AMD’s latest pair of processors are a duo of APUs intended for handheld gaming hardware.
Both of AMD’s latest-generation architectures, those being Zen 4 for CPUs and RDNA 3 for GPUs, can offer significant performance-per-watt benefits over previous-generation parts. That’s most important in power-constrained battery-powered devices, and little is more power-constrained than a gaming handheld.
That’s exactly what the Ryzen Z1 processors are meant for: PC-based gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck, or more specifically in this case, the ASUS ROG Ally. There are two models of Ryzen Z1 differentiated by the addition of « Extreme » on the higher-end model, but they’re actually pretty different.Image: AMD
Both chips will use the same Zen 4 CPU cores and RDNA 3 graphics, but that’s where the similarities end. The Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor will have fully eight CPU cores with SMT (for 16 threads), as well as twelve AMD RDNA 3 compute units.
