The AMD Ryzen Z2 will power next-gen gaming handhelds

AMD is following up its impressive Ryzen Z1 chip, which powered the original ASUS ROG Ally, with the Ryzen Z2 at CES 2025. You can pretty much guess what it delivers: More power, and potentially more battery life, but if you plan to wait for Valve to release a Z2-powered Steam Deck, don't get your hopes up. Following AMD's announcement, a Valve employee said "there is and will be no Z2 Steam Deck."  

Leading the charge for the Ryzen Z2 family is the Z2 Extreme, featuring eight cores, a 5GHz max clock speed and 16 RDNA 3 graphics cores. The least powerful model is the Z2 Go with four CPU cores and 12 graphics cores. That could be a useful chip for cheaper handhelds, especially those that tout game streaming capabilities over local play.

AMD

AMD didn't have any performance metrics to share, but it likely won't be long until we see the Ryzen Z2 in action. It'll arrive in the first quarter of 2025 in revamped versions of the ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go. While Valve has said it's trying to avoid a horsepower rat race, constant leaks around a potential Steam Deck 2 indicate some sort of upgrade is on the way soon.

Update 4:00PM ET: Valve has clarified it's not working on a Z2-powered Steam Deck.  

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