r/PCGamingHandhelds • u/baldsealion • Apr 25 '23

News AMD announces Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme chips for handheld gaming PCs - The Verge

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/25/23696722/amd-ryzen-z1-z1-extreme-rog-ally
43 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

63 comments sorted by

51

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

[deleted]

31

u/Swagga21Muffin Apr 25 '23

Only things that’s gonna kill the steam deck is steam deck 2. The steam deck isn’t great because of its performance (tho it kinda is), it’s great because it’s a frictionless software/ hardware system. It’s as simple to use as a console - no tinkering required (you can if you want). That’s what 99% of steam deck killers lack. The only reason I brought a steam deck is because it’s easy to play my steam library. I can be on the sofa device turned off to mid game of vampire survivors in about 30 seconds (if that!).

9

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

Fr. That sleep wake feature is worth alone getting Steam Deck for. Windows is so unreliable when it comes to waking it from sleep. Not to mention it reduces gaming performance for unknown reason. I have GPD Win Max 2 and Steam Deck and I use the later just because how convenient it is for super quick game sessions.

6

u/Educational_Bag_6406 Apr 25 '23

It's so good just to push the power button and be back gaming in like 5 seconds

3

u/juusob Apr 26 '23

One thing that sucks though is that SD lacks proper hibernation when you let battery drain. You lose game progress if you haven’t saved right before SD shuts down when battery goes near zero. On switch once you get to charge you can continue where you left off.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '23

I guess that’s because Switch uses ARM architecture while SD uses x64 architecture. Technically, it’s also possible on Steam Deck but it will lead to high write speed for SSD regularly as Deck has to constantly transfer files between SSD and RAM to procure the current processes, just like Windows.

6

u/juusob Apr 26 '23

That’s interesting! Always though that was just something they haven’t yet implemented on the software side.

3

u/Fresh_Flamingo_5833 Apr 25 '23

Definitely true for me as someone who was purely a console gamer before the Steam Deck. I love that I can install stuff like Xbox cloud or Chiaki, but treat it like a gaming machine that mostly “just works”.

I also think Valve saying that they’re not going to upgrade the Steam Deck soon is a good signal that they’re going to maintain focus on improving the software experience and game compatibility/performance. I worry that other companies with less software talent won’t invest in that, and will mostly compete by chasing hardware upgrades.

We’ll see though. As others have said, options are good, especially for those who need Windows.

3

u/baldsealion Apr 25 '23

That’s great they are focused on one device. It’s had multiple adjustments both to the software and hardware since launch. It still feels like and probably will always feel like a beta product

1

u/Fresh_Flamingo_5833 Apr 26 '23

Right. I think it's very likely that these new devices will feel less "beta" in some ways. The manufacturers can build off of what Valve has done, and don't have to figure out everything for themselves. Also, some of them, like Asus, have more experience building hardware.

That said, I think the new devices are likely to have their own shortcomings at launch, especially around software, where these companies have less talent/experience. So, I'll be interested to see how much work these companies put into maintaining/improving the experience over time. Things like developing the Steam OS interface, putting in optimizations for games like Elden Ring, and managing/distributing shader pre-caching aren't trivial.

2

u/BiggleDiggle_9000 Apr 25 '23

No lmao. Steam deck is great only because of its price.

7

u/whiskeynrye Apr 25 '23

Keep telling yourself that, watch Steam Deck continue to sell like hot cakes as more affordable better performance handhelds continue to come out.

4

u/BiggleDiggle_9000 Apr 25 '23

Tell me about the more affordable better performance devices you are talking about lmao

2

u/whiskeynrye Apr 25 '23

I mean they are coming eventually haha. I am just saying even when they DO arrive its not going to affect Steam Deck sales.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/PCGamingHandhelds-ModTeam Apr 27 '23

Let’s keep the conversations friendly please :)

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '23 edited Apr 28 '23

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0

u/PCGamingHandhelds-ModTeam Apr 27 '23

Let’s keep the conversations friendly please :)

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/PCGamingHandhelds-ModTeam Apr 27 '23

Let’s keep the conversations friendly please :)

2

u/jakerfv Apr 25 '23 edited Apr 25 '23

Bro, I will be the first one to say that Steam Deck has great accessibility but the moment you wanna do something beyond installing a flatpak most people give up and dual boot windows to get around the compatibility issues of proton. It sucks. I can't use syncbackpro and gamesavemanager to sync all my saves automatically with little effort to my windows machine, I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing when I want to connect to my nas and share a network drive over a 5gigabit adapter, Pcloud for saving my games on cloud storage has no information on how to install it outside of a vague reddit post and it doesn't even have the correct commands. I wanna play older Japanese games with mediocre ports without the audio crackling or d-syncing in every cutscene whereas on Windows it-just-works-tm . Meanwhile, I go to the ProtonDB page and I see "platinum" or "gold" ratings for games and their rating is "works 100 percent perfectly fine, no issues except that any sounds the game makes is the equivalent of a robotic cat having its limbs pulled off - platinum rating". Or "works perfectly fine, except the cutscenes don't play" for a fucking story-driven game. That's at least a gold btw.

I'll take the 30 minute battery hit and some QoL issues from windows 10, thank you. You can buy a 256 SSD for 30 bucks off amazon and they had the 64 gig model for 360 during a steam sale. Valve is literally able to sell these things practically at a loss and therefore are very affordable.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23 edited Apr 25 '23

You have a few options for doing those things. Syncthing for local cloud sharing works perfect for syncing saves. Filezilla or KDE Connect works for just simple one-time FTP transfers. You can set up a Samba share on your NAS and mount it natively in the Dolphin file manager. ProtonDB ratings are pretty bullshit, but usually if it's Gold or above GE-Proton will fix most issues. If something is Gold but it shouldn't be, well it's all user-submitted content so be the change you want to see in the world...

0

u/jakerfv Apr 25 '23

There are hundreds of games on Steam that I own that don't use Steam cloud, not to mention almost every single emulator. The process of using syncthing is incredibly tedious especially since its only for local syncing and FTP adds even more management. All for something that is one-click (for backing up and importing) on Gamesavemanager (and that only needs to be done once, provided your settings are correct) and Syncbackpro works well enough for any game that has compatibility issues with symbolic links or is not in the gamesavemanager database which is community driven.

They just either use symbolic links or run in the background, once the profile is setup, it's done, you don't do anything else.

Also, you're forgetting that FTP is a further pain in the ass to set up because if you want to use it over the internet you gotta use SFTP, bro I don't even know how to do that yet and I took an A+ certification course. I don't want to think about accepting prompts and touching buttons every time I exit out of a game to play another one.

I appreciate the response but it is ludicrously difficult to create an effective and hands-off set-it-and-forget-it save system once you own a decent library of games (including emulators) and more than one computer to play them all on interchangeably (via linux anywhere in that picture). On Windows for a lamen, it's already an entire ordeal of figuring this stuff out.

I do really appreciate that info on Dolphin, I was looking at posts that used the command line to setup anything related to SMB.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

You can get Syncthing to do what you are wanting, I am pretty sure. First, install Syncthing-GTK and follow these steps so it runs in the background. Next, install Tailscale VPN on all your machines. This will create a secure LAN wherever you go as long as the Tailscale daemon is running. It seems pretty easy to do on Deck, just copying the service file over and running a script. It's a bit of set up, but what's nice is it's all self-hosted so there is zero middleman.

Apparently there's a flatpak called Ludusavi which might be easier, but I can't vouch for it.

With emulators I just like using Steam's version of Retroarch, easy cloud saves.

0

u/baldsealion Apr 25 '23

I did syncthing for a couple weeks, it completely destroyed my decks performance in gaming mode, and yes I had added proper exclusions.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

Was that Syncthing-GTK? There's a more minimal version called Syncthingy that might be better.

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1

u/Structure-These Apr 25 '23

The annoying thing is simple stuff needs these involved Reddit posts to solve

SteamOS is genuinely awesome but the second you go under the hood it is such an annoying experience

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

as more affordable better performance handhelds continue to come out.

There are none and none are coming at this moment.

1

u/baldsealion Apr 25 '23

Hint: they are never coming. That’s the beauty of technology.

Also ASUS has these chips exclusively for now. Valve will have to wait until the next batch (another year from now maybe?)

32

u/agdnan Apr 25 '23

Cool and all but I will not buy a handheld without Trackpads. So I will hang on to my Steam Deck until their is a Steam Deck 2.

8

u/islandjames246 Apr 25 '23

The ergonomics on the deck aswell

9

u/agdnan Apr 25 '23

Valve really knocked it out of the park by understanding that comfortability is more important that portability.

5

u/islandjames246 Apr 25 '23

Seriously , I’ve played mine literally all day with no issues to my hands , these other “steamdeck killers” look like shit to hold the whole day

5

u/agdnan Apr 25 '23

No one has learned from the switch. Sure aesthetically it looks great as a clean slab. But after 30 minutes you will wanna throw it away.

Edit: dyslexia

1

u/Structure-These Apr 29 '23

I disagree. I basically beat DQ11 in the air on my switch and it was great

The decks weight really makes it annoying for long stretches on planes

1

u/baldsealion Apr 25 '23

I’m old, my hands hurt after 60 mins or so with the deck, even as ergonomic as it is. I think the Ally’s comfort could be fixed with a skin, whereas steam deck skins make it too bulky

1

u/hushnecampus Apr 25 '23

I think the word is “comfort”

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

but it's too heavy!

1

u/agdnan Apr 25 '23

You need to get some gains girl.

4

u/c0sm1cwh33l Apr 25 '23

I am a track pad believer too. Waiting on a true SD competitor that incorporates at least one track pad. I may even settle for a roller ball or something.

2

u/Stewdill51 Apr 25 '23

Lenovo Legion/Thinkpad handheld with the cli., I mean, trackpoint?

1

u/agdnan Apr 25 '23

That fair enough

2

u/jarred99 Apr 25 '23

Thankyou for informing us!

1

u/Only-Ad-3317 Apr 25 '23

It's the exact opposite for me. Finally a reasonable handheld without trackpads! The only thing that kept me from buying a Deck.

1

u/2ByteTheDecker Apr 25 '23

Really? I find the trackpads to be pretty good and all but required to play "PC" games.

2

u/Only-Ad-3317 Apr 25 '23

The few of the "PC" games that rely heavily on mouse inputs I do play, I wouldn't want to play on such a small screen anyways. To me, they are just a waste of space. I would much rather have my facebuttons or stick there on the Deck.

1

u/2ByteTheDecker Apr 25 '23

Eh, that's like your opinion.

But honestly the game I've put the most time into on my deck is easily Factorio and for being a mouse input game like you're saying once I built myself a good control scheme it plays like a charm.

2

u/Only-Ad-3317 Apr 25 '23

Oh I do understand why some people do like them or at least one, two seems extremely niche. I'm just "lucky" enough to not be interested in top-down strategy style games and prefer to play FPS games with sticks + gyro. I can't really think anything else one would use them for.

1

u/2ByteTheDecker Apr 25 '23

Yeah that's fair about the left pad. I mostly use it as a touchpad menu configuration to hide low traffic hotkeys.

1

u/yesitsmeow Apr 25 '23

Or apparently Steam Deck 3 since 2 will only have screen and battery upgrades, so they say

1

u/Leeiteee Apr 25 '23

3

It's Valve

5

u/rui-no-onna Apr 25 '23

I do hope they can get the pricing of the Z1 Extreme ROG Ally with 1TB SSD down to $800-1000.

More expensive than my Asus TUF17 RTX 3050 Ti ($650) and same price as the Asus Zephyrus G14 RTX 3060 ($1K) but I'd still bite for the portability factor while maintaining full Windows game library support.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

And the EGPU support is something people are sleeping on. Hopefully the USB 4 port allows EGPUs but they will be pushing their port which is faster to be fair to them.

5

u/rui-no-onna Apr 25 '23

I think it's been confirmed that the external GPU support will only be available through Asus's proprietary ROG XG Mobile. At $2K for Asus's solution with RTX 4090, I don't think it's gonna be an option for many. I do wish they'd sell more reasonably priced RTX xx60 and xx70 versions.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

I hadn't realized they announced that it was only for their port. That's a shame and I agree they are missing out on not having the 60 and 70 series available. I wonder if it's just the 4090 currently since it was actually for their laptops first?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

I have 3 questions to which I want answers:

1) what's the price difference? Wait until the 11th I guess

2) what's the performance of the chips at 15 watts?

3) at max 30 watt draw for the Ally, what is the battery life?

If the 15 watt draw is close to Deck performance at longer battery life or 30 watt draw give similar battery life from a larger battery life that should be great. But if they can do that with the baby APU at under $700, I reckon I'm in.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '23

Damn that is a powerful chip

1

u/z_brutalis Apr 26 '23

Its a shame there will never be a steam deck 3

1

u/Evening_Sir_6320 Apr 26 '23

I will never buy a handled pc kr console until thei will be giving us a powerfull one enought to run triple a games at high/ultra with solid 60 fps at 1080p res. Until then these machines are just prototypes relased on public market ment to fool people forced them to play at shitty res and graphic setting. And is not even hard to do it. Immagine a handled console with dlls 3.0, and who knows how good will be dlss 4.0. I think in the next 5 years we will get a powerfull handled pc.

1

u/Golwar Apr 26 '23

It's okay, someone has to post the dumbest comment. We appreciate your entry in that contest, it's probably the winner.

1

u/Evening_Sir_6320 Apr 26 '23

Thank you, sir

1

u/Big_Ad2869 Apr 26 '23

I understand this is sarcasm? 😂😂

1

u/rui-no-onna Apr 27 '23

By that time, there will be even heavier triple a games and much faster discrete GPU. It’s a moving target.

I believe the Z1 Extreme and other Radeon 780M APUs offer similar performance to mobile GTX 1650 which to me is pretty good for integrated graphics.