AMD announces new Ryzen Z2 chips for PC gaming handhelds at CES 2025
AMD helps usher in the second generation of PC gaming handhelds in 2025 with the announcement of the AMD Ryzen Z2 processor series, designed to deliver more performance and better efficiency for PC gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion go.
The AMD Ryzen Z2 processors come in three different tiers and include the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, AMD Ryzen Z2, and AMD Ryzen Z2 Go. The Ryzen Z2 Extreme will feature eight cores and 16 threads, a 5.0 GHz boost clock, 24 MB cache, 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores, and a power range of 15 W-35 W.
The Ryzen Z2 will also feature eight cores and 16 threads, but with a slightly higher boost clock of 5.1 GHz, the same 24 MB cache, but 12 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores instead of 16, and a slightly smaller power of 15 W-30W.
The new Ryzen Z2 Go (which had no equivalent to the Ryzen Z1 series) will have four cores and eight threads, a 4.3 GHz boost clock and 10 MB cache, but the same 12 GPU cores and 15W-30W power range like the Ryzen Z2.
Since the chips won’t sell on their own, there’s no hard release date as that depends on the release dates for the individual handhelds, but handhelds with the new chips should be available from the first quarter of 2025.
| Header cell – Column 0 | AMD Ryzen Z2Go | AMD Ryzen Z2 | AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nuclei | 4 | 8 | 8 |
| Wires | 8 | 16 | 16 |
| Basic frequency (GHz) | 3.0 | 3.3 | 2.0 |
| Boost Frequency (GHz) | 4.3 | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| Total cache memory (MB) | 10 | 24 | 24 |
| Graphic | RDNA 2 | RDNA 3 | RDNA 3.5 |
| TDP (W) | 15-30 | 15-30 | 15-35 |
Adding fuel to the already glowing PC gaming handheld market
Following the launch of the Steam Deck in 2022, the PC gaming handheld market has exploded over the past two years, with almost every major gaming PC manufacturer producing its own PC gaming handheld.
With few exceptions, these all run on the AMD Ryzen Z1 series processors, so it makes sense that about two years after the launch of the Asus ROG Ally, the second PC gaming handheld after the Steam Deck, the AMD Ryzen Z series SoCs would get a refresh with some new architecture and design.
And while the Ryzen Z1 essentially had the entire market to itself, Intel’s strong performance with the MSI Claw 8 AI+, the first handheld with an Intel Lunar Lake SoC, has certainly injected a lot more competition into this space.
We haven’t been able to test the new chips yet, so we can’t say whether the new chips are worth an upgrade, but given the popularity of these handhelds, it’s good to see that AMD is not only committed to further Z series development, but even expanding it to a lower ‘budget’ specified level, which will hopefully help bring the cost of future PC gaming handhelds to a more affordable place.