Thursday, August 1st 2024
ASUS Readies 2025 ROG Z13 Flow Gaming Tablet Powered by AMD "Strix Halo"
ASUS is betting bigger on game consoles or PCs built like consoles. The company in 2023 introduced the first ROG Z13 Flow, a gaming-grade tablet, powered by a 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processor and mid-tier RTX 40-series "Ada" discrete mobile GPU. The 2025 ROG Z13 Flow is a 13-inch, 16:10 tablet with an integrated kickstand. You can use it like a handheld with touch controls, or place it on a surface and use conventional gaming peripherals, such as keyboard+mouse, or a game controller. Since the device is meant to provide a AAA gaming experience, it packs some serious kit.
Apparently, the 2025 ASUS ROG Z13 Flow will implement AMD's upcoming "Strix Halo" processor that packs up to 16 "Zen 5" CPU cores, and an oversized iGPU with 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units (2,560 stream processors), and a 256-bit LPDDR5 memory interface, besides a 50 TOPS-class NPU to qualify for Copilot+ AI PC rating. Such a chip would meet the hardware goals of the ROG Z13 Flow, and eliminate the need for a discrete GPU, letting ASUS reduce the mainboard size. The power management of "Strix Halo" would see the CPU and SoC given a roughly 30 W budget, and the iGPU roughly 80 W. Its cooling solution focuses squarely on the "Strix Halo" chip, with no other major chip on the device (the SoC is wired out to serve all chipset functions, no FCH needed).
Sources:
VideoCardz, Sam Jun-Wei Hu, HXL (Twitter)
Apparently, the 2025 ASUS ROG Z13 Flow will implement AMD's upcoming "Strix Halo" processor that packs up to 16 "Zen 5" CPU cores, and an oversized iGPU with 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units (2,560 stream processors), and a 256-bit LPDDR5 memory interface, besides a 50 TOPS-class NPU to qualify for Copilot+ AI PC rating. Such a chip would meet the hardware goals of the ROG Z13 Flow, and eliminate the need for a discrete GPU, letting ASUS reduce the mainboard size. The power management of "Strix Halo" would see the CPU and SoC given a roughly 30 W budget, and the iGPU roughly 80 W. Its cooling solution focuses squarely on the "Strix Halo" chip, with no other major chip on the device (the SoC is wired out to serve all chipset functions, no FCH needed).
20 Comments on ASUS Readies 2025 ROG Z13 Flow Gaming Tablet Powered by AMD "Strix Halo"
If so, this is going to be a highly anticipated APU.
In the event they indeed make a Strix Halo Flow Z13, would it be too much asking for a "more mundane" Flow X13 or Zephyrus G14 carrying this APU?
Either way, I hope minisforum and other Mini PC manufacturers get their hands on these and make some seriously powerfull SFF units
source / Twitter:
I do hope AMD prices these well; if they sell them to OEMs for slightly less than what a similar CPU + Discrete GPU costs, they could easily have a big hit on their hands, especially since setting up the motherboard & cooling should be simpler. The GPU performance should be in the neighborhood of mobile Nvidia 4060/4070 chips, so Nvidia will really have to step it up with the mobile 5000 series if they don't want that market cut into.
The goal is show images to demonstrate how battery temperature changes depending on orientation.
On both "images" the temperature range is way off centered on the battery and way beyond the temperature gradient on the battery.
Any difference has no meaningfull practical impact. Ambient temperature, external airflow, radiation...
They had some thermal images and someone had to say something about them.
Its like those youtubers spending tens of thousands of dollars to make a video like they've discovered the difference between anechoic and semianechoic...
"waste heat accumulating"
...
It's natural that they would repeat the simulation for both orientations, lest they get any surprises during production or after release.
For those who believe 110W is unrealistic, it is "only" 20-30W more than what it does now (and honestly you don't have to max clocks)
the current version does do 80W pretty well, similarly with the Flow X13
the PX13 according to NBC approaches 90W combined under 80 degrees
(image is from NBC Flow Z13 ACRNM)
Of course it's good for the customers to have options, just like some people wants a 7950X3D, but that's not what the majority wants.
Unless Minisforum decides to put a Halo in a V3 style tablet with a little bigger screen than 13".....