AMD’s Ryzen Z1 APU, Designed For Handhelds, Lands Within A Mini PC

AMD's Ryzen Z1 APUs are designed for the handheld gaming segment but it looks like Mini PC makers are now utilizing them too.

Before we go into the crux, let's talk a bit about what the AMD Ryzen Z1 APUs are capable of. With the AMD Z1 series of APUs, the company specifically targeted the growing handheld market. These chips are specifically tuned to offer the best CPU and GPU capabilities for low-power devices while doing so efficiently. Prior to the Z1 APUs, what handheld makers would do was use the APUs for laptops such as Phoenix "Ryzen 7040" and integrate them within their devices while targeting a range of power and thermal targets. So with the AMD Ryzen Z1 series, you get the latest Zen 4 and RDNA 3 architecture,

A brief rundown on specifications, the Ryzen Z1 features 6 Zen 4 cores with 12 threads, 16 MB of L3 cache with the Radeon 740M which features 4 RDNA 3 compute units. This APU can be tuned to as low as 9W and up to 30W. There's also the higher-end Ryzen Z1 Extreme but that configuration may show up later. In a detailed review of the Edge AMD Ryzen Z1 Mini PC, ETA Prime is still a prototype unit with RGB planned for the final design, but that wouldn't have much of an impact on performance.

While the AMD Ryzen Z1 APU does show decent output in terms of basic tasks, the main area that it lacks is graphical performance. Compared to its counterpart the Z1 Extreme, the APU just features 4 RDNA3 Compute Units, which is why when ETA Prime did some synthetic benchmarking, the Z1 couldn't show satisfactory results, and apart from the reduced CUs, another reason for this is the TDP constraints associated with the APU as well.

Moving on to gaming benchmarks, in titles like Spider-Man Remastered, Forza Horizon 5, and Grand Theft Auto V, the performance by the Z1 was decent, and the reviewer was able to run the titles on low to medium settings.

However, the important point to focus on is the TDP draw by the APU, which was limited to 44W, that too at package power, but in terms of real-time gaming, the Z1 was bound within the 30W range and the mini-PC reached a peak of 40W despite having a higher in-software target, which shows how power limitation has held back the graphical performance. If the manufacturer finds a way (through BIOS settings probably) to actually bypass the TDP restrictions, we could see significantly improved results.

The adoption of AMD Ryzen  Z1 APUs in the mini-PC industry is something that we all were hoping for judging by the immense capabilities they hold. ETA Prime mentioned that a Z1 Extreme variant is in development as well, which is something interesting to see. For now, the standard Ryzen Z1 would be the best for a consumer looking to step into the mini-PC market, since they could get a good performance-per-dollar ratio with such products.

News Source: Videocardz