Monday, January 6th 2025
AMD Announces the Ryzen Z2 Line of SoCs for Gaming Handhelds
AMD at the 2025 International CES unveiled the Ryzen Z2 line of SoCs for gaming handhelds that combine an x86-64 based SoC with a customized version of Windows 11. This market segment is poised to heat up with the entry of the Intel Core Ultra 200V "Lunar Lake" processor, and so AMD is responding with its latest IP. The Ryzen Z2 series is based on the 4 nm "Strix Point" silicon, which combines "Zen 5" and "Zen 5c" CPU cores with a fairly large iGPU based on the new RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture that's optimized for LPDDR5X memory. AMD's engineering effort focused on modest CPU performance gains over the Ryzen Z1 "Phoenix Point," but significant graphics performance gains. The NPU is disabled on all models.
The "Strix Point" silicon physically features two CCX, one with four "Zen 5" cores sharing a 16 MB L3 cache, and the other with eight "Zen 5c" cores sharing an 8 MB L3 cache. The iGPU of "Strix Point" is based on RDNA 3.5, and comes with 16 CU (compute units), a step up from the 12 CU of "Phoenix Point." The series is led by the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, which features an 8-core/16-thread CPU configuration that probably consists of four "Zen 5" cores, four "Zen 5c" cores, and a maxed out iGPU with 16 CU. The chip has a cTDP range of 15 W to 35 W. The "Zen 5" cores boost up to 5.00 GHz.
Next up is the Ryzen Z2 (non-Extreme). This chip comes with a CPU configuration of 8-core/16-thread, but is based on the older "Phoenix Point" silicon, all eight of its cores are "Zen 4," and come with 16 MB of shared L3 cache. The iGPU is a maxed out RDNA 3 unit with 12 CU. With this generation, AMD is introducing a new entry level chip for handheld consoles that are into casual gaming. The company is calling this the Ryzen Z2 Go. This chip is based on the older "Phoenix 2" silicon, and comes with a combination of two "Zen 4" and two "Zen 4c" cores.
The "Strix Point" silicon physically features two CCX, one with four "Zen 5" cores sharing a 16 MB L3 cache, and the other with eight "Zen 5c" cores sharing an 8 MB L3 cache. The iGPU of "Strix Point" is based on RDNA 3.5, and comes with 16 CU (compute units), a step up from the 12 CU of "Phoenix Point." The series is led by the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, which features an 8-core/16-thread CPU configuration that probably consists of four "Zen 5" cores, four "Zen 5c" cores, and a maxed out iGPU with 16 CU. The chip has a cTDP range of 15 W to 35 W. The "Zen 5" cores boost up to 5.00 GHz.
10 Comments on AMD Announces the Ryzen Z2 Line of SoCs for Gaming Handhelds
But take note that Z2 and Z2 Go are most likely using the 680M like previously leaked months ago, which is still fine for almost all games today as the Steam Deck is Zen 2+RDNA2 whereas this one is most likely Zen 3+ with RDNA2. My best educated guess is that Z2 is a rebadged 6800U/6800HS/6900HS and the Z2 Go is a semi-"new" quad-core version of the 6800U.
The one thing that always bothered me about the non-Extreme Z1 was its poor graphics performance, which this chip would not suffer from.
Since the Compact cores are power optimized, it would allow the iGPU to use a larger chunk of the limited TDP, while also avoiding any high latency switching between CCXs.
But, I guess a sensible design for handhelds is out of the question, as it would look slower than its competition in CPU centric (non-gaming) benchmarks :shadedshu: