AMD has announced its new Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme chips overnight that are set to power the next wave of handhelds including the newly announced ASUS ROG Ally.
These new chips are set to really take handhelds to the next level in terms of power, but also maximise battery life.
The AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme has 12 RDNA3 graphics cores and 8.6 teraflops of computing power which is more than the PS4 Pro (8.4 teraflops) and almost at the PS5’s 10.2 teraflops. Obviously, it’s not a direct one for one comparison for power as things such as battery life and temperature will also need to be taken into consideration when these chips are running in a handheld.
Model | Cores/Threads | Graphics | Cache |
AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme | 8/16 | 12 AMD RDNA 3 compute units | 24 MB |
AMD Ryzen Z1 | 6/12 | 4 AMD RDNA 3 compute units | 22 MB |
Similarly, the AMD Ryzen Z1 will have 4 RDNA3 graphics cores and 2.8 teraflops of power which is above the base PS4 (1.9 teraflops) and just behind the Xbox Series S (4 teraflops).
The AMD Ryzen Z1 will target 60FPS with higher graphical fidelity using AMD RSR whilst the standard Ryzen Z1 will target 60FPS at low quality settings using AMD RSR.
We don’t know which of these chips the ASUS ROG Ally will be using, but will hopefully find out at the launch event on May 11th. I’d personally love to see a bit of option and see both used in seperate SKUs.