AMD’s Ryzen Z1 processors will now have a minimum configurable TDP of 9W, while the maximum TDP will be 30W. AMD confirmed that the Z1 and Z1 Extreme CPUs will not have access to the Ryzen AI engine found in other AMD APUs, as it will be disabled.
The company shared this information with Tom’s Hardware, stating that while the underlying technology of the Z1 and Z1 Extreme processors is comparable to that of AMD’s Ryzen 5 7040U APUs, there are significant differences between the two chipsets. AMD’s spokesperson explained that “the Z1 SoCs were developed with handheld gaming in mind. Therefore, our engineers have validated a new power range and optimized the voltage curves of the Z1 processors.”
For comparison, the Steam Deck uses a custom AMD Zen 2 APU codenamed Aerith, which has a minimum configurable TDP of 4W and a maximum TDP of 15W.
The Ryzen Z1 series features six Zen 4 cores, an integrated RDNA 3 GPU with four compute units and 22MB cache, while the Extreme variant has eight cores, a more powerful GPU with twelve CUs and 24MB cache. AMD designed the Ryzen Z1 series specifically for PC gaming handhelds, optimizing them for high battery life. The Z1 processors will first be used in the upcoming ROG Ally gaming handheld, with more details from ASUS set to be revealed on May 11th.
