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[Topher]

Summarized the testing below. The blank cells are where he skipped the test.

Based on this, only reason to get a Z2 Extreme is if you really want to max out performance on battery, but even at 17 watts you are not seeing massive gains here. At 25 watts, the difference is very small. Between 1 and 5 fps.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Was hoping for a 40 watt test.

 

[kevboard]

so the main benefit seems to be that the Z2 can reach the Z1's 25w performance at 17w but how high can you push both in terms of clock speeds? does the Z2 have a higher upper limit?

 

[demigod]

I heard the upgrade wasn't really good but this seems bad. 1-5fps increase when you can get z1 for half the price of a z2? Yeah that won't cut it. I see z1s go on sale for like $500 at times.

 

[Gitaroo]

If this SoC packed with RDNA4 and support FSR4, it would have been a game changer for me. Right now I think claw 8 AI+ is better with a more forward thinking GPU despite of Intel still playing catch-up with their driver.

 

[DenchDeckard]

10 to 20 percent uplift on average.

Not bad if you are jumping in but I wouldn't upgrade from a rog ally x to the new xbox variant. That og X is still a beast.

 

[Klosshufvud]

Too little, too expensive. The bigger upgrade is some handheld devices now switching to 8'' display. The new MSI for instance has the Z2E and 8'' display which IMO makes it the best handheld on the market right now. Previously it only had Intel.
With that said, if you already own a Z1E/7840U device, this is hardly worth even considering an upgrade for. Everyone is waiting for something more substantial. The Rog Ally X is still a top tier handheld, and probably the best bang for bucks right now.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Summarized the testing below. The blank cells are where he skipped the test.

Based on this, only reason to get a Z2 Extreme is if you really want to max out performance on battery, but even at 17 watts you are not seeing massive gains here. At 25 watts, the difference is very small. Between 1 and 5 fps.

Can't wait till we're done with RDNA3 Jesus that shit launched in 2022 yet it's 2025 and it's the best mobile GPU AMD has. Such a shame there's no RDNA4 APUs and we're gonna have to wait till the second gen of Zen 6 to get a successor so 2027. Bro 5 years of RDNA3, is this hell?

Hopefully Intel Panther Lake gets plenty of handheld adoption because unlike AMD Intel launched Alchemist (Xe¹) in 2022, Battlemage (Xe²) in 2024 and Celestial (Xe³) in 2025 with Panther Lake. Xe³ should be much better than RDNA3 and since Xe¹
Intel has AI upscaling via XeSS while AMD has made FSR4 their first AI upscaler exclusive to RDNA4. What a shit show.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

I heard the upgrade wasn't really good but this seems bad. 1-5fps increase when you can get z1 for half the price of a z2? Yeah that won't cut it. I see z1s go on sale for like $500 at times.

Its still RDNA3. There is no RDNA4 for mobile so the gains are small but this uses Zen 5 which is a better more modern CPU. We won't have a new GPU gen till 2027 on mobile/handhelds which is when we'll get UDNA (RDNA5), RDNA5 is going to be a huge leap over RDNA3.

In the mean time we have Intel coming in with Xe³ in Panther Lake at the end of the year which should be better than RDNA3 and then Nvidia down the line with their NV1 chip. AMD themselves is focusing on bringing Zen 6 in 2026 and UDNA after that.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Too little, too expensive. The bigger upgrade is some handheld devices now switching to 8'' display. The new MSI for instance has the Z2E and 8'' display which IMO makes it the best handheld on the market right now. Previously it only had Intel.
With that said, if you already own a Z1E/7840U device, this is hardly worth even considering an upgrade for. Everyone is waiting for something more substantial. The Rog Ally X is still a top tier handheld, and probably the best bang for bucks right now.

Won't get a new GPU anytime soon from AMD in mobile. Even Zen 6 APUs in 2026 are bringing, guess what? RDNA3 GPUs yet again, same ol shit. UDNA will come after that in 2027.

 

[Zathalus]

25w is meh, but 17w gives you basically Z1 25w performance. For devices that rock the big 80Wh batteries will have some impressive battery life at 17w. 3+ hours in heavy AAA games for example. Much more in older titles.

 

[Rivdoric]

Wait for Nvidia APU in 2026.
Though it will cost a lot, i feel it will be a lot better.

 

[Gitaroo]

Can't wait till we're done with RDNA3 Jesus that shit launched in 2022 yet it's 2025 and it's the best mobile GPU AMD has. Such a shame there's no RDNA4 APUs and we're gonna have to wait till the second gen of Zen 6 to get a successor so 2027. Bro 5 years of RDNA3, is this hell?

Hopefully Intel Panther Lake gets plenty of handheld adoption because unlike AMD Intel launched Alchemist (Xe¹) in 2022, Battlemage (Xe²) in 2024 and Celestial (Xe³) in 2025 with Panther Lake. Xe³ should be much better than RDNA3 and since Xe¹
Intel has AI upscaling via XeSS while AMD has made FSR4 their first AI upscaler exclusive to RDNA4. What a shit show.

Watching MSI launching a AMD SoC version is even more ridiculous especially when claw 8 AI+ got so much praised

 

[SABRE220]

Unfortunately, all these AMD APUs are horribly unbalanced. All that computing power is being throttled by paltry bandwidth, it was already bandwidth limited on the z1 and the Z2 basically introduced almost no bandwidth efficiencies and no actual significant improvement despite the heavy increase in compute....to compound the disaster its still rdna3 which means no ml reconstruction to help target low resolutions with decent image quality....basically a shitshow. Now you know why valve isn't releasing any new Steam Decks....the geniuses at amd have decided that no rdna4 until the launch of their udna apus which is close to 2027. So basically, despite the heavy cost, massive compute it will still end up inferior to a switch 2 in image quality and relatively comparable graphics leave it to amd to make a shitshow out of a massive opportunity.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I was expecting more in all honesty

 

[bender]

But which one can you return to Best Buy faster?

 

[Fafalada]

If this SoC packed with RDNA4 and support FSR4,

Sad thing is that HX 370 which this is based on has nearly 100TOPs so it likely could run FSR4.
But this can't - so we'll probably not see it on either.

 

[//DEVIL//]

At 25w where it actually matters for any mid range to heavy game ( even small games to be honest , as I try to push to highest fps and graphics possible so I will always use 25w ), the difference is a joke.

Not worth the upgrade at all. And the fact that both still use FSR 3.X and not FSR 4 is an automatic no for me ( especially when these weak ass APUs need all the help it needs )

 

[hououinkyouma00]

I heard the upgrade wasn't really good but this seems bad. 1-5fps increase when you can get z1 for half the price of a z2? Yeah that won't cut it. I see z1s go on sale for like $500 at times.

Yeah, you can regularly find Z1E Allys for sale at $500, or around $350-400 on eBay.

There is no world in which mostly single digit increases are worth upgrading to devices which will surely be $800 and above.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Unfortunately, all these AMD APUs are horribly unbalanced. All that computing power is being throttled by paltry bandwidth, it was already bandwidth limited on the z1 and the Z2 basically introduced almost no bandwidth efficiencies and no actual significant improvement despite the heavy increase in compute....to compound the disaster its still rdna3 which means no ml reconstruction to help target low resolutions with decent image quality....basically a shitshow. Now you know why valve isn't releasing any new Steam Decks....the geniuses at amd have decided that no rdna4 until the launch of their udna apus which is close to 2027. So basically, despite the heavy cost, massive compute it will still end up inferior to a switch 2 in image quality and relatively comparable graphics leave it to amd to make a shitshow out of a massive opportunity.

Nothing affordable AMD can do about the bandwidth disparity for now. LPDDR6 is not out yet, Strix Halo is a power hog (still coming to some handhelds but lol) increasing bus size is expensive and power hungry and adding a cache comes with more costs. These techniques are coming to AMD APUs in the future but not before Zen 6 arrives. This is why running games at low resolutions is such a boon because it's way less bandwidth intensive and more CPU limited.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Unfortunately, all these AMD APUs are horribly unbalanced. All that computing power is being throttled by paltry bandwidth, it was already bandwidth limited on the z1 and the Z2 basically introduced almost no bandwidth efficiencies and no actual significant improvement despite the heavy increase in compute....to compound the disaster its still rdna3 which means no ml reconstruction to help target low resolutions with decent image quality....basically a shitshow. Now you know why valve isn't releasing any new Steam Decks....the geniuses at amd have decided that no rdna4 until the launch of their udna apus which is close to 2027. So basically, despite the heavy cost, massive compute it will still end up inferior to a switch 2 in image quality and relatively comparable graphics leave it to amd to make a shitshow out of a massive opportunity.

Said it before and you're absolutely right

All handhelds are currently bottle necked by LPDDR5x. Throwing more compute power at the problem is useless. You either wait a huge boost in bandwidth mobile memory, or you use a ton of expensive and not so scalable to lower node cache

 

[SABRE220]

Said it before and you're absolutely right

All handhelds are currently bottle necked by LPDDR5x. Throwing more compute power at the problem is useless. You either wait a huge boost in bandwidth mobile memory, or you use a ton of expensive and not so scalable to lower node cache

Pretty much, the least they could do is make an architecture that brings in bandwidth efficiencies designed around low power devices. I mean it's embarrassing that even the Nvidia architecture from 2 generations back is much more efficient in bandwidth use than a current flagship amd handheld tech.

 

[StereoVsn]

Yeah, as expected based on the full H370 or whatever the AMd chipset is called.

So if you are coming in new, it might be worth it to get a Z2E device, but if you already have one, laying out $900-1000 for marginal upgrades is crazy. Heck, even if you have a Steam Deck, it's not worth it, IMO.

So time to wait for 2 more years basically, which is kind of sad. Unless Intel pulls off a miracle on hardware side and also improves their upscaling at the same time.

 

[Odinnii]

Man I want to upgrade my Ally x but there's nothing to upgrade to, wtf...

 

[Gitaroo]

Sad thing is that HX 370 which this is based on has nearly 100TOPs so it likely could run FSR4.
But this can't - so we'll probably not see it on either.

does Z2E has a NPU at all? Maybe when MS open up AutoSR to all win 11 for all, it will be useful to upscale games from 720p to 1080p on a 8" screen. I hope so, no reason to lock AutoSR to ARM surface laptop which seems like a flop