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Best CPUs for AI work 2026

Only CPUs with a built-in NPU are listed — a separate block for neural networks. It handles background blur in video calls, live captions, Copilot features and other Windows AI tasks without loading the cores or draining the battery. Microsoft requires an NPU of 40+ TOPS for Copilot+ PC features.

# CPU Type Task score NPU (AI accelerator) Score
1 Ryzen AI Max+ 395 Laptop
100.0
 50 TOPS 70.63
2 Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Laptop
94.5
 50 TOPS 48.22
3 Ryzen AI 7 350 Laptop
91.9
 50 TOPS 37.84
4 Ryzen AI 5 340 Laptop
90.4
 50 TOPS 31.88
5 Core Ultra 7 258V Laptop
85.6
 47 TOPS 32.53
6 Core Ultra 5 226V Laptop
73.6
 40 TOPS 30.58
7 Ryzen 7 8700G Desktop
38.5
 16 TOPS 48.69
8 Core Ultra 9 275HX Laptop
38.3
 13 TOPS 68.09
9 Ryzen 9 8945HS Laptop
37.0
 16 TOPS 42.68
10 Ryzen 7 8845HS Laptop
36.7
 16 TOPS 41.53
11 Ryzen 5 8600G Desktop
36.5
 16 TOPS 40.70
12 Core Ultra 9 285H Laptop
34.7
 13 TOPS 53.36
13 Core Ultra 7 255H Laptop
33.2
 13 TOPS 47.48
14 Core Ultra 9 185H Laptop
28.8
 11 TOPS 43.03
15 Core Ultra 7 155H Laptop
27.5
 11 TOPS 37.91
16 Ryzen 9 7940HS Laptop
27.1
 10 TOPS 42.68
17 Ryzen 7 7840HS Laptop
26.8
 10 TOPS 41.53
18 Core Ultra 5 125H Laptop
25.9
 11 TOPS 31.46

Compare the top two: Ryzen AI Max+ 395 vs Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 →

Graphics cards for neural networks

To run language models and image generation on your own PC, video memory matters most: the model has to fit into it completely. So memory comes first here, then speed. Roughly: 8 GB fits small quantized models, 16 GB medium ones, 24–32 GB large ones. Most AI software works best with NVIDIA cards (CUDA).

#Graphics cardVRAMScoreAI TOPS (as stated by the maker)
1 GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB GDDR7
100.00
 3352
2 GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB GDDR6X
76.68
 1321
3 Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB GDDR6
52.96
 —
4 GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24 GB GDDR6X
47.64
 —
5 GeForce RTX 3090 24 GB GDDR6X
43.74
 —
6 Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB GDDR6
46.47
 —
7 GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB GDDR7
62.75
 1801
8 GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 16 GB GDDR6X
54.38
 836
9 GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB GDDR7
52.04
 1406
10 GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB GDDR6X
51.71
 780
11 Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB GDDR6
50.60
 779
12 GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB GDDR6X
47.91
 706
13 Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB GDDR6
42.62
 —
14 Radeon RX 9070 16 GB GDDR6
40.46
 578
15 Radeon RX 6950 XT 16 GB GDDR6
39.03
 —

How we rank

Order: NPU power first (TOPS as stated by the manufacturer), then overall speed. For local language models and Stable Diffusion the graphics card and memory size matter more — that section will come with graphics cards.

The score is our own estimate from the specs (cores, threads, clocks, architecture generation), not a benchmark run. 100 = the fastest CPU in our database.