The puzzle of processors in portable PC consoles explained

Originally, the segmentation of AMD processors was clear: the HX series for high-performance laptops, and a range dedicated to portable consoles, the famous Z.

Today, this logic is shattered. The Ryzen AI HX 370, theoretically designed for powerful laptops, is found in a portable console, while the just announced Z2 Extreme, supposed to be optimized for consoles, offers performance that is sometimes insufficient for certain manufacturers.

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The confusion of architectures

The most troubling part lies in the technical characteristics. The HX 370 has 12 cores and an NPU dedicated to AI, while the Z2 Extreme makes do with 8 cores without AI capabilities.

This difference raises the question: why offer a “gaming” processor that is less efficient than its laptop equivalent? Especially since both use the same Zen 5 architecture, which makes the distinction even more artificial.

Zotac Zone 2 perfectly illustrates this disorder. By choosing to integrate the Ryzen AI HX 370 rather than the Z2 Extreme, Zotac unintentionally demonstrates the limits of AMD’s strategy.

The console retains a 7-inch 120Hz AMOLED screen and a 48.5 Wh battery, but ends up with a processor capable of running AI tasks at 50 TOPS — a superfluous feature for a gaming console.

Energy consumption management perfectly illustrates this confusion. The HX 370 can go up to 54 W TDP, while the Z2 Extreme is limited to 35 W. However, these two processors are found in devices with almost similar thermal constraints. An inconsistency which complicates the task of manufacturers and compromises the user experience. AMD seems to have lost the common thread of its processor strategy.

Chaos extends to laptops

CES has just driven home AMD’s incomprehensible strategy. For laptops, it has become nonsense: AMD releases Ryzen AI Max+ with 16 cores, desktop chips disguised as portable processors (the HX), and a Ryzen 200 series which is just a vulgar renaming processors more than a year old.

Take the Ryzen AI Max+ 395: 16 Zen 5 cores and a monstrous 40-core GPU. Next to it, you have the Ryzen 9 9955HX, which is nothing more than a desktop chip forced into a laptop. And what about the Ryzen 200 series? A simple marketing operation to recycle the Ryzen 8040s from the end of 2023, which were already a recycling of the 7040s from May 2023.

AMD complicates everything with this multiplication of ranges which makes no sense. How can a consumer find their way? Even the experts no longer understand anything. Between recycling old processors and mixing desktop/laptop genres, AMD is transforming its range into a real headache.