Zotac Zone Pro Ryzen 9 Linux Gaming Handheld Set To Challenge ROG Xbox Ally
If you're not familiar with AMD processor codenames, "Phoenix" is the 8-core Zen-4-and-RDNA-3 SoC that powers most of the Ryzen 7000 and 8000 mobile products, as well as the Ryzen 200 family and the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Meanwhile, "Strix Point" is the newer chip behind the Ryzen AI 300 family as well as the Ryzen Z2 Extreme; it has Zen 5 CPU cores and RDNA 3.5 graphics.
The specific processor in the Zone Pro is the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, which sports four Zen 5 and eight Zen 5C CPU cores. Overkill for a handheld to be sure, but it's likely that Zotac's software will disable or park some of the cores while gaming. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 also boasts sixteen RDNA 3.5 compute units, which is a 25% upgrade from the twelve older-gen RDNA 3 compute units of "Phoenix". In theory, that's a solid jump in GPU horsepower.
In practice, "Strix Point" is fabricated on the very same 4nm process as "Phoenix", and so performance is basically going to come down to power limits. However, Zotac still claims a 15-20% performance uplift over the previous-generation, albeit that this folds in improvements from doubling the RAM capacity to 32GB, as well as the move to Manjaro Linux.
The choice of Manjaro is an interesting one. From the screenshots, the interface seems identical to that of the official SteamOS, but PCGamesHardware.de reports that Zotac is collaborating directly with the creators of Manjaro Linux to develop the software for the handheld. SteamOS absolutely can deliver efficiency benefits that translate to better performance, so it's possible that Manjaro really does improve over Windows 11 here. Of course, there will also be the option to purchase the machine with Windows if you want it.
Besides the new SoC and the optional Linux OS, the Zone Pro seems to be fundamentally similar to the original model. You still get that lovely HDR AMOLED screen, you still get dual USB4 ports for external connectivity, and it still includes the Hall-effect sticks and dual trackpads. The Zone Pro also carries forward the original model's 48.5-Whr battery, which we feel is a bit small compared to the ROG Ally X or the MSI Claw 8 AI+.
It will be interesting to see if the improved efficiency of Linux helps with battery life on this device. As we noted above, to realize the potential performance gains of 'Strix Point' over 'Phoenix', you really need to increase power limits, which means that 48.5-Whr battery is going to get swallowed by the SoC very quickly. Hopefully software improvements can help, with more fine-grained power management being key. There are more photos of the device at PCGamesHardware, if you're keen to see them.
