A quick search into it shows that this Ryzen AI NPU's support isn't integrated into upstream inference frameworks yet — so right now it's just useless silicon surface you pay for :-/
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I was kinda bummed out they released the 8000 series after I just bought a laptop with 7000 series, but I think I actually dodged a bullet here since it doesn't look like much of an upgrade and the AI silicone screams of very early first gen product to me, as if they rushed it out the door because everyone else was doing "AI" and they needed to also cash in on the hype, kinda like the first gen RTX cards.
I think by the time I'll actually upgrade, the AI/NPU tech would have matured considerably and actually be useful.
Over decades I have a growing antipathy towards products with too many features. Especially new versions/models where the vaunted features of the previous version/model seem to never have been used by anyone.
This is entirely the fault of the OEMs though, not AMD. It is activated on mine for example. But pretty much unusable under Linux at the moment (unless you're willing to run a custom kernel for it[0].)
Not true. AMD can demand how OEMs integrate and use their chips in their products as part of the sales agreement, same how Nvidia does.
AMD could have said to every system integrator buying 7000 series chips and up, that the NPU must be active in the final product.
So if the end products suck, AMD bares most of the blame for not ensuring a minimum level of QA with its integrators who release half-assed stuff since it all reflects poorly on them in the end. It's one of the reason why Nvidia keeps such a tight grip over its integrators on how their chips are to used.
My favorite example is the story I got to live through of the first generations of consumer 64 bit CPUs.
When the first AMD Athlon 64 came out, everyone I knew was buying them because they though they were getting something totally future proof by jumping early on the 64 bit bandwagon, in 2003, when nobody yet had 4GB+ of RAM and neither Windows nor any software would see 64bit releases till several years later when Vista came out which everyone avoided and staid on Windows XP 32bit waiting for Windows 7.
And by the time RAM sizes over 4GB and 64 bit software became even remotely mainstream, we already had dual- and quad-core CPUs miles ahead of those original 64 bit CPUs which were now obsolete (tech progress back then was wild).
So just like how 64bit silicone was a useless feature on consumer CPUs, and like the first GPUs with raytracing, I feel like now we're in the same boat with AI silicone in PCs, no much SW support for them and when it does come, these early chips will be obsolete. It's the price of being an early adopter.