1 min readSay hello to the processor that’s almost certainly going to power this year’s crowd of challengers to the supremacy of the Valve Steam Deck.
Announced as part of AMD’s CES press conference, the new Ryzen Z2 Series processors are purpose built to offer “console-class” gaming in a handheld form-factor.
To date, AMD has acted as the engine behind the success of the devices like the Steam Deck. The chipmaker partnered with Valve to produce a custom chip for that handheld and has provided the AMD Z1 to more mainstream manufacturers like Lenovo and ASUS in the years since.
Looking forward, AMD predicts that the handheld PC category will undergo “explosive” growth with more and more OEMs introducing new designs in a bid to take advantage of the growing consumer interest around the form-factor.
To meet that demand, AMD is now looking to introduce three new versions of the follow-up. The Ryzen Z2 Extreme is the top of the line option here, offering 8 cores and 16 threads and a whopping 16 graphics cores.
The Ryzen Z2 is a step below that, with only 12 graphics cores. However, this sub-premium processor is able to offer slightly faster speeds of 5.1Ghz when boosted. Then, there’s the Ryzen Z2 Go. This one is clearly aimed towards the thriftier end of the market. It’s only got 4 CPU cores, with speeds of up to 4.3Ghz and a cache that’s less than half the size of the other options.
Still, it’s got just as many GPU cores as the Ryzen Z2 does. Given how important that specific piece of the puzzle is when it comes to gaming, that detail shouldn’t be taken for granted. Nor should the more affordable asking prices that the Z2 Go might unlock. There’s a lot of room between the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch, so a few thriftier alternatives to the former might be just what the category needs to continue growing.
AMD didn’t have much to share in terms of what devices or specific manufacturers are looking to incorporate the Ryzen Z2 Series just yet but the company is looking to launch the chip in the first quarter of the year so expect to hear more on that sooner rather than later.
