Following in the wake of the ASUS ROG ALLY, AMD has introduced the series of processors Ryzen Z1 oriented to portable consoles based on the x86 architecture, which have reared their head in the sector mainstream of computing following the relative success of the Steam Deck. Among the models presented by the red giant is the one used by the ASUS device.
The series of x86 processors geared towards portable consoles introduced by AMD consists of the standard Ryzen Z1 and the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Both are models that try to offer a combination of efficiency and high performance and employ Zen 4 as architecture at the processor level and RDNA 3 for integrated graphics. This combination should provide enough power to run most of the latest generation triple A video games.
He AMD Ryzen Z1 standard incorporates six physical cores, twelve total threads (two threads per core), four GPU-level compute units, and 22 megabytes of cache memoryMeanwhile he AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme implements eight physical cores, sixteen total threads, 12 GPU-level compute units, and 24 megabytes of cache memory.
In addition to hardware-level features, users can optimize the experience offered by processors with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, a tool that allows you to use features such as AMD Radeon Super Resolution 2, Radeon Chill, Radeon Image Sharpening 3, AMD Link 4 and more, which allow an increase in performance while extending the autonomy offered by the battery.
AMD Ryzen Z1 processors feature USB 4 support and LPDDR5 and LPDDR5X memories. That is in addition to compatibility with Windows 11, which together with the use of the x86 architecture opens the door to run all the common software present for the Microsoft operating system, including all the clients of the digital video game platforms and the games themselves. . This means that users, at least on paper, will be free to use portable consoles that include these processors for whatever purposes they want, including office automation, multimedia production, etc. The use of other operating systems should also be open.
Jason Banta, responsible for OEM customers at AMD, has commented that the company is advancing “continuously on the next generation of gaming experiences, from consoles to desktop and handheld devices. Ryzen Z1 processors bring gamers an elite gaming experience and extreme portability in exciting gaming form factors.”.
AMD seems to have everything ready to consolidate its dominance in the sector of portable consoles that use x86 processorsand it is that the red giant, of the three companies of the big threeFor now, it is the one that has the best combination of processor and integrated graphics on the architecture in question. The orientation of the Ryzen Z1 will invite the company to invest heavily in improving its upscaling technologies, where it is currently behind NVIDIA’s DLSS and Intel’s XeSS.
