AMD confirmed that it is working on the Ryzen Z2 Extremea chip that will succeed the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. It is a very important announcement because it will become the basic component of the next generation portable consoles from brands such as ASUS, Lenovo and other companies that bet on the current veneration for the Ryzen Z1 Extreme.
However, during the official announcement AMD did not give any technical details about the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, only indicating that its launch will be produced in 2025This release date allows us to establish a list of possible technical specifications based on the characteristics of the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, and the architectures that AMD has launched or plans to launch in the coming months.
AMD has already launched the first processors based on Zen 5, and Zen 6 will not arrive until 2026, so it is clear that the former will be the architecture chosen to design the Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU, but some important things are still up in the air, like the design of this one, its configurationtheir clock speeds and the GPU that will accompany it.
AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU, design and keys
We can take it for granted that it will use the Zen 5 architecture, and I am also convinced that it will repeat the monolithic core design that we saw in the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. This means that the CPU and GPU will share a silicon die, which eliminates latency issues when communicating between chiplets, but introduces the problem of space at the silicon level, which will force a reduction in the amount of L3 cache available.
The Ryzen Z2 Extreme will have a 8-core, 16-thread processor at a frequency between 3.4 GHz and 5.2 GHz, normal and turbo mode, when operating at the maximum supported TDP value. Each core will have 1 MB of L2 cache and will have a total of 16 MB of L3 cache, half the amount found on a Ryzen 7 9700X.
That difference in the total amount of L3 cache will affect your gaming performancewhich should generally be slightly higher than the Ryzen Z1 Extreme CPU. AMD may take advantage of this to introduce specific changes or optimizations, but we should not expect an increase in the total number of cores and threads, because it will not be necessary.
The Ryzen Z2 Extreme is going to be a chip aimed at portable consoles, a type of device where the most important thing is the performance-per-watt ratio, as well as efficiency in terms of space and silicon. Games don’t need more than six cores and twelve threads to offer good performance, so Going beyond 8 cores and 16 threads would be unnecessarya real waste of resources.
Graphics core: architecture and possible specifications
The biggest jump compared to the current generation will be in the GPU of the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. The most logical thing would be for it to use the RDNA 4 architectureand that it comes with a shader configuration superior to what we have seen in the Radeon 890M, which is the most powerful integrated GPU that AMD currently has in its general consumer catalog.
The information we have about the RDNA 4 architecture is very scarce, but we know that AMD is focusing on improving performance per watt and ray tracing powerso the generational leap could be significant, so much so that it may allow this new GPU to run games in 1080p with high or very high quality while maintaining a rate of 60 FPS with a very low TDP.
There are no details on its possible specifications, but considering that the Radeon 890M has 1,024 shaders, it is most likely that the new integrated GPU of the Ryzen Z2 Extreme will have a configuration of 1.280 shaders. It is also possible that it is configured with the same number of shaders, 1,024, but that these are based on RDNA 4.
He ideal scenario In terms of power, it would be an increase in the number of shaders and working frequencies accompanied by the jump to the RDNA 4 architecture, since it would allow AMD to position this integrated GPU as a very powerful and very competent solution, even if it has to maintain a maximum combined TDP (CPU and GPU) of only 30 watts.
Possible performance of the Ryzen Z2 Extreme against the Ryzen Z1 Extreme
At the CPU level the improvement is going to be quite modest. I would bet on a performance increase of between 5% and 10% on average in games. In terms of GPU performance, we will see a much bigger jump, although as I said, this will depend on the configuration that the integrated GPU ends up having. There are two possible scenarios, so I will explain both.
The first scenario would be the ideal one, AMD increases the shader count to 1,280, raises the peak frequencies to 3 GHz and also introduces improvements with the RDNA 4 architecture. The peak power in FP32 of this GPU would be 15,36 TFLOPs thanks to dual-emission shaders. The Radeon 780M is rated at 8.29 TFLOPS, so as I said the difference would be big.
In the second scenario AMD would leave the shader count at 1,024, increase the GPU speed to 3 GHz and also introduce improvements with the RDNA 4 architecture. In this case the power in FP32 would be 12,28 TFLOPs, thanks again to the dual-emission shaders.
Even in the worst case scenario the power difference between the Radeon 780M in the Ryzen Z1 Extreme and the new GPU in the Ryzen Z2 Extreme would be large, but it is very important to remember that we are talking about TFLOPS, and that these do not realistically represent the performance of a GPU in gamesAn integrated GPU is designed to work at 1080p resolution due to bandwidth limitations, and this is not going to change with this new GPU.
Looking at the improvement between the Radeon 780M and the Radeon 890M I’d venture to say that we’re likely to see a 20-30% jump with the new Ryzen Z2 Extreme GPU compared to the Radeon 890M. The improvement will be bigger compared to the Radeon 780M, and It is likely to reach up to 40%.
I don’t want to finish without making an important note about the possible performance in ray tracing. The latest rumors I’ve seen about this technology and the RDNA 4 architecture suggest that AMD could, at least, double the performance of this architecture working with ray tracing. If this is confirmed, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme may be able to hold up much better in games with ray tracing enabled.
Source: www.muycomputer.com
