If this leaked AMD Ryzen CPU is in Steam Deck 2, then we’re in for a surprise

AMD is reportedly readying a new portable gaming CPU that has twice the power of the existing Steam Deck chip. According to the latest leak, the new AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme features eight cores based on the latest Zen 5 CPU architecture and also has an unexpectedly powerful Radeon GPU. This wouldn’t just be great for the Steam Deck 2but also other portable devices, like the upcoming Asus ROG Ally.

The existence of the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme has been known for some time, but AMD has not yet released details about the specifications. If this latest rumor is true, then this chip will likely be used in the best PC gaming handhelds of the future, perhaps even the Steam Deck 2.

This latest rumor comes from regular tech leaker Golden Pig Upgrade on the Bilibili forums in China, and apparently gives us the core configuration of the new CPU, as well as the specs of the integrated GPU. As always with rumors, however, keep in mind that none of this has been officially confirmed by AMD, so take it with a grain of salt for now.

The leaker originally claimed that AMD’s new high-end portable gaming CPU was called the Z2 Extreme X and that it had been cancelled. However, a quick follow-up post suggested that the “X” at the end of this particular CPU’s name was wrong and that the high-end chip would be called the Z2 Extreme, without the X, coming with a “3+5” CPU. cores and a “16CU RDNA3.5” ​​GPU.

Let’s start with the GPU, as this is the part that will really impact gaming performance. If this rumor is true, it signals that this new chip will have 16 RDNA 3.5 computing units (CUs), totaling 1,024 stream processors. Not only is this twice the number of the Steam Deck’s Van Gogh GPU, but it is also based on AMD’s latest RDNA 3.5 GPU architecture, which offers superior performance to the RDNA 2 architecture in the Steam Deck GPU.

Meanwhile, the CPU appears to have a total of eight cores. That’s already a step up from the four cores inside the Steam Deck CPU. The 3+5 wording likely signals that this chip will have a similar structure to AMD’s Strix Point mobile chips, which contain a mix of full Zen 5 cores as well as compact Zen 5c (compact) cores. If this rumor is true, then the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme has three Zen 5 cores and five Zen 5c cores.

This structure is quite different from Intel’s P-Cores and E-Cores, where the latter are based on a different architecture to the former and have significantly reduced specifications. With Zen 5c, AMD’s main goal is to reduce the physical size of the cores, rather than reducing performance and power consumption. AMD says its Zen 5c cores are 25% smaller than the Zen 5 cores, but they still have the same feature set and core architecture as the full-fat cores, just with a denser die and less cache.

If this rumor is true, this new chip is not only significantly more powerful than the one in the Steam Deck, but it’s also a nice step up from the Ryzen Z1 Extreme used in the Asus ROG Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go, which has eight cores. Next-generation Zen 4 and 12 RDNA 3 compute units in its GPU, providing 768 stream processors.

In the meantime, there’s still plenty of fun to be had with today’s handheld devices, and you can check out our guide to the best Steam Deck games to see our top picks, all tried and tested on the Steam Deck to make sure they run smoothly.