Z1 extreme: It's exactly the same thing as a 7840U. 8C/16T, 12CU, 15-28W TDP Z1: It sounds like a 7540U, which is already a cut down 7640U. 6C/12T, 6CU? (suspected), 15-28W TDP.
So either this confirms 7540U as having 4CU, or there's an even further binning between 7540U and Z1
But this still makes me question what the difference will be between Z1 extreme and 7840U? Is the clock speed on 7840U going to be that much lower? The 7940H does 12CU and 2.8Ghz on GPU.
And then there is the aspect of having too many Zs in the name, although AMD is no stranger to adding too many of single letters. Namely Xs. Like am I supposed to call this the Ryzen Z1 Zen4 Extreme or something? Because the Z1 and Zen4 thing is not going to be confusing in the least or anything, would it now?
Yeah, the Z1/Z1 Extreme seem to be no different than 7x40U series. In one slide, AMD does mention that USB4 support is required, whereas maybe it's not on Ryzen 7x40U laptops? But at the same time, who would ship a laptop in 2023 using brand-new 4nm silicon and NOT have USB4 on it haha? Most likely the only real difference at all is just in the silicon lottery; Z1 chips are maybe able to hit their clockspeeds at lower voltages than regular Ryzen 7x40U chips, even if the TDP values are the "same" between them.
ROG Ally is going to be $999, a big part of the Steam Deck's appeal is the price.
In theory someone could ship something with Steam Deck specs for storage/RAM/screen with the regular Z1 and get a ~50% perf boost, but we don't have any indication of what that might cost.
I'm also wondering if someone could use this, instead of a handheld gaming device, to make a take on the Macbook Air, good CPU and GPU performance without a fan.
You could have a intake and exhaust port(s)... and no internal fan. Run it at a lower TDP while on battery, have a fan installed inside the dock. Thus, you have reduced heat and power consumption while mobile, and while docked (and attached to a larger display) more power.
So the z1 extreme has 300% more CUs than the base z1, and yet gets *at best* 73% better performance? I wonder what the bottleneck is. Power and memory bandwidth? I don't think they mentioned the memory speed they used in their testing.
Zen4 is stuck to using DDR5 in dual channel (128bit bus width), where as video cards typically use GDDR6 or GDDR6X in memory bus widths typically ranging from 64bit to 256bit. 128bit being something a lower mid range card uses. for example RX 6600 and RTX 3050/3060.
Also, maybe Asus is using "underspec" memory? I saw that Phoenix is supposed to run LPDDR5X (whatever that means), but maybe it wasnt ready in time to ship.
LPDDR5X on a 128bit bus @ 8266mhz should deliver 136GB/s of bandwidth... Which should be sufficient fillrate to finally have 1080P gaming feasible in an APU.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
20 Comments
Back to Article
xol - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
No mention of the 7940HS in article ?Because the Z1 Extreme appears to be exactly that
techjunkie123 - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
Mentioned in the first paragraph. Could either be the 7940hs or the 7740hs.meacupla - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
Z1 extreme: It's exactly the same thing as a 7840U. 8C/16T, 12CU, 15-28W TDPZ1: It sounds like a 7540U, which is already a cut down 7640U. 6C/12T, 6CU? (suspected), 15-28W TDP.
So either this confirms 7540U as having 4CU, or there's an even further binning between 7540U and Z1
But this still makes me question what the difference will be between Z1 extreme and 7840U? Is the clock speed on 7840U going to be that much lower? The 7940H does 12CU and 2.8Ghz on GPU.
And then there is the aspect of having too many Zs in the name, although AMD is no stranger to adding too many of single letters. Namely Xs. Like am I supposed to call this the Ryzen Z1 Zen4 Extreme or something? Because the Z1 and Zen4 thing is not going to be confusing in the least or anything, would it now?
NextGen_Gamer - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
Yeah, the Z1/Z1 Extreme seem to be no different than 7x40U series. In one slide, AMD does mention that USB4 support is required, whereas maybe it's not on Ryzen 7x40U laptops? But at the same time, who would ship a laptop in 2023 using brand-new 4nm silicon and NOT have USB4 on it haha? Most likely the only real difference at all is just in the silicon lottery; Z1 chips are maybe able to hit their clockspeeds at lower voltages than regular Ryzen 7x40U chips, even if the TDP values are the "same" between them.brucethemoose - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
> But this still makes me question what the difference will be between Z1 extreme and 7840U?Power tuning. Maybe things like the CPU-GPU bias and clock consistency.
You can look up tons of the knobs in the RyzenAdj documentation, and thats just the stuff we have easy access too.
tipoo - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
Lol at them including the Switch in their slides. That 8 year old underclocked TX1 is seriously struggling.I'd get a Steam Deck 2 with an update to these right away.
A5 - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
ROG Ally is going to be $999, a big part of the Steam Deck's appeal is the price.In theory someone could ship something with Steam Deck specs for storage/RAM/screen with the regular Z1 and get a ~50% perf boost, but we don't have any indication of what that might cost.
phoenix_rizzen - Friday, April 28, 2023 - link
There's leaks showing at least one version of the Ally could be $ 699 USD.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
"Lol at them including the Switch in their slides"Note that the Switch was actually removed from their slides for the copy of the deck we received.
tipoo - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
I'm also wondering if someone could use this, instead of a handheld gaming device, to make a take on the Macbook Air, good CPU and GPU performance without a fan.A5 - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
These things are going to have fans. You're not gonna dump 30W into people's hands for very long without throttling down.meacupla - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
Yeah, even at 15W it's going to require active cooling in some form.For fanless you'd have to go with something like 7W TDP that Intel Y series had.
Alexvrb - Thursday, May 4, 2023 - link
You could have a intake and exhaust port(s)... and no internal fan. Run it at a lower TDP while on battery, have a fan installed inside the dock. Thus, you have reduced heat and power consumption while mobile, and while docked (and attached to a larger display) more power.brucethemoose - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
Thats what the Steam Deck chip was supposed to be, according to leaked AMD slidesBut it never materialized, and neither did its successor. My hunch is OEMs couldnt care less about IGP performance + expensive RAM, and passed.
nfriedly - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
So the z1 extreme has 300% more CUs than the base z1, and yet gets *at best* 73% better performance? I wonder what the bottleneck is. Power and memory bandwidth? I don't think they mentioned the memory speed they used in their testing.Wereweeb - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
The main bottleneck for APU's in general is memory bandwidth.meacupla - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
This.Zen4 is stuck to using DDR5 in dual channel (128bit bus width), where as video cards typically use GDDR6 or GDDR6X in memory bus widths typically ranging from 64bit to 256bit.
128bit being something a lower mid range card uses. for example RX 6600 and RTX 3050/3060.
brucethemoose - Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - link
Also, maybe Asus is using "underspec" memory? I saw that Phoenix is supposed to run LPDDR5X (whatever that means), but maybe it wasnt ready in time to ship.StevoLincolnite - Thursday, April 27, 2023 - link
LPDDR5X on a 128bit bus @ 8266mhz should deliver 136GB/s of bandwidth... Which should be sufficient fillrate to finally have 1080P gaming feasible in an APU.James5mith - Tuesday, May 2, 2023 - link
Why wouldn't they make a 6 core 12 CU CPU to properly target it at mobile gaming?