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[8BiTw0LF]

On Friday, we told you how AMD is quietly arming a whole new wave of Steam Deck competitors. But the company’s now saying the quiet part out loud: today, it’s officially announcing the AMD Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme, a pair of 4nm processors specifically aimed at handheld gaming PCs.
The Ryzen Z1 Extreme pairs eight of AMD’s Zen 4 CPU cores and 16 threads with 12 of its RDNA 3 graphics cores as well as 24MB of cache — and promises up to a whopping 8.6 teraflops of raw graphic performance, far closer to the 10.28 teraflops of a Sony PS5 than the 1.6 teraflops you get with a Steam Deck.

Meanwhile, the vanilla Ryzen Z1 has six CPU cores and 12 threads, four GPU cores, and 22MB of cache — that’s still enough for a theoretical 55 percent increase in raw graphical potential over Valve’s custom Zen 2 plus RDNA 2 “Aerith” chip.
What does that mean for games? With a Z1 Extreme, if you’re playing at 720p with low settings like you might comfortably do on a seven-inch handheld, AMD claims you can cross the 60fps line for games as demanding as Red Dead Redemption 2 and more than double that for Forza Horizon 4 — all upscaled to 1080p with AMD’s Radeon Super Resolution.

I do wonder if “low” means “lowest” here — I would not want to run Tomb Raider on lowest because of muddy graphics, but that’s less of a problem with other games.
With a Z1, you lose the edge in some of the most demanding games, but the numbers aren’t bad! “I think what’s going on here: it’s not the CUs that are the limiting factor, it’s the LPDDR5,” says AMD senior technical marketing manager Don Woligroski. “The fast memory is, a lot of these cases, what these games are really hungry for.”

These benchmarks aren’t from some sprawling bench-mounted test bed, by the way: they’re running on an “advanced engineering sample” of the Asus ROG Ally handheld gaming PC, says Woligroski, who ran these tests himself.

And here are the native 1080p results from AMD. Wouldn’t want to run Red Dead Redemption 2 or Far Cry 6 that way, but I could see locking my screen to 30fps or 40fps for demanding games.
But before you go talking about the ROG Ally as a “Steam Deck killer,” consider the TDP — Woligroski says all these benchmarks were run in the Ally’s “Turbo Mode,” which lets the processor draw up to 30 watts, depending on the game. The Steam Deck’s processor runs at just half that and can typically make it to the two-hour mark in all but the most demanding games with its 40 watt-hour battery.
If the ROG Ally has a much bigger battery or runs competently at the same 15 watts, it might not matter. (AMD also says the Z1 and Z1 Extreme support its Radeon Chill, which can automatically save power based on the frame rate targets of your choice, and the Ally has its own frame limiter, too.) Just keep this in mind as you interpret these performance charts.
AMD says the Z1 and Z1 Extreme are temporarily exclusive to Asus but that we may see other partners in the future with these or future Z chips — the Z handheld gaming PC branding is here to stay. Currently, it’s a partnership between AMD’s gaming group (which handles Radeon GPUs) and client (which handles Ryzen processors).
As for the Ryzen 7840U, a chip that appears to be a dead ringer for the Z1 Extreme and may appear in any number of rival boutique handheld gaming PCs in place of the Z1, Woligroski can’t say. “We haven’t officially announced any 7000U series parts yet.” He wants you to know that the Z1 isn’t simply a matter of rebranding future laptop parts, though, adding that it uses customized power and voltage curves, among other differences. I’ve asked for a larger list of changes.
In a press release, AMD writes that Asus will announce ROG Ally pricing and “more information” about availability on May 11th.

AMD announces Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme chips for handheld gaming PCs

Ryzen Z for handheld PC.

www.theverge.com

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

"AMD writes that Asus will announce ROG Ally pricing and “more information” about availability on May 11th."

 

[STARSBarry]

It will be very intresting to see how the battery life is on these, as that's primarily what I'm looking for with these chips alongside preformance.

It's like how the switch .2 release came with an improved but downclocked processor so that the power consumption allowed for near 50% more battery life.

 

[digdug2]

This bodes extremely well for the rumored new PlayStation handheld.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Why they did the Switch dirty like that
It does seriously need a Pro model or something though, there's so much better available and ToTK as much as it looks like a fun game, does look almost just like the 6 year old game which already looked like a years old game because of the power of the underclocked 8 year old TX1

I'd buy a Steam Deck 2 with an update to this or whatever is possible for it. Seems like I should wait now?

 

[TrebleShot]

Sony new handheld being powered by this? PS5 mini?

 

[8BiTw0LF]

 

[reksveks]

This bodes extremely well for the rumored new PlayStation handheld.

Guess you don't believe Henderson sources/articles?

 

[SomeGit]

Pending TDP info of course, but sounds really good and it hints at future handheld PCs/SoCs. Looks like the market is here to stay.

EDIT: I'm an idiot, TDP info is there. These were done in the 30W TDP turbo mode.

 

[diffusionx]

AMD is mouthing to Nintendo, "call me"

 

[Dural]

Those performance numbers are weird considering the Z1 Extreme has triple the graphics cores and two more CPU cores of the Z1.

 

[digdug2]

Guess you don't believe Henderson sources/articles?

These days I don't believe anything until it's formally announced.

 

[LordOcidax]

Where’s the power consumption graph? They can go 20 tflops plugged into a wall…

 

[LordOfChaos]

AMD is mouthing to Nintendo, "call me"

I don't see them Switching away from compatibility from the Switch's lightening in a bottle success

There's updated chips from Nvidia if Nintendo wanted them. They lucked out with Nvidia not hitting the wafer silicon agreement numbers with TX1 tho so I'm not sure what Nintendo will do.

 

[chromhound]

They did the Switch dirty

 

[64bitmodels]

HAHAHAHAHA YESSSSSS
Handheld PCs getting better by the FUCKIN DAY



No one does APUs like AMD. Nintendo better reconsider who they go for with the next Switch

 

[nowhat]

Z1 Extreme, 8.6 TFlops. That's the definite proof, PS5 is running on a mobile chip.

For the mods and otherwise, yes, I'm kidding

 

[01011001]

8TF handheld APU.

The Series S portable is imminent!

 

[Black_Stride]

In my college days saying (Source: Wikipedia) would basically get that section of your paper and anything relying on it completely ignored.....hell you might lose marks for "making shit up".


On Topic
Thats a hella powerful chip for portable.....I do wonder about battery life/size for any device that uses the full 8TFLOPs.
If Sonys portable is able to play games locally, they are probably using a version of these chips.....twould make sense to have a PS4+ level portable device that can play PS4 games "natively" but also stream PS5 games.......cuz I doubt they will be asking devs to make bespoke games for this device, but maybe downports for it?

Nvidia better have something compelling for the Super Switch else, Ninty might be tempted by these things.

Do people still believe the Super Switch wont be more powerful than the SteamDeck?

Drama - Can people please understand that Switch 2 WON'T be more powerful than Steam Deck?!

I'm in the Switch thread and Gaffers seem to be convinced that somehow the Switch 2 will be more powerful than a Steam Deck! Some people are saying it'll be like a PS5 in power! THE HELL IS ACTUALLY GOING ON AT GAF! Why don't people REMEMBER that Nintendo do not chase the graphics race? Why...

www.neogaf.com

 

[BeardGawd]

On Friday, we told you how AMD is quietly arming a whole new wave of Steam Deck competitors. But the company’s now saying the quiet part out loud: today, it’s officially announcing the AMD Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme, a pair of 4nm processors specifically aimed at handheld gaming PCs.
The Ryzen Z1 Extreme pairs eight of AMD’s Zen 4 CPU cores and 16 threads with 12 of its RDNA 3 graphics cores as well as 24MB of cache — and promises up to a whopping 8.6 teraflops of raw graphic performance, far closer to the 10.28 teraflops of a Sony PS5 than the 1.6 teraflops you get with a Steam Deck.

Meanwhile, the vanilla Ryzen Z1 has six CPU cores and 12 threads, four GPU cores, and 22MB of cache — that’s still enough for a theoretical 55 percent increase in raw graphical potential over Valve’s custom Zen 2 plus RDNA 2 “Aerith” chip.
What does that mean for games? With a Z1 Extreme, if you’re playing at 720p with low settings like you might comfortably do on a seven-inch handheld, AMD claims you can cross the 60fps line for games as demanding as Red Dead Redemption 2 and more than double that for Forza Horizon 4 — all upscaled to 1080p with AMD’s Radeon Super Resolution.

I do wonder if “low” means “lowest” here — I would not want to run Tomb Raider on lowest because of muddy graphics, but that’s less of a problem with other games.
With a Z1, you lose the edge in some of the most demanding games, but the numbers aren’t bad! “I think what’s going on here: it’s not the CUs that are the limiting factor, it’s the LPDDR5,” says AMD senior technical marketing manager Don Woligroski. “The fast memory is, a lot of these cases, what these games are really hungry for.”

These benchmarks aren’t from some sprawling bench-mounted test bed, by the way: they’re running on an “advanced engineering sample” of the Asus ROG Ally handheld gaming PC, says Woligroski, who ran these tests himself.

And here are the native 1080p results from AMD. Wouldn’t want to run Red Dead Redemption 2 or Far Cry 6 that way, but I could see locking my screen to 30fps or 40fps for demanding games.
But before you go talking about the ROG Ally as a “Steam Deck killer,” consider the TDP — Woligroski says all these benchmarks were run in the Ally’s “Turbo Mode,” which lets the processor draw up to 30 watts, depending on the game. The Steam Deck’s processor runs at just half that and can typically make it to the two-hour mark in all but the most demanding games with its 40 watt-hour battery.
If the ROG Ally has a much bigger battery or runs competently at the same 15 watts, it might not matter. (AMD also says the Z1 and Z1 Extreme support its Radeon Chill, which can automatically save power based on the frame rate targets of your choice, and the Ally has its own frame limiter, too.) Just keep this in mind as you interpret these performance charts.
AMD says the Z1 and Z1 Extreme are temporarily exclusive to Asus but that we may see other partners in the future with these or future Z chips — the Z handheld gaming PC branding is here to stay. Currently, it’s a partnership between AMD’s gaming group (which handles Radeon GPUs) and client (which handles Ryzen processors).
As for the Ryzen 7840U, a chip that appears to be a dead ringer for the Z1 Extreme and may appear in any number of rival boutique handheld gaming PCs in place of the Z1, Woligroski can’t say. “We haven’t officially announced any 7000U series parts yet.” He wants you to know that the Z1 isn’t simply a matter of rebranding future laptop parts, though, adding that it uses customized power and voltage curves, among other differences. I’ve asked for a larger list of changes.
In a press release, AMD writes that Asus will announce ROG Ally pricing and “more information” about availability on May 11th.

AMD announces Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme chips for handheld gaming PCs

Ryzen Z for handheld PC.

www.theverge.com

Interesting. With 6 CUs we would be at Series S level.

 

[Romulus]

AMD is mouthing to Nintendo, "call me"

Switch 2 hardware deals have been at least agreed on by this point.

 

[Tunned]

Steam Deck 2 + Z1 Extreme + 720p OLED (yes 720p, anything more on a 7"handheld is uselss) = SOLD!

 

[LordOcidax]

HAHAHAHAHA YESSSSSS
Handheld PCs getting better by the FUCKIN DAY



No one does APUs like AMD. Nintendo better reconsider who they go for with the next Switch

Nintendo is about to sell another ~20 million Switch more these year with an 8 years old Chip… The Steamdeck and others pc handhelds are like 1000x more powerful and can’t sell a fraction of that… these forums are not the real world. Nintendo and Nvidia are going to be fine.

 

[Zathalus]

AMD is mouthing to Nintendo, "call me"

With a 30w draw Nintendo won't answer.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Without power draw, those graphs are useless. Sure it can run fast...for 20 minutes

 

[64bitmodels]

Nintendo is about to sell another ~20 million Switch more these year with an 8 years old Chip… The Steamdeck and others pc handhelds are like 1000x more powerful and can’t sell a fraction of that… these forums are not the real world. Nintendo and Nvidia are going to be fine.

if they want any meaningful hardware jump from the original switch they'd be better off contacting the company whos expertise is in mobile chips

using the same architecture as the ps5 and xbox should make porting easier too

 

[Zathalus]

HAHAHAHAHA YESSSSSS
Handheld PCs getting better by the FUCKIN DAY



No one does APUs like AMD. Nintendo better reconsider who they go for with the next Switch

Lol no, Nvidia would be better in the aspect that is actually important - power draw. Ada and ARM is just better then RDNA3 and x86.

 

[CobraAB]

Very interesting indeed.

Exciting times for this space of the business.

 

[64bitmodels]

Lol no, Nvidia would be better in the aspect that is actually important - power draw. Ada and ARM is just better then RDNA3 and x86.

hm, fair enough. I don't think we've come to a point where X86 can match ARM in power draw. Let the hype get to my head for a moment

I wish they would take this tech they're pushing for mobile systems and put it into dedicated Ryzen 7000 G chips, It'd be really useful considering how GPUs aren't in a very good spot right now

 

[crackajack]

For handhelds probably a bit much power draw, but those are the chips the APUs could/should been for long now. Some proper RDNA with some cores and not Vegas cut to bare minimum.

 

[Bernoulli]

nintendo would love these but they only care about price and profit margins

i don't see nintendo selling a 500 console

if xbox or playstation uses this the portable consoles war will truly begin pushing for good performance on mobile

 

[LordOcidax]

if they want any meaningful hardware jump from the original switch they'd be better off contacting the company whos expertise is in mobile chips

using the same architecture as the ps5 and xbox should make porting easier too

Are you telling me that AMD have better tech than Nvidia? I take Nvidia graphic tech + ARM easily for a new handheld. Nintendo is in a really good position right now.

 

[diffusionx]

Switch 2 hardware deals have been at least agreed on by this point.

Probably, but I am sure AMD would love to bag that contract if they could. Also, I am sure they at least made a pitch to them years ago, on the basis of what they had.

I don't see them Switching away from compatibility from the Switch's lightening in a bottle success

There's updated chips from Nvidia if Nintendo wanted them. They lucked out with Nvidia not hitting the wafer silicon agreement numbers with TX1 tho so I'm not sure what Nintendo will do.

I think these types of chips are more than powerful enough to run a compatibility layer with the shitty TX1, similar to what Apple is doing with the M1-to-x86 chips (in reverse). I also don't know what those updated chips are from Nvidia as they have not been releasing SOCs for these sorts of devices since the TX2.

 

[64bitmodels]

Are you telling me that AMD have better tech than Nvidia?

Has nvidia made any new ARM chips in the past few years? seems like it's only AMD doing that stuff and even then it's x86

 

[HL3.exe]

We hit a sustainably wall with high-end hardware. Especially on the CPU side. It's smart to invest in the efficiency market. It's where it definitely heading.

 

[onQ123]

This bodes extremely well for the rumored new PlayStation handheld.

I have bad news for you

 

[onQ123]

Microsoft should really be making a portable Series S right now they have the advantage here it's in range & they already make games that run at a lower resolution.

 

[Rudius]

That maximum performance will be with a laptop plugged in. The real performance on battery is more important for handhelds.

 

[LordOcidax]

Has nvidia made any new ARM chips in the past few years? seems like it's only AMD doing that stuff and even then it's x86

I think that Nintendo/Nvidia are going to use a custom ARM cpu ala Apple for the Switch 2 and the latest tech from Nvidia for the GPU.

 

[Zathalus]

Has nvidia made any new ARM chips in the past few years? seems like it's only AMD doing that stuff and even then it's x86

Yes they have, Nvidia is still making Tegra APUs. Even if they have not ARM still does cortex designs.

 

[Rudius]

I have bad news for you

It's not really needed if Sony keeps releasing games on PC. You just have to be willing to wait a couple years.

 

[Bragr]

Borderlands 3 at the lowest settings for 60fps.

 

[ChoosableOne]

How come it requires selecting the lowest settings for 60fps at 1080p if it has 8 tflops performance?

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Switch succesor announcement inbound, mayhaps.

This is exciting.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Why they did the Switch dirty like that
It does seriously need a Pro model or something though, there's so much better available and ToTK as much as it looks like a fun game, does look almost just like the 6 year old game which already looked like a years old game because of the power of the underclocked 8 year old TX1

I'd buy a Steam Deck 2 with an update to this or whatever is possible for it. Seems like I should wait now?

Steam deck is still worth it and v2 may be a long way off. I think that Valve saw this coming (or explicitly knew) and have been focusing on the software side of things in order to prep for the wave of competitors. The deck is an absolute software marvel.

 

[StereoVsn]

Will be interesting to see how real world performance will be at reasonable TDP.

I am game for Ally if it can pull 2 hours at 40-50% more performance of Steam Deck.

 

[Brigandier]

I have bad news for you

Which is???

 

[SmokedMeat]

With a 30w draw Nintendo won't answer.

Not unless they exchanged Friend Codes.

 

[SolidQ]

How come it requires selecting the lowest settings for 60fps at 1080p if it has 8 tflops performance?

Bandwidth limit?

 

[Romulus]

How come it requires selecting the lowest settings for 60fps at 1080p if it has 8 tflops performance?

Yeah it's 2x the tflops as XSS but less capable?