AMD Ryzen Z1 – The chip that will take down the Steam Deck

The Z1 will most notably be featured in the up-coming ROG Ally.

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AMD has just announced its AMD Ryzen Z1 APU for mobile gaming. AMD is a predominant figure in the gaming APU space as both the PS5 and the latest Xbox contain AMD APUs. Now AMD is here to take the mobile market by storm with its new Ryzen Z1 chip.

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What is the AMD Ryzen Z1?

AMD revealed that the AMD Ryzen Z1 is a series of APUs that contains 2 chips, the AMD Ryzen Z1 and the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, and as the name suggests, the extreme is pretty extreme compared to the base chip. The Rryzen Z1 series are APUs, meaning they are both a CPU and GPU combined.

This is a smart choice if you’re trying to conserve space as you are in a handheld console, but it’s not great for temperature. This is because you have two separate compute engines (CPU and GPU) heating up in an enclosed chip. Although, AMD is no stranger to APUs so we’re sure it’ll be fine.

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AMD Ryzen Z1 release date

The AMD Ryzen Z1 will debut in the ASUS ROG Ally, so the release date of the Z1 will likely coincide with that. However, the Ryzen Z1 is not a consumer chip that you will be able to purchase. The Z1 will most likely be OEM only and offered to those creating handheld gaming consoles, such as the ROG Ally.

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Ryzen Z1 series specifications

As we mentioned before, there are two variants in the Ryzen Z1 series, we will detail the specifications of both. There is very limited information as of right now, but we will update with more as soon as it becomes available.

Ryzen Z1 specifications

• Platform: Handheld
• CPU cores: 6
• CPU threads: 12
• L2 Cache: 6MB
• L3 Cache: 16MB
• cTDP (configurable): 15-30W
• GPU generation: RDNA3
• GPU CU: 4

Ryzen Z1 Extreme specifications

• Platform: Handheld
• CPU cores: 8
• CPU threads: 16
• L2 Cache: 8MB
• L3 Cache: 16MB
• cTDP (configurable): 15-30W
• GPU generation: RDNA3
• GPU CU: 12

As you can see, there’s a massive difference between the Extreme and the base Z1, especially in the GPU CU department (Compute Units) as it has more than doubled. This will hopefully result in much better performance when gaming, or maybe it could be used to drive a higher resolution.

Both of the new AMD Z1 CPUs also support the following key features:

• AMD Link
• AMD Radeon™ Super Resolution
• AMD Radeon™ Boost
• AMD Radeon™ Anti-Lag
• AMD FreeSync™ Technology
• AMD Radeon™ Chill

These features further increase the proficiency of both the CPU and the GPU cores within the new Ryzen Z1 chips.

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AMD Ryzen Z1 memory support

Each of the Z1 APUs will be comparable with the LPDDR5 and LPDDR5X memory standards to deliver fast performance and low latency gameplay for the best possible gaming experience, AMD states.

LPDDR5 is the latest small form factor mobile memory standard it powers mobile devices with performance and efficiency. It delivers a speed of 5500Mbps, 48Gb, and low voltage ranging from 0.5V to 1.8V. Says Samsung.

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Ryzen Z1 vs Steam Deck’s Aerith APU

The APU in the Steam Deck is based on the Zen 2 architecture, with a GPU component based on RDNA 2, the CPU is a 4-Core, 8-Thread configuration with the GPU running on 8 CU. The total estimated performance of the GPU is 1.6 TFLOPS.

We don’t have as much information on the Ryzen Z1 APUs, but referring back to the specifications shows us that it has quite an edge over the Steam Deck’s APU, Specifically the fact that the GPU is RDNA 3 based, and has more CUs in the Extreme example.

The CPU is also based on the Zen 4 architecture, meaning the CPU cores themselves are a whole 2 generations ahead of the Steam Deck’s CPU component. However, factors that remain unknown are also great indicators of performance, such as GPU core speed and CPU core speed. Until those metrics are released, it would be unfair to make a proper comparison.

But it is looking good for the Ryzen Z1.