AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme spec leak suggests significant performance boost for gaming handhelds

The gaming handheld market is still booming, with a surprising number of customers purchasing PC-based portable devices to play their favorite games on the go. At the heart of the vast majority of these handhelds is AMD silicon – particularly AMD SoCs based on the “Phoenix” processor, like the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. This silicon uses last-generation CPU and GPU architectures. So isn't it time for an upgrade?

“Yes,” AMD apparently says. Based on some recent leaks, the company appears to be planning a second series of “Ryzen Z” processors, with the top-end Ryzen Z2 Extreme potentially representing a significant step up from the Ryzen Z1 Extreme in terms of graphics performance.

The latest leak, like several before it, comes from well-known 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 wrong and that AMD is actually launching a Ryzen Z2 Extreme SoC based on the “Strix Point” silicon with the full 16-core RDNA 3.5 GPU activated market will bring.

If you are confused, remember that AMD launched new Ryzen AI 300 family mobile processors earlier this year. Codenamed “Strix Point,” these parts 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”.

Perhaps the more interesting detail in the leak is that AMD is reportedly planning to ship the Ryzen Z2 Extreme with only eight of the twelve Strix Point CPU cores enabled. Instead of a 4+4 configuration like Intel's Lunar Lake, it will reportedly 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 before Phoenix's release that eight CPU cores is really overkill for any device that plays on the APU's integrated graphics; Just look at Valve's Steam Deck, which has a measly four Zen 2 CPU cores but offers competitive gaming performance at low wattages compared to the theoretically much more powerful Ryzen Z1 Extreme. However, Strix Point is moving to the denser 4nm process node and could be quite an upgrade when it launches, likely in the first half of next year.

Previous leaks have floated the idea that AMD will also launch chips called Ryzen Z2 and Ryzen Z2G. The Ryzen Z2 is reportedly based on an update to Phoenix silicon, meaning it will have functional specs similar to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Meanwhile, the Ryzen Z2G is rumored to be based on a gradual refresh of AMD's Rembrandt-R silicon, giving it Zen 3+ CPUs and RDNA 2 graphics. Even though it probably falls behind Phoenix and Strix Point in terms of performance, it could still be very efficient – and very affordable.