AMD Reveals Next-Gen Handheld Gaming PC Chips (ign.com)
(Monday January 06, 2025 @10:30PM (BeauHD)
from the new-and-shiny dept.)
- Reference: 0175842447
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/01/07/0022229/amd-reveals-next-gen-handheld-gaming-pc-chips
- Source link: https://www.ign.com/articles/amd-shows-off-next-generation-of-handheld-gaming-pcs-at-ces-2025
At CES 2025, AMD [1]unveiled the Z2, Z2 Go, and Z2 Extreme chipsets -- all powered by Zen 5 CPU cores and designed for handheld gaming PCs. IGN reports:
> The AMD Zen 2 Extreme, along with lower-specced cousins the Z2 and Z2 Go, are powered by Zen 5 CPU cores. While the Zen 2 Extreme is using a RDNA 3.5-based GPU, the Z2 and Z2 Go are still using RDNA 3 and RDNA 2, respectively. This creates an entire family of APUs (Advanced Processing Units) for handheld gaming PCs that should hopefully cause the price of handhelds to go down a bit.
>
> With the Z2 Extreme, AMD is hoping to dramatically improve battery life, while also delivering console-like gaming performance to devices like the Lenovo Legion Go. By and large, the biggest limiting factor of these handhelds, especially at the high end, is how quickly their batteries drain when playing demanding games away from a wall outlet.
The company also introduced the "Fire Range" HX3D processors for gaming laptops, leveraging 3D V-cache technology for enhanced gaming performance and efficiency. "All of these mobile chipsets, from 'Fire Range' HX3D to the AMD Z2 Extreme, will end up in gaming laptops and handhelds over the next few months," adds IGN.
AMD published a [2]press release with additional details and specifications.
[1] https://www.ign.com/articles/amd-shows-off-next-generation-of-handheld-gaming-pcs-at-ces-2025
[2] https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1233/amd-announces-new-graphics-and-gaming-products-for-ultimate
> The AMD Zen 2 Extreme, along with lower-specced cousins the Z2 and Z2 Go, are powered by Zen 5 CPU cores. While the Zen 2 Extreme is using a RDNA 3.5-based GPU, the Z2 and Z2 Go are still using RDNA 3 and RDNA 2, respectively. This creates an entire family of APUs (Advanced Processing Units) for handheld gaming PCs that should hopefully cause the price of handhelds to go down a bit.
>
> With the Z2 Extreme, AMD is hoping to dramatically improve battery life, while also delivering console-like gaming performance to devices like the Lenovo Legion Go. By and large, the biggest limiting factor of these handhelds, especially at the high end, is how quickly their batteries drain when playing demanding games away from a wall outlet.
The company also introduced the "Fire Range" HX3D processors for gaming laptops, leveraging 3D V-cache technology for enhanced gaming performance and efficiency. "All of these mobile chipsets, from 'Fire Range' HX3D to the AMD Z2 Extreme, will end up in gaming laptops and handhelds over the next few months," adds IGN.
AMD published a [2]press release with additional details and specifications.
[1] https://www.ign.com/articles/amd-shows-off-next-generation-of-handheld-gaming-pcs-at-ces-2025
[2] https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1233/amd-announces-new-graphics-and-gaming-products-for-ultimate
Headline grammar getting worse (Score:2)
by cstacy ( 534252 )
I don't always read TFS but the grammar in the headlines is worse in 2025.
It's "An MD", and I don't know why a story about a doctor's opinion that some snacks are Politically Correct is relevant on a nerd website. People do eat them even when they are not gaming.
Don't use them for games (Score:3)
by sonamchauhan ( 587356 )
Instead build embodied AIs that accompany a person.
The local AI can analyse voice and vision locally and use cloud AI resources where feasible.
Ambiguous naming convention (Score:2)
by DrMrLordX ( 559371 )
Why call it Z2 when it's using cores from Zen5? Previous handheld-oriented SoCs (such as the one in Steam Deck) use Zen2 cores.
Steam deck's legacy (Score:3)
So there's been a lot, and I do mean A LOT of releases of handheld gaming PCs. Everything from Steam Deck style "screen with joysticks on the sides" to mini-laptops, to recently announced weird combo where it's a mini-laptop style thingy, but you can take the keyboard out and under it are joysticks and a touchscreen keyboard. And all but one (MSI variant) seem to be using AMD's chips, specifically because of better power efficiency and better iGPU.
Going to be interesting to see if Steam Deck refresh is coming with this new chip. Because competitors are most certainly going to be releasing refreshes of their existing systems in droves.
But the main block in those things is less the battery on the go, and more the really crappy performance of the iGPU. You're still stuck playing on low settings in fairly old games. It would be really nice if AMD released a version with just several times more GPU cores and maybe more memory bandwidth. Yes the battery will drain faster, but you could sell a physically a bit bigger device with bigger battery that could run actual modern games at 60fps on medium or better settings. This is really noticeable in how a lot of new releases of these gaming thingies are coming with 8" or so screens instead of Steam Deck style 7". And that means more space inside the device for everything else.