified memory. GMKtec has positioned a compact AI desktop around the new PRO series as well. AMD has said OEM systems based on the 400 series would start shipping in the third quarter of 2026, so early boards arrive months after the May introduction.

There is no chipset choice in the desktop sense and no socket retention to consider. Each board is designed around a fixed SKU with firmware that knows that SKU, soldered memory and a thermal solution sized for the configured TDP. Moving between the 495 and its 12-core or 8-core relatives therefore means a different board build, not a settings change, and moving to any other platform means a new machine.

Memory, PCIe and cooling

Memory is soldered LPDDR5X on a 256-bit bus, which is eight 32-bit channels feeding one unified pool shared by the CPU cores, the 40 graphics compute units and the NPU. On this Gorgon Halo flagship the interface runs at up to 8533 MT/s with configurations to 192 GB, half as much again as the 128 GB ceiling of the Strix Halo consumer parts. Up to 160 GB of that pool can be assigned as graphics memory in suitable systems, which is what lets a single compact machine hold very large models locally. Speed and capacity are fixed when the board is built, so they join the processor choice as permanent decisions.

Expansion comes from the SoC itself: 16 PCIe Gen4 lanes for storage and peripherals, two native USB4 ports at 40 Gbps, USB 3.2 and USB 2.0 ports, and NVMe boot with RAID0 and RAID1 support. Display output covers HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 for up to four screens at resolutions to 7680x4320. The lanes in announced systems typically serve fast NVMe storage, networking such as 10 Gbps Ethernet and Wi-Fi 7, and sensor or capture cards, since the integrated Radeon graphics already handle display and parallel compute without a discrete card.

Cooling is a system responsibility across the 45 to 120 W configurable range, and the board needs a heatsink or cold plate validated for the TDP the maker selected plus the 100 degree junction limit. The lidless package carries a stiffener ring, and contact pressure plus interface material follow the board specification. There is no boxed cooler and no retail heatsink list for a soldered mobile flagship, so buyers should check the system thermal rating rather than any socket mounting pattern.

Upgrade paths

There is no CPU upgrade path on a soldered package, so growth means replacing the board or the whole laptop or mini workstation. Inside FP11 the step down from this flagship would be a 12-core or 8-core board build from the same Gorgon Halo family, and the step from a smaller Halo board to this 16-core part likewise needs its own board with memory and power design scaled to match. Even adding memory later is impossible, because the LPDDR5X is soldered, so capacity planning belongs at the start of the project.

Buyers who need less than Halo should look at the smaller FP8 package, which covers Strix Point and related APUs with a narrower memory bus and lower power budgets for thin laptops. Designs with long industrial lifecycles can look at the embedded side of the same silicon, such as AMD Ryzen AI Embedded X188i, which trades peak clocks and capacity for extended availability and temperature ratings. For office laptops that never touch local AI or heavy 3D work, a smaller FP8 system costs less and cools more easily than this flagship.