Friday, May 5th 2023
AMD Clarifies Differences Between Ryzen Z1 Gaming Series and 7040U APUs
The ASUS ROG Ally handheld games console emerged last month and it was revealed to pack some impressive "custom" AMD hardware - the two companies have boasted that the collaboration has resulted in two special SoCs - the Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Silicon enthusiasts were quick to point out that the Z1 series sported similar specifications to mobile/ultra-portable chipsets in AMD's 7040U family - in particular the Ryzen 7 7840U looks almost identical to its gaming equivalent (Ryzen Z1 Extreme). Andrew E. Freedman at Tom's Hardware was curious and motivated enough to request clarification (about this situation) from AMD. Team Red were happy to respond and acknowledged the apparent similarities between the gaming and laptop chipset ranges, but also stated that Z1 APUs have been tweaked by company engineers to a certain degree.
Matthew Hurwitz, a client PR manager at AMD, provided a response to the Tom's Hardware-issued query: "The Ryzen Z1 series are purpose-built with handheld gaming in mind. To accomplish this, AMD engineers had to validate entirely new power ranges and optimize the voltage curves specifically for this use case - this optimization and validation work should not be trivialized. So while the technology building blocks (like 'Zen 4' and RDNA 3) are similar between the 7040 and Z1 series, the resulting models have very distinct characteristics customized for their use cases. In addition, the AMD Ryzen AI engine is not available on AMD Ryzen Z1 series processors." Hurwitz also confirmed that AMD's XDNA AI engine is merely disabled (so not removed at hardware level) on the two Z1 APUs - this feature is only enabled on the range-topping Ryzen 7 7840U model and mid-range Ryzen 5 7640U. So yes, there are small differences but AMD and ASUS have probably saved some money on development costs by creating and adopting the "slightly adjusted" Z1 SoC series.
Update May 6th: Tom's Hardware has amended their article (as of May 5, 5:03 p.m. ET) - another source within AMD has informed them about the Z1 and Z1 Extreme APUs having configurable TDPs of 9 W to 30 W. The original story - and AMD's website - claimed a range of 15-30 W.
Source:
Tom's Hardware
Matthew Hurwitz, a client PR manager at AMD, provided a response to the Tom's Hardware-issued query: "The Ryzen Z1 series are purpose-built with handheld gaming in mind. To accomplish this, AMD engineers had to validate entirely new power ranges and optimize the voltage curves specifically for this use case - this optimization and validation work should not be trivialized. So while the technology building blocks (like 'Zen 4' and RDNA 3) are similar between the 7040 and Z1 series, the resulting models have very distinct characteristics customized for their use cases. In addition, the AMD Ryzen AI engine is not available on AMD Ryzen Z1 series processors." Hurwitz also confirmed that AMD's XDNA AI engine is merely disabled (so not removed at hardware level) on the two Z1 APUs - this feature is only enabled on the range-topping Ryzen 7 7840U model and mid-range Ryzen 5 7640U. So yes, there are small differences but AMD and ASUS have probably saved some money on development costs by creating and adopting the "slightly adjusted" Z1 SoC series.
Update May 6th: Tom's Hardware has amended their article (as of May 5, 5:03 p.m. ET) - another source within AMD has informed them about the Z1 and Z1 Extreme APUs having configurable TDPs of 9 W to 30 W. The original story - and AMD's website - claimed a range of 15-30 W.
19 Comments on AMD Clarifies Differences Between Ryzen Z1 Gaming Series and 7040U APUs
I'm pretty sure we can just tweak the voltage table on windows, so we're better off choosing a handheld with a 7840U, especially if it comes with LPDDR5X 7500MT/s, unlike the Asus ROG Ally that only uses LPDDR5 6400MT/s.
You can use software like motion assistant to fluidly optimise tdp on the fly though.
It might be a matter of scale, i.e. you can only order 100 000 Z1 chips at a time, and that pushes out all the smaller handheld makers.
That's going to make you want to do all you can to manage power use, or you could just appreciate what Asus and AMD did with Z1.
I don't think you'll match a z1's efficiency no matter what you do with a 7840in the same apps.
4650G already is awesome, but stronger iGPU will only help.
I stand corrected though: the 6800u starts outpacing the SD apu from 10-11w, not 15w as I mentioned above. Low TDP is where I'm hoping that the voltages tweaks done by AMD on the Z1 will give the Z1 Extreme the upper hand over the 7840u.
You have the best processor in history and we still can't enjoy any ultrabook.
You have the opportunity to offer ultrabook under 2.2lb without heating up and AAA gaming performance and we don't see it in the market and people get impatient and put 32GB of RAM to get the most out of the ultrabook and not 16GB with less than 6000Mhz.
Keep in mind that, as one of the earliest youtubers dedicated to gaming handhelds, he's been keeping close contact with GPD and AYA. So whatever he's saying it's coming from talking with these companies.
I think ETAPrime said the same in another video.I'm confused. What exactly did I say that would end my gaming session quickly?It's the same chip. The last time we saw regular chips with custom voltages were the Surface Book APUs. The efficiency advantages were nothing to write home about.It's quad-channel LPDDR5 because LPDDR5 modules have a 32bit arrangement.
In the end, it's using the same 128bit width as every modern consumer x86 CPU/APU. The Z1 will also use the same 128bit, DDR5 or LPDDR5/X.
They'll likely configure Z1 in ways you can't match with a 7040 IMHO.
The Z1 will use the same configuration any laptop uses, 2x32b which is half what the steam deck has with their custom silicon - not just tuned, truly custom solution. It will most probably still perform much better, but I don't see it embarassing the steam deck that easily.
AIDA64 memory bandwidth results will tell you as much.