AMD launches Ryzen Z1 series APUs for "Next Gen" Handheld PC Gaming Devices | Up To 55% faster than SteamDeck

[AlTech]

Summary

 

AMD has officially announced their new Ryzen Z1 series APUs for "Next Gen" Handheld PC Gaming Devices/Consoles.

 

The series thus far consists of two models:

• Ryzen Z1 - 6 Core 12 Thread Zen4 CPU + 4CU RDNA3 GPU
• Ryzen Z1 Extreme - 8 Core 16 Thread Zen4 CPU + 12CU RDNA3 GPU

 

The Z1 APU is reported to be:

• Up To 55% faster than SteamDeck APU
• Up To 7x faster than Nintendo Switch in TFlops

 

The Z1 Extreme is reported to be Up To 21.5x faster than Nintendo Switch in TFlops.

 

AMD says this is not a rebrand of Zen 4 laptop APUs but a modified version with different power characteristics and other differences optimized for handhelds.

 

AMD has also stated that Asus's ROG Ally pricing and other information will be announced on May 11th though leaks reported on by The Verge suggest that the MSRP is $699.99 for the Z1 Extreme model. No pricing has been leaked for the standard Z1 model.

 

 

 

Quotes

Quote

AMD says (via The Verge) that the Ryzen Z1 can run games about 55 percent faster than the Steam Deck, reflecting the improved performance and efficiency of the newer architectures and manufacturing process. Interestingly, the Z1 Extreme's extra GPU cores (12, up from 4 in the Z1) improve gaming performance, but they don't come anywhere near tripling or even doubling it. The extra hardware helps, but we're still dealing with integrated GPUs here, attached to a relatively slow pool of DDR5 that they share with the rest of the system rather than dedicated GDDR6 or GDDR6X memory.

 

Quote

The Ryzen Z1 chips will initially power the Asus ROG Ally, an upcoming handheld gaming PC that Asus confusingly decided to announce on April 1. Many companies use April Fools' Day as an excuse to make "funny" prank announcements, and Asus had to reassure people after the fact that "it's real" and was "not an April Fool's [sic] joke."

AMD says that Asus will announce more about the ROG Ally on May 11. AMD's performance numbers are all from a ROG Ally prototype running in "Turbo Mode," which allows the APU to draw up to 30 W of power; modes that cut performance in favor of better battery life may not perform as well.

 

 

My thoughts

 These APUs look cool although the scaling from Z1 to Z1 Extreme doesn't look encouraging tbh. I think AMD would have done better to disable a few CUs on the Z1 Extreme model and ramp up the clocks more instead. It will be interesting to see how much power these use compared to SteamDeck's "Aerith" APU. I suspect the Z1 uses a similar amount of power to "Aerith" and that the Z1 Extreme probably uses a lot more power.

 

Though I also have to wonder why Valve chose to have AMD make "Aerith" if they knew AMD was going to release the Z1 series. It also begs the question why Valve went for a Zen2 based approach instead of Zen3+ which was available at the time.

 

If Asus' handheld gaming PC is anywhere near $499 or $599 for the Z1 model I would say it's DOA. $699 for the Z1 Extreme is more than a bit much for many people and I think part of Steam Deck's appeal is it's price point. I don't know that a 1080p 120Hz screen can save Asus' handheld.

 

Sources

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/amds-ryzen-z1-chips-could-power-a-new-wave-of-handheld-steam-deck-clones/

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

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

37 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Interestingly, the Z1 Extreme's extra GPU cores (12, up from 4 in the Z1) improve gaming performance, but they don't come anywhere near tripling or even doubling it. The extra hardware helps, but we're still dealing with integrated GPUs here, attached to a relatively slow pool of DDR5 that they share with the rest of the system rather than dedicated GDDR6 or GDDR6X memory.

Looking at this, I wonder if an X3D-like version of this could help make better use of those extra GPU cores.

[sof006]

I saw this mentioned the other day, very cool. I'm looking forward to seeing handheld manufacturers put these in their products 

[Zodiark1593]

If that Z1 Extreme has the ability to power gate some of the CUs, I think we’re looking at the potential guts of a Switch 2. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

I think AMD would have done better to disable a few CUs on the Z1 Extreme model and ramp up the clocks more instead

Doubt it would make much difference, or be worse. Looks pretty much power limit related so higher clocks would be less power efficient in general.

[AlTech]

Just now, leadeater said:

Doubt it would make much difference, or be worse. Looks pretty much power limit related so higher clocks would be less power efficient in general.

But disabling a few CUs could give a slither more power budget to clocks.

 

It's easier to feed fewer CUs at a high clockspeed rather than lots of CUs at a low clockspeed.

[Holmes108]

The frame rates in the chart don't really blow me away, for 1080 low. Maybe it's just one of those times where I have to remind myself I'm an enthusiast, and therefore a little out of touch. I suppose in a handheld, with a smaller screen it'll still look pretty darn good. I guess I was hopeful for something that could do a bit more, potentially for when you're docked.

 

1080, and the FPS are fine themselves... I guess it's just the "low" that I'm a little disappointed with.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

But disabling a few CUs could give a slither more power budget to clocks.

Not nearly as much offset as the power scaling curve with clocks. Either way the difference is going to be marginal since these will be so low TDP 99.99% performance restriction is that alone so you're dabbling in fractions of percentage differences. Not worth worrying about.

[AlTech]

Just now, Holmes108 said:

The frame rates in the chart don't really blow me away, for 1080 low. Maybe it's just one of those times where I have to remind myself I'm an enthusiast, and therefore a little out of touch. I suppose in a handheld, with a smaller screen it'll still look pretty darn good. I guess I was hopeful for something that could do a bit more, potentially for when you're docked.

 

1080, and the FPS are fine themselves... I guess it's just the "low" that I'm a little disappointed with.

I didn't include the graphs in the post but I believe AMD did show a few slides of 720p Medium upscaled to 1080p using Radeon Super Resolution.

[Holmes108]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I didn't include the graphs in the post but I believe AMD did show a few slides of 720p Medium upscaled to 1080p using Radeon Super Resolution.

 

Yeah, it's hard to get Xboxes and Pc's out of my head. If I remind myself of how well games looked on the Steamdeck, with those relative resolutions and frames, this absolutely could be really nice.

[OhYou_]

its too bad these dont make it onto itx or 4x4 format motherboards fur use in embedded. 
no instead we get stuck with zen 3 ryzen embedded cpus that you cant buy or zen 2 that are barely available. cool 

[Shreyas1]

I hope that Valve will sell updated motherboards with newer chips in the future that current steam deck owners could slot in. At least so far they seem to have made the deck pretty repairable, and having a modular upgradable system would be a huge advantage over any other handheld out there.

[AlTech]

5 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

I hope that Valve will sell updated motherboards with newer chips in the future that current steam deck owners could slot in. At least so far they seem to have made the deck pretty repairable, and having a modular upgradable system would be a huge advantage over any other handheld out there.

They haven't directly said they won't do this. But they have said it indirectly. They're not interested in a modular upgradable system or having different SteamDeck performance levels at the same time.

[Shreyas1]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

They haven't directly said they won't do this. But they have said it indirectly. They're not interested in a modular upgradable system or having different SteamDeck performance levels at the same time.

that's unfortunate.

 

3-4 years down the line I hope they change their mind. Hopefully it will be easier and more cost efficient for them to design a new motherboard that works with the old steam deck instead of creating a steam deck 2. From what I've heard (although this might just be a rumor) the deck is sold at a loss and the idea is to make up the difference with more steam sales, and designing a new motherboard to keep existing deck users on SteamOS instead of giving them the chance to upgrade to a windows handheld system might make sense. But that's just my speculation

[Mihle]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Not nearly as much offset as the power scaling curve with clocks. Either way the difference is going to be marginal since these will be so low TDP 99.99% performance restriction is that alone so you're dabbling in fractions of percentage differences. Not worth worrying about.

I would argue it might have been more worth it to stay at 6 cores and use that power on the CUs, but then again I don't know how much power the 2 cores would save.

[WereCat]

2 hours ago, Shreyas1 said:

I hope that Valve will sell updated motherboards with newer chips in the future that current steam deck owners could slot in. At least so far they seem to have made the deck pretty repairable, and having a modular upgradable system would be a huge advantage over any other handheld out there.

Unlikely. They would then have to provide shader cache for old and new version. 

[GOTSpectrum]

4 hours ago, Mihle said:

I would argue it might have been more worth it to stay at 6 cores and use that power on the CUs, but then again I don't know how much power the 2 cores would save.

I was thinking the same, at these power levels, every watt counts

[Doobeedoo]

This is quite good. Really much better and something I expected Steamdeck would aim for. Like waiting for a bit newer CPU/GPU arch and better display like 120Hz OLED though. Could also use better memory config too. It wouldn't really bring price much if it was coming now but would quite a better baseline. 

Just remembered how it's sad phones are selling well over 1k price and replaced as often and then seeing people cry over prices stuff lile this. Meh.

But yeah we knew AMD would eventually work more and better APUs in general. They could make some insane shit if they wanted. 

[starsmine]

AMD out here fighting for that Switch HD contract since Nvidia paused their Tegra lineup.

[leadeater]

56 minutes ago, starsmine said:

AMD out here fighting for that Switch HD contract since Nvidia paused their Tegra lineup.

It's Nintendo, I wouldn't put it past them to license IP to make their own chip for their next thing just to be that extra annoying and have even more death grip control.

[LAwLz]

On 4/27/2023 at 7:14 PM, Zodiark1593 said:

If that Z1 Extreme has the ability to power gate some of the CUs, I think we’re looking at the potential guts of a Switch 2. 

I doubt it. It would be cool, but my guess is that it would be too expensive and power hungry for a Switch 2. Not to mention it would probably need to break backwards compatibility. Console makers aren't that worried about backwards compatibility, but something tells me Nintendo don't want to do that for the Switch 2 (or whatever it will be called, Nintendo Router). 

[PacketAuditor]

FYI this is basically a 7840u.

[williamcll]

12 hours ago, PacketAuditor said:

FYI this is basically a 7840u.

I think it has better graphics?

[AlTech]

4 hours ago, williamcll said:

I think it has better graphics?

This has lower voltage curves and is optimized for lower energy use and higher boost TDP (iirc 5W-30W. Regular U series AMD APUs are 12W-25W)

[MageTank]

5 hours ago, williamcll said:

I think it has better graphics?

What @AluminiumTechsaid. They bin these for low leakage for better power optimization. Allows them to maintain a higher boost frequency despite having the same TDP constraints. 

 

Performance would be relatively comparable though.