AMD just tipped the Z2 Extreme chip for next year’s Steam Deck competitors

The AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme is the chip inside the Asus ROG Ally X, Asus ROG Ally, and Lenovo Legion Go - and in early 2025, AMD will announce its successor, the Z2 Extreme, for future PC gaming handhelds.

That's the word from Digital Trends' Jacob Roach, who heard AMD computing and graphics boss Jack Huynh say it's targeting a 2025 release on an IFA stage in Berlin; I just confirmed with AMD spokesperson Stacy MacDiarmid that the company plans to announce it in early 2025, though AMD's declining to say any more about it today.

The only other things we've heard: AMD says it's working with multiple partners, so the chip may already be in handheld makers' hands. And it's probably based on AMD's Strix Point; so say Jez Corden's sources over at Windows Central.

AMD's Huynh also reportedly mentioned he wants to play games like Black Myth: Wukong for three hours on a handheld instead of the current 45 minutes, but it's not clear whether that was just an anecdote or a hint at what a Strix-based Z2 Extreme can do.

I'm not yet sure how optimistic to be about Strix quite yet; AMD touted the increased performance of Zen 5 in its Strix Point laptop architecture briefings, but it didn't say a word about increased battery life.

While a performance improvement can sometimes turn into a battery life improvement by changing a chip to that end, AMD's original Z1 Extreme was largely just a tweaked version of the Ryzen 7840U laptop chip, one that really needed lots of electricity to thrive.

Handhelds like the ROG Ally and Legion Go can turbo up to 40 or 50 watts of total system drain to play games that barely run on the Steam Deck, but that means they fully drain their batteries in under an hour. They couldn't beat the Steam Deck's semi-custom chip at 15 watts or get anywhere near as much battery life in less demanding titles.

Eventually, the AMD ROG Ally X brute-forced its way to vastly better battery life by doubling the size of the pack inside. But maybe AMD takes a different route and makes the Z2 Extreme a bespoke handheld chip? That'd be exciting.