After the announcement of Ryzen Z1/ Z1 Extreme series processors for gaming consoles and Ryzen 7040U mobile chips for ultraportable laptops, enthusiasts noticed that the technical specifications of both lines are very similar. In particular, the Ryzen 7 7840U looks almost identical to its gaming counterpart, the Ryzen Z1 Extreme.

Colleagues from Tom’s Hardware asked for explanations from AMD in this regard. Matthew Hurwitz, Customer Relationship Manager at AMD answered the request, “The Ryzen Z1 series are purpose-built with handheld gaming in mind. To accomplish this, AMD engineers had to validate entirely new power ranges and optimize the voltage curves specifically for this use case – this optimization and validation work should not be trivialized. So while the technology building blocks (like ‘Zen4’ and RDNA 3) are similar between the 7040 and Z1 series, the resulting models have very distinct characteristics customized for their use cases. In addition, the AMD Ryzen AI engine is not available on AMD Ryzen Z1 series processors.”

Besides that, Matthew confirmed the assumption that the Ryzen AI accelerator unit in Z1 chips is disabled, not physically removed. Thus, AMD obviously managed to achieve the desired result using identical silicon crystals.

According to additional clarifications, the Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme processors will have a wider TDP range of 9-30W, while “laptop” Ryzen 7040U is adjustable between 15-30W.

We remind you that the first gaming console powered by Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme will be ASUS ROG Ally, which will be officially presented on May 11. Relevant online broadcasting has already been planned.

Laptops with Ryzen 7040U will also have to wait a little longer, but you can already evaluate the capabilities of Ryzen 7 7840U, which is used in the updated version of the portable gaming PC – GPD Win Max 2.