The gaming handheld market is still booming, with customers buying PC-based portables to play their favorite games on the go in surprising numbers. At the heart of the overwhelming majority of these handhelds is AMD silicon—in particular, AMD SoCs based on its “Phoenix” processor, like the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. That silicon is using last-gen CPU and GPU architectures, so isn’t it time for an upgrade?
“Yes,” says AMD, apparently. Based on a few recent leaks, the company seems to be planning a second series of “Ryzen Z” processors, with the top-end Ryzen Z2 Extreme potentially offering a considerable step up from the Ryzen Z1 Extreme in terms of graphics performance.
The latest leak, like several before, comes from noted Chinese-language leaker 金猪升级包, better known as the literally-translated “Golden Pig Upgrade Pack” in English. ‘Golden Pig’ writes on Bilibili that his previous leak about the new parts was incorrect, and that AMD will indeed be launching a Ryzen Z2 Extreme SoC based on the ‘Strix Point’ silicon with the full 16-core RDNA 3.5 GPU enabled.
If you’re confused, recall that earlier this year AMD launched new mobile processors in the Ryzen AI 300 family. These parts, code-named ‘Strix Point’, offer twelve CPU cores and sixteen GPU cores, both from AMD’s latest architectures. That means a mix of Zen 5 and Zen 5c for the CPUs, and RDNA 3.5 for the integrated GPU. That’s 50% more CPU cores and 33% more GPU hardware compared to “Phoenix”.
Arguably the more interesting detail in the leak is that AMD is purportedly planning to ship the Ryzen Z2 Extreme with only eight of Strix Point’s twelve CPU cores enabled. Rather than a 4+4 configuration like Intel’s Lunar Lake, it will supposedly ship with a 3+5 configuration, meaning it will have three high-clocking Zen 5 CPUs and five high-efficiency Zen 5c cores.
We said even before Phoenix came out that eight CPU cores is really overkill for any device gaming on the APU’s integrated graphics; just look at Valve’s Steam Deck, which has a measly four Zen 2 CPU cores yet offers competitive gaming performance at low wattages versus the theoretically-much-more-potent Ryzen Z1 Extreme. However, Strix Point moves to the denser 4nm process node, and may end up being quite an upgrade when it launches, likely in the first half of next year.
Previous leaks have planted the idea that AMD will also launch chips called the Ryzen Z2 and Ryzen Z2G. The Ryzen Z2 is supposedly based on a refresh of the Phoenix silicon, meaning it will have functionally similar specifications to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Meanwhile, the Ryzen Z2G is rumored to be based on a successive refresh of AMD’s Rembrandt-R silicon, giving it Zen 3+ CPUs and RDNA 2 graphics. While it will likely lag behind Phoenix and Strix Point in performance, it could still be very efficient—and very affordable.