Should you learn the headline and thought, “Phoenix 2? However Phoenix 1 has barely hit the market!”, don’t be concerned. This chip, regardless of the identify, is not actually a direct successor to AMD’s Ryzen 7040 sequence, codenamed Phoenix. As a substitute, Phoenix 2 seems to be extra of a low-power chip for skinny & mild laptops and handheld techniques. Based on earlier leaks, it has fewer CPU cores and a a lot smaller GPU in comparison with the unique recipe.
Simply as rumored, the little chip sports activities six CPU cores: two full-fat Zen 4 CPUs, after which 4 compact Zen 4Cs. These are virtually assuredly configured in a “huge.little” configuration the place the Zen 4 cores run at comparatively excessive clock charges, and the Zen 4C cores are clocked decrease to save lots of on energy.
The CPU cores appear to share 16MB of L3 cache—one-half that of a typical Zen 4 processor—whereas the built-in GPU is simply two WGPs, equating to 4 compute models or 256 shader cores. Very sensible guys have recognized some fourteen lanes of PCI Categorical connectivity on the die, in addition to three show connections, two USB4 connections, and a complete pile of USB 2. For reminiscence, it has a totally-unsurprising 128-bit DDR5 interface.
Curiously, this chip configurationwith its six cores, twelve threads, and 4 RDNA 3 compute models, precisely matches the specs of the Ryzen Z1 processor that’s supposed to point out up within the lower-end model of the ASUS ROG Ally handheld. That product continues to be not accessible right now, however we expect it is a secure guess that the non-“Excessive” model of the Ryzen Z1 will doubtless use this actual silicon.
It is going to be fascinating to see how this chip performs in comparison with the full-fat Ryzen Z1 Excessive, which relies on the unique Phoenix processor with eight CPU cores and twelve RDNA 3 compute models. You would possibly moderately count on it to be rather a lot slower, however we really discovered that Phoenix actually desires 35W or extra to stretch its legs and flex that huge built-in GPU, and that is simply an excessive amount of energy for a handheld. The distinction between that chip and this little beastie at, say, 15 watts is perhaps rather a lot smaller than you assume.
