Discussion AMD SoC Halo series GPU discussion

[Meteor Late]

On the other hand, another less discussed fact is that Nvidia is clearly ahead in terms of efficiency when comparing their architectures. So while the idea of an iGPU sounds cool, will Strix Halo even be more efficient or as efficient than a laptop RTX 4060 or 4070 while gaming?
I guess with this and the price I just don't see it with Strix Halo unless one lives in a vacuum and only thinks about how cool it is to finally have a somewhat powerful iGPU.

 

[techjunkie123]

On the other hand, another less discussed fact is that Nvidia is clearly ahead in terms of efficiency when comparing their architectures. So while the idea of an iGPU sounds cool, will Strix Halo even be more efficient or as efficient than a laptop RTX 4060 or 4070 while gaming?

Not necessarily. Maybe RDNA3 was just screwy because broken arch + chiplets (or 6 mm N33). RDNA 3.5 on 4 nm might be comparable? Not sure if anyone's compared efficiency to laptop dgpus.

Also Halo is on 3 nm (N3E presumably). It better be as efficient as 4060/4070 at least lol.

 

[Meteor Late]

Not necessarily. Maybe RDNA3 was just screwy because broken arch + chiplets (or 6 mm N33). RDNA 3.5 on 4 nm might be comparable? Not sure if anyone's compared efficiency to laptop dgpus.

Also Halo is on 3 nm (N3E presumably). It better be as efficient as 4060/4070 at least lol.

Oh I thought it was 4nm, nice if it is 3nm.

 

[techjunkie123]

Oh I thought it was 4nm, nice if it is 3nm.

CPU chiplets are 4 nm. Rest is 3 nm single die.

 

[poke01]

I mean, $1000+ MSRP is what... Strix Point handhelds already cost, I would like to know what you guys are smoking with these prices for Strix Halo honestly, either that or AMD has been doing like the biggest scam ever with Strix Point.

Strix Point is a scam. It’s boring..🥱

It’s not even N3, it has no right to cost that much.

 

[poke01]

Strix Halo is not for handhelds, increasing battery life with product for handhelds means including a larger battery and that increases weight.

Lunar lake is the best for this type of device, the closest is Van Gough

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I'm not sure 2kg handhelds are a viable product segment.

The ROG Ally X has a 80W.h battery, a cooling system that dissipates up to 35W, 7" screen and controls etc. and weighs 675 grams / 1.5 lb.
The original Ally with a 40W.h battery weighted 607 grams, so the additional 40W.h added less than 70 gram to the console.

You people are seriously overestimating the weight of batteries and electronics.

Asus et al could probably do a ~850g handheld with a 9" OLED screen, 99W.h battery and >50W cooling.

I mean, $1000+ MSRP is what... Strix Point handhelds already cost

Currently announced Strix Point handhelds are coming from chinese manufacturers who need to buy laptop Ryzens and have little economy of scale. $1000+ MSRP is what the previous models used to cost a year ago with the Ryzen 7840U / 8840U.

Asus, Lenovo and other bigger manufacturers should have access to the Z2 Strix Point models at a fraction of the price, and the ROG Ally / Legion Go follow-ups shouldn't cost a lot more than their predecessors.

 

[poke01]

Asus et al could probably do a ~850g handheld with a 9" OLED screen, 99W.h battery and >50W cooling.

What res? This is important.

EDIT: A 9" screen needs to at least 1440p.

 

[insertcarehere]

Currently announced Strix Point handhelds are coming from chinese manufacturers who need to buy laptop Ryzens and have little economy of scale. $1000+ MSRP is what the previous models used to cost a year ago with the Ryzen 7840U / 8840U.

Asus, Lenovo and other bigger manufacturers should have access to the Z2 Strix Point models at a fraction of the price, and the ROG Ally / Legion Go follow-ups shouldn't cost a lot more than their predecessors.

If your argument for Strix Halo handhelds at reasonable pricepoints hinges on the likes of Asus/Lenovo et al being willing and able to sell products with Strix at cheaper price points than Chinese manufacturers can then that's probably not a very good argument..

 

[ToTTenTranz]

What res? This is important.

EDIT: A 9" screen needs to at least 1440p.

The Legion Go with a 8.8" has a 2560*1600 screen, but IMO it would do well with 1080p.

If your argument for Strix Halo handhelds at reasonable pricepoints

That's not my argument at all.
What I am saying is Asus and Lenovo could release Strix Halo handhelds at $1500-2000 and they'd have a market for it.
Assuming they wouldn't skimp on the rest, like screen and battery life.

 

[Meteor Late]

The Legion Go with a 8.8" has a 2560*1600 screen, but IMO it would do well with 1080p.



That's not my argument at all.
What I am saying is Asus and Lenovo could release Strix Halo handhelds at $1500-2000 and they'd have a market for it.
Assuming they wouldn't skimp on the rest, like screen and battery life.

I don't see the market for these prices honestly.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I don't see the market for these prices honestly.

It's definitely there.

Most gamers are 30+ nowadays, it's not a kids' hobby anymore.
Compared to two decades ago, the gaming market has a lot more people that are money-rich and time-poor. And a handheld console is an excellent value proposition for the time-poor.

Of course, if you're selling a $1500+ handheld you'd better provide excellent driver support, ergonomics, screen, large battery, etc.
You can't really pull a monkeypaw on a $1500 gaming device.

 

[Mopetar]

Why would I spend $2000 on a handheld when I could instead spend that money on a far more powerful GPU and game on a much better screen as well?

The purpose of a handheld is the convenience. Part of that convenience is the price and $2000 is a rather inconvenient price for the majority of consumers.

 

[Saylick]

Why would I spend $2000 on a handheld when I could instead spend that money on a far more powerful GPU and game on a much better screen as well?

The purpose of a handheld is the convenience. Part of that convenience is the price and $2000 is a rather inconvenient price for the majority of consumers.

I have to agree with this sentiment. Handhelds shouldn’t be more expensive than a normal console. Otherwise, it just gets too expensive for what it is. I mean, look at the MSI Claw 2 with Lunar Lake. It’s got a really good SoC but it also has a $799 starting price, which is a non-starter. You could buy a Steam Deck AND a PS5 with that money.

Hence why I said that the specs for a proper AMD handheld SoC needs to be very carefully chosen to balance both performance and cost. Throwing the kitchen sink at it just makes the console too expensive to be successful.

Valve is arguably playing it smart by being reasonable with their resolution target, which I think strikes a nice balance between pixel density and frame rate. The next Steam Deck could be 1080p and I think it would be fine given the size and distance you’d be playing at. With N3P, an 8 core Zen 5c SoC with 8 RDNA4 WGP clocked at high as reasonably possible and a small amount of Infinity Cache, you’ll have something potent enough to play most modern titles at that resolution.

 

[igor_kavinski]

With N3P, an 8 core Zen 5c SoC with 8 RDNA4 WGP clocked at high as reasonably possible and a small amount of Infinity Cache, you’ll have something potent enough to play most modern titles at that resolution.

Not to mention that developers can actually target and optimize for static specs. In the early days, most 3D card companies had just one product in a year. 3dfx did this till the launch of multiple Voodoo3 tiers. Nvidia also did the same with Riva series. This should have continued. Sell a reasonably priced GPU for the masses. Less headache for both consumers and developers. Iterate with advancements every year or maybe every two years when the development costs got too high.

Now we have a mess where games are optimized for relatively pedestrian console GPUs and the extra power of PC GPU's is literally wasted thanks to developers pretending that gamers demanding better visuals at better framerates will just shell out for the halo GPU. We should never have gotten to this point but here we are thanks to brainless idiots propping up Jensen's leather jackets wardrobe.

 

[poke01]

It's definitely there.

Most gamers are 30+ nowadays, it's not a kids' hobby anymore.
Compared to two decades ago, the gaming market has a lot more people that are money-rich and time-poor. And a handheld console is an excellent value proposition for the time-poor.

Of course, if you're selling a $1500+ handheld you'd better provide excellent driver support, ergonomics, screen, large battery, etc.
You can't really pull a monkeypaw on a $1500 gaming device.

Why would I spend $2000 on a handheld when I could instead spend that money on a far more powerful GPU and game on a much better screen as well?

The purpose of a handheld is the convenience. Part of that convenience is the price and $2000 is a rather inconvenient price for the majority of consumers.

I would never spend $2000 on a handheld. That’s premium laptop money

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I see a Z3 Extreme in the future. 8c + 24 CU SOC from AMD. Hell throw a 128-bit bus on it.

Would be the upgrade from the Steam Deck everyone needs and deserves.

 

[poke01]

128-bit bus on it.

come on dream big, it will be 192-bit or more with LPDDR6

 

[adroc_thurston]

I see a Z3 Extreme in the future. 8c + 24 CU SOC from AMD. Hell throw a 128-bit bus on it.

Would be the upgrade from the Steam Deck everyone needs and deserves.

I'm pretty sure the premium mobile Medusa is still 16CU.

 

[misuspita]

Will the Halo become a line, meaning it will have a successor? Or it depends on the market response?

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I would never spend $2000 on a handheld. That’s premium laptop money

I would never spend $2000 on a premium laptop.

The market isn't dictated by what you and I would be willing to spend. If there's a market for $3000 laptops, there's definitely a market for $1500-2000 handhelds.

Besides, there have been handhelds being sold for that price for a while now.

I'm pretty sure the premium mobile Medusa is still 16CU.

My guess is those 16CU are still mostly bottlenecked by memory bandwidth with 192bit LPDDR6.
Especially if Medusa is on N3 and clocks go above 3GHz.

Will the Halo become a line, meaning it will have a successor?

There's a Medusa Halo in the pipeline IIRC.

 

[poke01]

Sure but the sweet spot for a handheld is $500-$600. For a laptop its $1000, IMO.

More people buy preimum laptops than they do preimum handhelds as well. lets see the prices of Halo laptops/tablets first.

In any case a Halo handheld will have to depend on the efficiency of Halo, esp its idle states and power consumption when both CPU and GPU is used under gaming loads.

 

[Joe NYC]

Has the mystery of the LP cores in Strix Point been solved? Just one week to introduction, and no one seems to know anything.

There was some rumor a while ago that there would be LP cores, and they would not be visible to the OS / addressable by the OS. Which would be one of the reason their existence is not known.

Another explanation would be that they don't exist.

 

[Joe NYC]

New Geekbench score and no hint of LP cores:

BTW, frequency reporting seems to not be working. It says max frequency 3 GHz.

ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ROG Flow Z13 GZ302EA_GZ302EA_031511482 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ROG Flow Z13 GZ302EA_GZ302EA_031511482 with an AMD RYZEN AI MAX+ 395 w/ Radeon 8060S processor.

browser.geekbench.com

 

[adroc_thurston]

Sure but the sweet spot for a handheld is $500-$600

The sweet spot for a handheld is three hundred bucks. Anything more is niche.