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AMD announces Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme chips for handheld gaming PCs
- Thread starter 8BiTw0LF
- Start date
It's rumored to be a remote play device
LordOfChaos
Member
Apple or Microsoft, sure. I don't see Nintendo being that adventurous. They baked in the Wii GPU into the Wii U, and even then you had to boot into a whole ass Wii mode to get to it.
Insane Metal
Member
Their new 780M iGPU is great also.
diffusionx
Gold Member
probably right, my original post was in jest but I am sure AMD made a pitch. Ultimately it comes down to Nintendo making a decision on what they value here and what the companies bring to the table.
Klosshufvud
Member
Benchmarking a handheld chip at 30W is real scummy stuff. Not to mention the shitty attempt to pretend upscaled compares to native resolutions. I'd temper my expectations.
tusharngf
Member
But they actually do especially if it's going to be on a small screen
digdug2
Member
They have been reading speculation and rumors and believe they're true! Terrible news!
Trogdor1123
Member
This will make some awesome mini systems.
I always wanted to build a super tiny system that could play fallout 4 and similar games at 60 fps and 1080p with out issue. Maybe I’ll get it soon!
I always wanted to build a super tiny system that could play fallout 4 and similar games at 60 fps and 1080p with out issue. Maybe I’ll get it soon!
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Brigandier
Gold Member
Trogdor1123
Member
What should it be at? Not sure what the other chips draw
CrustyBritches
Gold Member
I'm guessing Asus pulled a bait-and-switch with their Ally marketing. They showed the Z1 Extreme model and specs, then stated they would be "competitive" with Steam Deck pricing. Then 4 days ago they run the Z1 through Geekbench to quietly leak the 6c/12t, 4cu model. This is probably the "competitive with Steam Deck pricing" model. Phawx has been basically saying temper your expectations with Asus marketing, and he appears to be correct.
Speaking of Phawx, he did a video theorizing that MS made the Series S as a trojan horse for a future Series handheld. He doesn't believe it will be this chip generation, but the next. I think Valve is also skipping this gen looking towards whatever AMD has for the future gen plus customization for the Deck 2. Probably Zen4/5+RDNA4.
Speaking of Phawx, he did a video theorizing that MS made the Series S as a trojan horse for a future Series handheld. He doesn't believe it will be this chip generation, but the next. I think Valve is also skipping this gen looking towards whatever AMD has for the future gen plus customization for the Deck 2. Probably Zen4/5+RDNA4.
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Haint
Member
Definitely some chicanery going on here, these must be the new fake teraflops numbers that combine fp16 and fp32. A real 8.6TF part at 720p low would be running all these games at like 200+fps, not 59fps. Such a chip would be a full console generation ahead of Steamdeck (5.3x) which isn't even close to being represented in these benchmarks. Its looks like the extreme is a pretty genuine 2x Steamdeck in the 30W mode, which is good, but a million miles away from 8.6TF and lightyears away from a PS5 (which the obviously fake TF numbers suggest it should be on par with given the much newer architectures).
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tkscz
Member
Most likely that 8.6TF rating is for when it's plugged into a power outlet, IE a docking station. 8.6TF on an x86 chip running off a battery would kill it in about an hour.
Here's an example of an APU that's basically the same thing. Using 12 RDNA 3 CU's with an 8 core CPU, but running at 50 to 70 watts, which would kill a battery super fast.
No test on how it does at 8 to 20 watts, which is what a handheld would run at if it doesn't want it's battery dead almost immediately.
SportsFan581
Member
I'm secretly hoping someone sticks one of these Extreme chips in a Nuc like package. It would be sweet to have a nice compact PC you can VESA mount like a Nuc, but also have a little bit of gaming punch for something not available on console.
Hopefully AMD has some really powerful APUs like this planned for desktop as well, could probably straight up remove the need for the lowest tier of discrete GPUs. Obviously TF is just one number though and the discreet GPUs would still have big memory advantages.
@
Haint
even if these TF numbers were calculated in the traditional way AMD would, I'd expect memory bandwidth to be more limited than you would expect.
Hopefully AMD has some really powerful APUs like this planned for desktop as well, could probably straight up remove the need for the lowest tier of discrete GPUs. Obviously TF is just one number though and the discreet GPUs would still have big memory advantages.
@
Haint
even if these TF numbers were calculated in the traditional way AMD would, I'd expect memory bandwidth to be more limited than you would expect.
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Moses85
Member
Nintendo is to stingy for horsepower. They prefer to ripp off their fans and customers with expensive hardware, as old as possible.
The Switch will be my last Nintendo Hardware for a long time.
Zathalus
Member
It's basically using the new TF rating of RDNA3. If you were to compare it to RDNA2 it would 4.3 TF. Even that is further hampered by the abysmal memory bandwidth.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
If someone can mass produce something with the specs or at least the Z1 and around 500 or less, that is a huge win
Topher
Identifies as young
Yeah, folks like minis forum will probably make a mini PC with these new chips. Valve really needs to release a public version of Steam OS (arch linux) to compete with Windows.
SportsFan581
Member
Options are always good. I'm surprised Steam hasn't added a "Steam Box" to their lineup, using one specific hardware configuration this time versus just having vendors cobble things together.
For me, I'd be using it as my daily driver PC (I use a Nuc now), so, Windows is the only thing I'd consider there.
They are saying these Z series are exclusive to Asus for now, maybe they will stick one in the PN line as well.
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Topher
Identifies as young
Same here. I'm actually considering selling my Steam Deck to get a Rog Ally (if it integrates well with Windows) so I can play Game Pass games locally instead of streaming.
digdug2
Member
To be completely fair, it's everyone's last Nintendo hardware for a long time. I can't believe it's already been around for 6 years.
Raploz
Member
Even at 8 teraflops those FPS numbers don't add up, the 2.6TF non-extreme chip is not much slower, even with a third of the TFs. It's likely severely limited by LPDDR5x memory bandwidth and we shouldn't expect a PS5-level portable. It's a shame because with that kind of power, a handheld that could compete with PS5 would be amazing.
LPDDR5X, which a next-gen Switch will likely use, also means the Switch successor doesn't need to have that many TFs to come somewhat close to that level of performance because they will all be severely bottlenecked by memory bandwidth anyway. They're reaching the limit and adding more power won't help much until faster memory is available.
LPDDR5X, which a next-gen Switch will likely use, also means the Switch successor doesn't need to have that many TFs to come somewhat close to that level of performance because they will all be severely bottlenecked by memory bandwidth anyway. They're reaching the limit and adding more power won't help much until faster memory is available.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
They would just use "vanilla" 780u chip. No need for custom SoC when running off wall power.
It is exciting time to look at these options. Hell, a 13" Ultrabook or 12" tablet would also have decent gaming capabilities now.
cartman414
Member
Your move Intel.
Silver Wattle
Gold Member
AMD really went the cheap route by having only 4CU's on the low end model, like you couldn't even go for 50%(6CU)?
Also, for those less informed about how these tittyflops numbers work, RDNA3 numbers are essentially "inflated" vs RDNA2 tittyflops.
The true performance of this at max power(30w) and taking into account the bandwidth limits, should be around 3.5 of RDNA 2 tittyflops.
The 4CU version, if bandwidth is the same, should be less impacted by bandwidth issues so will not suffer as much in that regard, so it should be roughly equivalent to 1.3 tittyflops of RDNA 2.
So the 4CU version is basically a steamdeck in GPU performance, but with a much better CPU(2 Moar cores+zen4).
Since these are rDNA 3, does that mean they also have av1 support?
Also, for those less informed about how these tittyflops numbers work, RDNA3 numbers are essentially "inflated" vs RDNA2 tittyflops.
The true performance of this at max power(30w) and taking into account the bandwidth limits, should be around 3.5 of RDNA 2 tittyflops.
The 4CU version, if bandwidth is the same, should be less impacted by bandwidth issues so will not suffer as much in that regard, so it should be roughly equivalent to 1.3 tittyflops of RDNA 2.
So the 4CU version is basically a steamdeck in GPU performance, but with a much better CPU(2 Moar cores+zen4).
Since these are rDNA 3, does that mean they also have av1 support?
SportsFan581
Member
That's possible, however they are claiming that there are optimizations for gaming here that are not part of the standard chips.
I've always thought that on the desktop side AMD should introduce a separate line of motherboards for the APUs that could support quad channel memory instead of the typical dual channel. Could really be a big help to these APUs.
Klosshufvud
Member
Generally 15W is considered a fair amount of power draw for a handheld. 30W is more in ultrabook territory. I personally consider as anything less than 2h battery life as excluding limit regarding handhelds.
Glad to see others picking up on the bogus TF claims. This feels like such shameless lying by AMD. It feels like they've gotten worse with marketing lies lately. Sadly it has no repercussions anyways.
Trogdor1123
Member
Maybe. For a set top box it will incredible though
Tams
Member
These chips are great.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?
But come on. All the devices they will go into are going to be hulking monsters next to the Switch, and much more expensive.
Even the cheapest Steam Deck is quite a bit more expensive, and that's subsidised.
LordOfChaos
Member
While that's fair, we can still easily do better than an 8 year old underclocked Tegra X1 even on watt for watt comparisons, and dollar for dollar comparisons. Maybe especially on watt for watt comparisons as performance doesn't scale linearly to power.
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tkscz
Member
At this point we're more likely to get a Switch successor over a Switch Pro that Nintendo officially cancelled. If recent rumors are to be believe the successor was supposed to use Ampere+, a die shrunk Ampere from Samsung that would have been on their 5nm process. However Samsung's yield on the 8nm were terrible at best, with something around a 30% yield rate, so Nvidia jumped to TSMC and left Samsung.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?
To be honest my biggest gripe with handheld PCs, even the Steam deck, is battery life. 28w just to run games at a steady 60 FPS for two hours at the most isn't worth the $800 entry fee (sans basic steam deck). It's why I wouldn't be bothered if the Switch successor still used an ARM based CPU and ran at 550MHz, it ain't the most powerful but at least it doesn't die the moment I turn it on.