Tentative AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme performance outed by new leak
AMD is rumoured to reveal its next generation of handheld gaming console chips at CES 2025. Unlike the last generation which had just two models, now, there will be three SKUs: Strix Point-based Ryzen Z2 Extreme, Hawk Point-based Ryzen Z2 and Rembrandt-based Ryzen Z2G. The Ryzen Z2 Extreme should be the fastest of the lot, thanks to its Zen 5 CPU cores, and now, we have a glimpse into its CPU performance thanks to @Olrak29_ on X.
The leaker highlighted one of AMD's upcoming Kraken Point-based Ryzen AI chips that should, on paper, perform on par with the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. It is the Ryzen AI 7 Pro 370, an 8-core CPU that boosts up to 4.7 GHz. It features a mix of three Zen 5 and five Zen 5c cores; something we also saw in AMD's Strix Point-based SKUs, such as the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. The chip was tested alongside a Lenovo laptop with 64 GB RAM.
On average, the Ryzen AI 7 Pro 370 scores 2,700 and 12,000 points in Geekbench's single and multi-core tests. In contrast, the Ryzen Z1 Extreme scored 2,534 and 11,385 points in the same test. Essentially, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme gets us a 6% improvement in single-core performance and 5% in multi-core. Of course, the real performance uplift will be much higher because AMD will almost certainly push the Ryzen Z2 Extreme's boost clock to over 5 GHz instead of 4.7 GHz.
Plus, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme could lose out on some GPU firepower due to the rumoured absence of the Radeon 890M iGPU. Exactly which GPU AMD plans to pair with the flagship handheld SoC is a mystery. Nevertheless, the Zen 5 and Zen 5c combination should ideally result in better FPS numbers without sacrificing too much battery life.
