What Makes the Z1 Ryzen Chips Different From The 7040U APU?

For those of you keeping an eye on the ASUS ROG Ally you will know that it is set to use the new Ryzen Z1 chips which are altered chips based upon the Ryzen 7 7040u chips with the 7840u looking identical to the Z1 Extreme. So what makes these two chips different?

Ryzen Z1 And 7040U The Same?

AMD has answered the question of the difference between the Z1 Extreme and Ryzen 7 7840U after Andrew E. Freedman at TomsHardware got curious enough to ask AMD about the differences. On paper, the specs of the Ryzen Z1 Extreme and the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U appear identical with 8 Cores 16 Threads, 24MB of cache and 12 RDNA3 compute units. The only difference between the two is the lower TDP range of 9-30W on the Z1 Extreme compared to 15-30W on the 7840U with the same difference between the Z1 and the Ryzen 5 7540U which also share the same specs of 6 Cores and 12 Threads, 22MB cache and 4 RDNA 3 compute units. So is it really just the power requirements that separate these chips?

What Makes The Chips Different

Freedman at Toms Hardware reached out to AMD for an answer and received a response from Matt Hurwitz, a client PR manager at AMD.

“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.”

So to answer my question, yes the key difference is how AMD has changed the power ranges and voltage curves to be specifically suited for handhelds such as the ASUS ROG ALLY plus they have disabled the AMD Ryzen AI engine. The ROG ALLY is likely going to be some fierce competition in the handheld space with this chip looking to be a fair bit more efficient than the regular 7040U chips which other handhelds are using such as the AOKZOE A1 Pro, which was released recently using the 7840U.

The ROG ALLY with Z1 chips is expected to see more news from the 11th May.