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.
