AYA Neo Air Plus Takes On Steam Deck At $289 Powered By AMD RDNA 2 Infused Mendocino
On: May 31, 2022
The panorama of comparatively reasonably priced handheld PC gaming consoles is starting to increase. Up thus far, Valve’s standard Steam Deck has largely flown solo on this area (different handhelds on par with its energy and capabilities have been priced a lot larger up thus far), however simply throughout the previous week not less than two new contenders have emerged—the AYN Loki, which we wrote about just a few days, and AYA Neo’s Air Plus.
To briefly recap, the AYN Loki begins at $299 for a modest Alder Lake U configuration with built-in graphics, adopted by 4 higher-end SKUs constructed round both a Ryzen 5 6600U or Ryzen 7 6800U, each of that are Zen 3+ APUs with RDNA 2 graphics. Prices for these configs vary from $499 to $799, versus the Steam Deck’s $399 (64GB eMMC), $529 (256GB NVMe SSD), and $649 (512GB excessive velocity NVMe SSD) worth factors.
AYA Neo appears to be like to problem each with a number of Air handheld consoles, and particularly the Air Plus constructed round AMD’s not too long ago introduced Mendocino processors.
AYA Neo revealed the Air Plus throughout a 3 and a half hour livestream over the weekend. Unfortunately for us it isn’t in English and subtitles will not be accessible, however some stills and reside motion shots beginning at across the 2hr18min09sec mark reveal some fascinating tidbits in regards to the upcoming handheld gaming console.
Foir one, that is being billed because the world’s first Mendocino handheld. AMD introduced Mendocino throughout its Computex 2022 keynote final week, after which we had likelihood to debate the chips a bit of additional with AMD Director of Technical Marketing, Robert Hallock, throughout our 2.5 Geeks webcast final Thursday (quick ahead to the 10min24sec mark).
The skinny on Mendocino is that is a line of low price processors meant for entry stage techniques (laptops, largely) priced between $399 to $699. They’re manufactured on TSMC’s 6-nanometer node and pair 4-core/8-thread Zen 2 CPU cores with RDNA 2 graphics, much like the customized Aerith SoC contained in the Steam Deck.
Using Zen 2 cores permits AMD to maintain the worth down whereas nonetheless providing a horny mixture of CPU and GPU horsepower. This is what makes Mendocino such candidate for a handheld gaming PC, and AYA Neo is able to pounce on the platform.
Only just a few particulars in regards to the AYA Neo Air Plus can be found in the intervening time. It’s confirmed to ship with a 6-inch show, an M.2 2280 type issue SSD, and microSD card reader. We additionally know it is going to function the corporate’s AYA Space game launcher, and can assist AYA Neo OS, Windows, and Steam OS.
The huge query is, how will it carry out, significantly in relation to the Steam Deck? We do not have a solution but. Rumor has it that the GPU core depend on Mendocino shall be as few as two compute items (CUs), versus the eight CUs the Steam Deck is rocking. That would put the Air Plus at a graphics efficiency drawback, however we’ll have to attend and see.
If nothing else, the pricing is actually engaging. At $289, this is likely one of the extra reasonably priced handhelds on the market. In addition, AYA Neo will provided an early bird particular where crowdfunders will have the ability to purchase the system for simply $199.
