AMD seems to have confirmed that the Ryzen Z2 Extreme is already in pipeline. More specifically, the successor to the Z1 Extreme will be arriving sometime within the first quarter of 2025.
There is a lot of anticipation for the Z2 Extreme, and that’s mainly due to the success and performance of the Z1 Extreme. Where the latter and non-Extreme Z1 were based on AMD’s Phoenix silicon, the upcoming chipset will be based on the new Strix Point silicon, which can support up to eight Zen5 cores and up to 16 RDNA3.5 graphics cores or Compute Units (CUs).
If AMD follows the formula that it did with the Z1 Extreme, the Z2 Extreme could very well be a variation of the current Ryzen AI flagship, the HX 370. That mobile processor houses 12 cores comprising four Zen5 and eight Zen5c CPU cores, 24 threads, and a total of 16 RDNA3.5 CUs. It’s a CPU that has proven its mettle to us, particularly in the form of the ASUS Zenbook S 16.
The main difference between the Ryzen Z Series and their laptop counterparts is the lack of an NPU. That being said, there is a chance that could change with the next-generation handheld APU, especially with the way the world is moving on with AI. For that matter, it’s also got some stiff competition against Intel’s recently launched Lunar Lake lineup, which is also powering up MSI’s upcoming Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld, which is also expected to launch within the first quarter of 2025. Battery life would certainly be a key factor here, as it is still an issue that all current gaming handhelds are plagued with.
At the moment, AMD hasn’t said which brand would be first to ship out their handheld with the chipmaker’s new chipset, but given the potential timeline, we could see which handheld gets the Z2 Extreme treatment during CES 2025.
