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.AMD also confirmed a rumor that's been floating around for months: Valve also plans to put the Ryzen Z2 in an upcoming Steam Deck revision.
Valve hasn't responded to our request for comment yet, but given that the original Steam Deck was powered by a custom AMD chip, it makes sense that it would eventually be upgraded with AMD's latest hardware.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 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.
