AMD announces Ryzen Z1 Zen4 APUs for handheld gaming consoles with up to 12 RDNA3 GPU cores

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Marees

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AMD Ryzen Z1 and AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processors bring ultimate portability and battery life to handheld PC gaming consoles
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https://videocardz.com/press-releas...gaming-consoles-with-up-to-12-rdna3-gpu-cores
Gatecrasher3000 said:
Very interesting handheld, love to see the competition.

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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.

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.”

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.

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).

In a press release, AMD writes that Asus will announce ROG Ally pricing and “more information” about availability on May 11th

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/25/23696722/amd-ryzen-z1-z1-extreme-rog-ally
 

Asus ROG Ally is the most powerful handheld gaming PC ever — this new AMD chip is to blame​


Actual real-world results from the ROG Ally are yet to be seen. But with a launch date set for May 11, we won’t have to wait long to find out. AMD’s Ryzen Z1 series chip is exclusive to Asus’ handheld device for the time being, though once they become available to manufacturers at large, we’ll no doubt see an explosion of Deck wannabes outfitted with these (and future) powerful APUs.

https://www.laptopmag.com/news/asus...gaming-pc-ever-this-new-amd-chip-is-behind-it
 
What a fantastic waste of RDNA 3 silicon the Z1 extreme is. In many games, ddr5 is already starting to bottleneck 2.8 gflops of rdna 3 can push out. The Z1 extreme mostly spins its wheels with 3x that amount of hardware

So I guess this will basically be what AM5 APUs will be able to push out performance wise - basically 2x current Am4 apu performance (not surprisingly)

Intel may have the better 'APU' if the edram in meteor lane comes together.
 
OKC Yeakey Trentadue said:
What a fantastic waste of RDNA 3 silicon the Z1 extreme is. In many games, ddr5 is already starting to bottleneck 2.8 gflops of rdna 3 can push out. The Z1 extreme mostly spins its wheels with 3x that amount of hardware

So I guess this will basically be what AM5 APUs will be able to push out performance wise - basically 2x current Am4 apu performance (not surprisingly)

Intel may have the better 'APU' if the edram in meteor lane comes together.
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Think of this like an xbox handheld but made by Asus for $549 to $699

Good for upscaled 1080p low gaming. The battery life might suck tho.

https://www.theverge.com/23700094/asus-rog-ally-price-amd-z1-extreme
 
The SteamDeck uses Quad channel RAM. That is what they all need. Sure the newer GPU's are stronger but they need custom RAM channels for the bandwidth like Valve demanded.
 

A revolution for the handheld gaming space?​


The Z1 chips could be exactly the kick in the pants the handheld gaming industry needs to get back on its feet: ever since the improvement of phones as viable gaming platforms, the space has become rather desolate. With Asus putting up some seriously good pricing and a high-quality console – judging by our hands-on review – we can probably expect other manufacturers to strike back later this year.

So, Steam Deck 2? Nintendo Switch 2? AyaNeo 3? All quite likely. Hell, perhaps we’ll even see Sony decide to throw its hat back into the ring with a new PlayStation Portable. Please, Sony. I’ll give you my firstborn child for one of those.

https://www.techradar.com/news/asus...leak-and-i-wouldnt-buy-a-steam-deck-right-now
 
OKC Yeakey Trentadue said:
What a fantastic waste of RDNA 3 silicon the Z1 extreme is.
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Yeah, but on the other hand, they just swept the handheld gaming market. Fingers crossed, we'll see some thin-and-lights come from this, too.

Even potentially tablets, but for gaming.
 
Ugh



AMD create new naming scheme, it's confusing and criticised but AMD assures everyone that it encompass all AMDs mobile parts.

Immediately releases a product that does not fit in the naming scheme

🤦
 
Marees said:

Asus ROG Ally is the most powerful handheld gaming PC ever — this new AMD chip is to blame​


Actual real-world results from the ROG Ally are yet to be seen. But with a launch date set for May 11, we won’t have to wait long to find out. AMD’s Ryzen Z1 series chip is exclusive to Asus’ handheld device for the time being, though once they become available to manufacturers at large, we’ll no doubt see an explosion of Deck wannabes outfitted with these (and future) powerful APUs.

https://www.laptopmag.com/news/asus...gaming-pc-ever-this-new-amd-chip-is-behind-it
Click to expand...
The more the merrier, especially if it drags prices down.
 

AMD Ryzen Z1 APU series can operate with 9W TDP​


AMD spokesman confirmed that the Configurable Thermal Design Power (cTDP) goes as low as 9W, that’s actually lower than Ryzen 7040U series which officially go as low as 15W.

this does not mean Ryzen 7040U cannot operate at lower power as well, because TDP is not the same thing as power consumption. The TDP simply sets a target for the CPU voltage/frequency curve, which in the case of 7040U series is optimized for 15W. The Z1 series with TDP of 9W required additional validation, and it was enough to differentiate the series under a new name.

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-z1-apu-series-can-operate-with-9w-tdp

(The z1 & z1 extreme are expected to be exclusive to Asus for the first 6 months or so, before being made available to other partners )
 
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The ASUS ROG Ally is capable of delivering 60 FPS in God of War III at 1080p, while the competitor that inspired it, Valve’s Steam Deck, only manages up to 25 FPS at 720p, according to early testing from YouTubers that suggest ASUS’ new Windows 11-powered handheld is very good at emulating older games from the PlayStation 3 generation and more. This level of performance is largely thanks to the ROG Ally’s new Ryzen Z1 processors from AMD, which include support for AVX-512, an instruction set that is apparently quite useful for RPCS3 and other popular emulators.

https://www.thefpsreview.com/2023/0...-emulation-tests-60-fps-1080p-vs-25-fps-720p/
 
Marees said:

AMD Ryzen Z1 APU series can operate with 9W TDP​


AMD spokesman confirmed that the Configurable Thermal Design Power (cTDP) goes as low as 9W, that’s actually lower than Ryzen 7040U series which officially go as low as 15W.

this does not mean Ryzen 7040U cannot operate at lower power as well, because TDP is not the same thing as power consumption. The TDP simply sets a target for the CPU voltage/frequency curve, which in the case of 7040U series is optimized for 15W. The Z1 series with TDP of 9W required additional validation, and it was enough to differentiate the series under a new name.

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-z1-apu-series-can-operate-with-9w-tdp

(The z1 & z1 extreme are expected to be exclusive to Asus for the first 6 months or so, before being made available to other partners )
Click to expand...
I presume the exclusivity period is starting from Ally's launch date?
 
Review of Z1 apu used in the cheaper model of the RoG ally

Marees said:
Review of the rog ally with the smaller APU (Z1 non-extreme)

The difference between the Z1 extreme & the Z1 non-extreme is that

1. Larger APU has 3 times the CU count (12cu:4cu). However AMD claimed that memory would be a bigger bottleneck than GPU
2. larger APU is 8 cores of full-fledged zen4. Smaller APU is a "hybrid design" with 2 full fledged zen4 cores & 4 smaller zen4c cores. The zen4c cores are limited by max freq, so multi-threaded games will be CPU limited in the smaller APU

TL;DR
1. There is a performance difference (GPU bottleneck) when playing AAA games (or more demanding yet to be released in future)
2. For older games which don't tax more than 2 CPU cores, the z1 non-extreme would give better battery life (in silent mode, VRR & 120hz enabled with fps caps)
3. In all other scenarios the Z1 extreme gives better performance for same battery life.


View: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wIVmTb4PkvM&feature=youtu.be
Click to expand...
 
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