Almost two years ago, AMD announced its first Ryzen Z1 processors. This was essentially the same silicon that AMD was putting into high-end thin and light laptops, but optimized specifically for portable gaming PCs like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally X. As part of its announcements today at CES, AMD is updating that line. with three processors, all scheduled for an undisclosed date in the first quarter of 2025.
Although they are all part of the “Ryzen Z2” family, each of these three chips is actually very different under the hood, and some of them are newer than others.
The Ryzen Z2 Extreme is what you'd expect from an upgrade: a simple update to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme's CPU and GPU architectures. Based on the same “Strix Point” architecture as the Ryzen AI 300 laptop processors, the Z2 Extreme includes eight CPU cores (three high-performance Zen 5 cores, five smaller, efficiency-optimized Zen 5C cores) and an RDNA GPU Unnamed 3.5 with 16 of AMD's compute units (CUs). Both should provide small increases in CPU and GPU performance relative to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, which used eight Zen 4 CPU cores and 12 RDNA 3 GPU cores.
AMD's entire Ryzen Z2 lineup, confusing the fact that these three chips use different CPU and GPU architectures. Credit: AMD
The Ryzen Z2, on the other hand, appears to be the exact same chip as the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, but with a different name. Like the Z1 Extreme, it has eight Zen 4 cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.1 GHz and an RDNA 3 GPU with 12 cores.