AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme Gaming CPU appears to feature 8 cores

Shipping manifest sheds light on AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU

AMD has already confirmed they are launching new Ryzen Z2 Extreme series CPUs for the next generation of PC gaming handhelds. Now, a leaked shipping manifest, as leaked by @Olrak29_, has revealed new details about this new processor.

This CPU’s Z2X28W FP8 listing shows that this new chip uses the FP8 socket and has a 28W TDP. The CPU is also said to have 8 CPU cores, suggesting that this CPU is either a Stris Point or Kracken Point CPU.

If AMD is basing this processor on Strix Point, the company will not use the processor’s full 12-core CPU. This makes sense given how few games use high CPU core counts effectively. After all, power-limited gaming devices shouldn’t waste power where it isn’t needed. This could help increase the power efficiency of potential Strix Point PC handhelds.

For a PC gaming handheld, the difference between a Strix Point-based and Kracken-based processor is its integrated graphics. Strix Point can feature up to 16 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units, and Kracken can feature up to eight. Both CPUs feature AMD Zen 5 CPU cores.

Z2 Extreme? 8 Core pic.twitter.com/mqyOmIOgdO

— Everest (@Olrak29_) September 23, 2024

Either Strix Point or Kracken could be used to build Ryzen Z2 series chips. However, we believe that Strix Point will power the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. After all the Z2 Extreme should feature more compute units than its predecessor, and only Strix Point achieves this with its 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs. Note that AMD’s Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip features 12 RDNA 3.0 GPU compute units.

You can join the discussion on AMD’s 8-core Z2 Extreme handheld gaming CPU on the OC3D Forums.