AMD confirms Ryzen Z2 Strix Point processor for portable consoles — coming in early 2025

AMD has confirmed the release of the Z2 Extreme processor for portable consoles in early 2025. Digital Trends journalists learned about this during a Q&A session with AMD and Microsoft employees.

The Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme chips are based on the Phoenix architecture, have up to 8 Zen 4 cores and up to 12 RDNA 3 graphics compute units. However, AMD has already released Strix Point processors, which have up to 8 Zen 5 cores and up to 16 RDNA 3.5 compute units. This upgrade is useful for future portable gaming devices, especially since AMD is focusing on chip energy efficiency.

Here is a comparison of AMD processors for handheld consoles:

• Ryzen Z1 Extreme : 8C/16T (8x Zen 4) and 12 CU RDNA3
• Ryzen Z1: 2C+4c/12T (2x Zen 4 + 4x Zen 4c) and 4 CU RDNA3
• Ryzen Z2 Extreme: 12C/24T (4x Zen 5 + 8x Zen 5c) and 16 CU RDNA3.5

The difference between the Ryzen Z series and the Ryzen AI 300 is the NPU support, which is likely to be disabled in the console version (but this is not certain). The first game consoles that are likely to receive Z2 are Asus ROG Ally 2 and Lenovo Legion Go 2.

The new Ryzen Z2 series is expected to be introduced in early 2025. Although AMD has not yet provided a specific timeframe, the chip may be presented at CES 2025.

Sources: Digital Trends, VideoCardz