Feb 15, 2024 21:00:00

What are the results of the performance test of the SoC 'Ryzen Z1' installed in the portable gaming PC 'ROG Ally'?

The portable gaming PC '

ROG Ally ' released by ASUS in June 2023 is equipped with AMD's ' Ryzen Z1 ' SoC. Regarding Ryzen Z1, overseas media Chips and Cheese is conducting a detailed performance test.

AMD's Mild Hybrid Strategy: Ryzen Z1 in ASUS's ROG Ally – Chips and Cheese
https://chipsandcheese.com/2024/02/12/amds-mild-hybrid-strategy-ryzen-z1-in-asuss-rog-ally/

The 'Ryzen Z1' announced by AMD in April 2023 is a processor called a 'semi-hybrid core configuration' that combines two high-performance

Zen 4 processors and four space-optimized Zen 4c processors. is.

Zen 4c has the same architecture as regular Zen 4, but is said to be inferior to Zen 4 in terms of clocks due to the smaller die area. Below is a graph comparing Zen 4 and Zen 4c actually installed in Ryzen Z1 in terms of clock speed. Zen 4, shown in red, operates at up to 5GHz, while Zen 4c, shown in orange, only operates at up to 3.55GHz. Both cores can run at maximum clock speed in approximately 1.5 milliseconds.

Next, below is a graph comparing

cache memory . Both Zen 4 and Zen 4c's L2 cache memory access takes 14 cycles. Also, access to L3 cache memory takes about 50 cycles in both cases. When it comes to L4 cache memory, Zen 4 is reported to have more cycles than Zen 4c.

Comparing the latency of Zen 4 and Zen 4c, Zen 4c has higher latency compared to Zen 4, which has a lower clock, with Zen 4's 0.84 nanoseconds at L1 cache memory versus 1.14 nanoseconds for Zen 4c and L2. Zen 4 is 2.94 nanoseconds and Zen 4c is 4.00 nanoseconds, and in L3 Zen 4 is 10.46 nanoseconds and Zen 4c is 14.16 nanoseconds. In addition, in L4 cache memory, the latency of both is 123.90 nanoseconds.

Below is a table comparing the latency of each core in L3 cache memory on Ryzen Z1 with 12 cores. When measuring latency, Chips and Cheese measured the latency of the relevant core and applied a dummy load to another core. Logical cores 1, 2, 9, and 10 shown in green are Zen 4 cores, and the rest are Zen 4c. Chips and Cheese says, 'When a Zen 4c core is active, the Zen 4 core does not suffer an L3 latency penalty. For Zen 4c cores, activating Zen 4 slightly improves latency at L3.' I am reporting.

Below is a graph comparing bandwidth in cache and memory. Zen 4 bandwidth is 286.63GB/s on L1, 157.25GB/s on L2, 132.83GB/s on L3, and 41.71GB/s on L4. Also, the bandwidth of Zen 4c is 206.99GB/s on L1, 112.65GB/s on L2, 94.79GB/s on L3, and 43.27GB/s on L4.

Zen 4c is inferior to Zen 4 in terms of clock, but Ryzen Z1 has twice the number of Zen 4c compared to Zen 4. So it is shown that 4 Zen 4cs enjoy more cache bandwidth than 2 Zen 4s.

Chips and Cheese also compared the cache bandwidth of Ryzen Z1 and desktop CPU '

Ryzen 9 7950X3D '. As a result, it was revealed that both had high performance, with an L1 data cache bandwidth of over 1200GB/s.

Below is a table comparing the inter-core latency of Ryzen Z1 and Intel's

Meteor Lake microprocessors . The Meteor Lake μ processor on the right shows some variation in latency between cores, but the Ryzen Z1 on the left shows almost no variation.

In its overall review, Chips and Cheese says, ``By adopting a semi-hybrid core configuration, although optimization possibilities are limited, it is possible to overcome Intel's challenge of varying latency between cores. ” states. He also said, ``The strategy of hybrid core configuration is consistent with AMD's position as a small company compared to competitors such as Intel and NVIDIA.I wonder if AMD will continue to use hybrid core configuration in the future. It's very interesting.'