AMD’s first Ryzen Z1 mini-PC was tested

The Ryzen Z1 series is no longer limited to handheld gaming systems. A company called Edge is preparing a New mini-PC based on the Ryzen Z1 chip The company is AMD. The first review of such a system was conducted by ETA Prime.
As far as we know, there is no physical difference between AMD Ryzen 7040U and Ryzen Z1 Series. Both use AMD’s Phoenix chip with Zen4 and RDNA3 architecture. However, there are some changes to the TDP (a voltage/frequency curve) setting that allows the Z1 series to have lower maximum power consumption. This means that handheld systems that prioritize energy efficiency can have longer battery life.

AMD has launched two Z1 chips: Z1 Extreme and Z1. The important fact is that the first chip is a 6-core version with limited graphics card performance. This version is now available with the ASUS ROG Ally console, which costs about $100 less than the Extreme version. The consensus among reviewers is that the Extreme version is simply better, and it doesn’t make sense to settle for the reduced version. However, if the chip is available at a lower price, then the Z1 chip may still play a big role in the various markets.

The system tested by ETA Prime is not a final version unit, it is a prototype that lacks special features such as RGB coverage. However, this will not affect performance (although some may believe it will). The important fact is that the ETA review is the first to show the MiniPC form factor and this custom APU together. It is likely that more such systems are on the way.

Ryzen Z1 chip specifications

As a reminder, the Ryzen Z1 has 2 Zen4 cores and 4 Zen4c cores. AMD’s diverse architecture is based on a unified design, which is different from Intel’s large/small core architecture. Both Zen4 and Zen4 have the same instruction set and should deliver similar performance, however the Zen4c cores are optimized for power efficiency and have a smaller cache. For a gaming system, it would be difficult to distinguish these differences.

However, the bigger letdown compared to the Z1 Extreme is the limited performance of the graphics card. Instead of 12 computing units, this APU has only four units. This means that it can only support early and old games. Modern games will be limited to low resolutions and settings. As shown in the photo above, this version is noticeably slower than the Z1 Extreme. The Radeon 780M graphics in the Z1 Extreme can score around 8000 graphics points in FS and around 2750 in TS.
The APU is set to a maximum power consumption of 54W by default, but there is no way to enable this through software. The system is limited to 35W during the CPU stress test, which drops below 30W when the CPU and graphics card are tested together. In games, the package power may reach its highest limit, up to 44 watts. It is possible that the TDP limit will be removed later and set via BIOS settings. Once implemented, this feature could be the biggest advantage of this form factor.

Advantages and disadvantages of the new mini-PC based on AMD’s Ryzen Z1 chip

Implementing a mini-PC based on the Z1 Ryzen series has its pros and cons. Users have more freedom in choosing power profiles and have fewer thermal limitations than battery-powered systems. On the other hand, these types of mini-PCs have SO-DIMM slots for memory, which means they will run slower memory (compared to LPDDR5), which will affect gaming performance. On the other hand, this means that gamers can swap out the memory based on their needs. This particular system is only capable of running at 5600 MT/s.

The company informed the reviewer that the Z1 Extreme Edition is currently in development. Availability and pricing are yet to be determined. The company’s plan is to launch the mini-PC through a crowdfunding platform, which might be an easy way to find customers, but it’s not something we’d recommend participating in.