A series of reports, both online and from hardware manufacturers, suggest that AMD has dropped support for one of its major handheld APUs after just two and a half years. While the company itself hasn’t directly addressed this issue so far, it appears that new driver support for devices running with an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme has ended.
If confirmed, it would mean that several high-end handheld gaming PCs from recent years running Windows 11, including the top-level Asus ROG Ally and Asus ROG Ally X, as well as the Lenovo Legion Go and Go S, will no longer receive new drivers and haven’t for several months.
In Lenovo’s case, comments reportedly made by its Korean community representatives online suggest that there are “no more plans” to issue new drivers for the original Legion Go, either. This has driven discussion online, including on Reddit, about the state of affairs.
It’s important to point out what this could mean for handheld owners. Without official updates, these devices will effectively enter maintenance mode. The hardware itself won’t stop working, but the lack of new drivers means handheld owners will miss out on day-one optimizations for major game releases, potentially leading to crashes or poor performance in future titles.
It also provides an unusual discrepancy, at least in Lenovo’s case, as far as the Lenovo Legion Go S is concerned. That handheld is available with two different APUs, but it appears that the entry-level model with the AMD Ryzen Z2 Go isn’t affected by this decision so far, even though it’s technically based on older Zen 2 architecture versus the Zen 3-based Z1 Extreme.
While it may technically be possible to install alternative Ryzen drivers for these APUs, such as the ones issued for the Z2-based Lenovo Legion Go S, in Lenovo’s case, it’s actively warning against doing so. These devices use different and configurable TDP values for the Z1 Extreme, from 9W to 30W. Previously released drivers will have been tested by the OEMs to ensure maximum compatibility, and drivers for other handhelds might not be an exact match.
A good alternative, however, might be to ditch Windows. Linux-based handhelds, like those running Valve's SteamOS and Bazzite, use alternative open-source drivers that don’t rely on AMD’s release schedule. This could offer a lifeline for handheld owners in this situation who are willing to install a Linux alternative on their handheld and ditch Windows entirely, although like-for-like performance may not be guaranteed.
We’ve reached out to AMD for comment, which, to date, hasn't publicly announced any plans to deprecate the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme, and are awaiting a response.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
