It has an 8 hour battery life, and they want to be able to charge it in one hour while still gaming?[/optimistic-spin]
SMACH Z the PC handheld console. Kickstarted achieved in 2 days. Specs and so on.
- Thread starter Cyan
- Start date
It has an 8 hour battery life, and they want to be able to charge it in one hour while still gaming?[/optimistic-spin]
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
35W APU + 2* PCIe 8* (150W?) + PCIe 1x + M.2 + 2*SATA + USB3 + USB2 + other peripherals.
250W actually seems a bit tight.
Yeah, I don't know what the actual realistic power consumption for this thing is (although PCI-E would AFAIK be constrained to 25W through the connector) but the 250W supply isn't actually suspect. It was just a jab at that time S|A used the PSU selection for some Tegra dev board to claim that the SoC drew enormous amounts of power.
el etro
Newcomer
If CPU really stays at claimed 2.1Ghz base, it can emulate even Wii.
If you're not going to need keyboard, how about this for mini-PC-masterrace? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smachteam/smach-z-the-handheld-gaming-pc
AMD Merlin Falcon RX-421BD (2 module / 4 thread Excavator) with Radeon R7 (8CU), 4-8GB DDR4 etc
^
That was written to another thread, but moved here
AMD Merlin Falcon RX-421BD (2 module / 4 thread Excavator) with Radeon R7 (8CU), 4-8GB DDR4 etc
^
That was written to another thread, but moved here
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D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
I think the Smach-Z is one of the most promising devices in PC gaming of the last decade.
With the discrete graphics card market being currently deplorable, I think all publishers, developers, e-stores etc. that depend on PC gaming should be backing this and helping the project become successful.
Especially Valve. They should be all over this with marketing incentives, developer relations, etc. It's a friggin' portable Steam player with an embedded Steam controller!
And AMD too, since laptop makers seem so intent on butchering Raven Ridge solutions with terrible surrounding hardware (like they did with Carrizo to Bristol Ridge).
DuckThor Evil
Legend
I still have zero faith in these guys actually delivering this product to the market in a proper way. This project has been suspect from the start and they still are talking a lot more than delivering. None of the stuff they have shown looks even remotely ready for market. The price increase with the latest feature updates is not exactly great either. The AMD tech is interesting, but I'd like to see some serious company put that in a product.
xboy ? LIke I've said in the console section , great horned owl would make a compelling portable xbox one and would allow MS to compete with Nintendo in the handheld market. MS could also intergrate amd's apus in their surface product line insuring xbox one compatibility through the product line since.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
Launching a portable console that isn't compatible with current 2013-gen games would quite honestly be a very bad idea IMO, and Raven Ridge unfortunately can't get enough bandwidth to emulate the original Xbone.
Having some models of their Surface line with XBone compatibility would be golden, but Microsoft seems focused/loyal on Intel+nvidia so far.
I would think that was due to AMD not really having anything to compete with intel/ nvidia . However with these chips AMD does.
The surface pro is an m3-i7 dual core with a max of iris pro graphics . The new ryzen vega chips would blow these away.
The surface laptop same offering
Surface book - i5-i7 with optional 1050 or 1060 . Now this one is harder since the i7 is actually a quad core. However again the g line from amd would match this and offer better gpu power when the tablet is undocked. I don't believe vega mobile is ready yet but when it is you can pair that up to replace the 1050 or 1060 options.
So yea now amd can make sense for MS. will be interesting to see what they end up doing
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
There are, the team doesn't seem all that capable by itself.
Which is why I think all the companies that have a lot to gain with Smach-Z should be taking them by their hand.
A similar example would be Oculus. Palmer Luckey was just a kid experimenting with electronics in a garage, basically just trying to minimize sensor and screen latency using off-the-shelf components. But when it was found that his project had an immense potential, the next day he had industry giants pushing him along.
BTW, new video released yesterday with benchmarks:
Actually quite good considering, but with a small caveat:
I'm not sure if that disclaimer means it was on the final hardware with the heatsink as in the board hanging loose on a test bench, or final hardware as in fully enclosed in the device enclosure. The latter potentially affecting thermals and possible sustained clock rates.
There is a incredible hunger for handheld gaming within the core gaming community. We speak a community a couple hundred millions strong: the manufacturers are doing something wrong IMO!
The "basics" "features" "design rules", whatever you call it, upon which handheld are built are out dated and no longer relevant.
They made reaching gamers needs pretty much impossible whereas we've seen a good while now laptop selling in 199€ range as well as tablets and phones (some with accessories). Some are more advanced with higher quality components (screen often for phones and tablets) whereas others are more complicated design (laptop includes keyboard, clamshell design, etc.).
My belief is that manufacturers does not come with designs that would work (cost/price) based on false requirements, among which pocketability. The Switch is showing that pocketability is no longer a concern as phones covers the needs for on go gaming but more accurately "opportunistic gaming" by that I mean that users do not plan to play anything, like they do not carry a laptop or a tablet all the time, that is the phone privilege only.
I for long though that handheld should be cheap and conveniently pocketable, I championed NIntendo clamshell design quite a few times. I was WRONG, as the Switch shows pocketability is not an issue handheld does not compete with phones in a straigh forward manner pretty much as Tablet and laptop does not compete against one another or against phone use.
Gamers wants higher quality gaming, which call for higher TDP, which in turn calls for bigger devices. It is all about size: designing significantly bigger devices may not be more expensve (as shown by laptop or tablets compared to phones) but makes all the differences in the world wrt to the power usage and battery capacity.
Pretty much if I were to design a handheld, 199€, I think my mantra would be "go big or go home". The though process:
max encumbrance: 11" (cheap) laptop both size and weight
From there you have the power you can dissipate passively.
Then is pretty much doing the best one can for the bucks (OTC SOC or Custom, RAM, etc.). Sure it won't be PS4 on the go BUT I would bet it would find a numbers of costumers it seems manufacturers as Sony or MSFT do no seem to suspect.
The "basics" "features" "design rules", whatever you call it, upon which handheld are built are out dated and no longer relevant.
They made reaching gamers needs pretty much impossible whereas we've seen a good while now laptop selling in 199€ range as well as tablets and phones (some with accessories). Some are more advanced with higher quality components (screen often for phones and tablets) whereas others are more complicated design (laptop includes keyboard, clamshell design, etc.).
My belief is that manufacturers does not come with designs that would work (cost/price) based on false requirements, among which pocketability. The Switch is showing that pocketability is no longer a concern as phones covers the needs for on go gaming but more accurately "opportunistic gaming" by that I mean that users do not plan to play anything, like they do not carry a laptop or a tablet all the time, that is the phone privilege only.
I for long though that handheld should be cheap and conveniently pocketable, I championed NIntendo clamshell design quite a few times. I was WRONG, as the Switch shows pocketability is not an issue handheld does not compete with phones in a straigh forward manner pretty much as Tablet and laptop does not compete against one another or against phone use.
Gamers wants higher quality gaming, which call for higher TDP, which in turn calls for bigger devices. It is all about size: designing significantly bigger devices may not be more expensve (as shown by laptop or tablets compared to phones) but makes all the differences in the world wrt to the power usage and battery capacity.
Pretty much if I were to design a handheld, 199€, I think my mantra would be "go big or go home". The though process:
max encumbrance: 11" (cheap) laptop both size and weight
From there you have the power you can dissipate passively.
Then is pretty much doing the best one can for the bucks (OTC SOC or Custom, RAM, etc.). Sure it won't be PS4 on the go BUT I would bet it would find a numbers of costumers it seems manufacturers as Sony or MSFT do no seem to suspect.
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DuckThor Evil
Legend
I am not sure if everyone is aware of the current pricing model of this system. They are offering 3 different configurations and a -10% discount if you pre-order the unit, which they claiming will ship in November. I have to say that regardless of if they can get these to market, the prices aren't very attractive in my opinion. The entry level model goes for $699 ($629 if you pre-order) and that has 4GB of Ram and 64GB of storage space. The step up 8GB/128GB is around $200 more. With about 35GB/s of memory bandwidth the performance is not going to be that great for that price. Unless a lower price is introduced it's hard to see these selling anything more than a very modest number of units.
https://www.smachz.com/shop/
https://www.smachz.com/shop/
Silent_Buddha
Legend
It's to be expected, unlike traditional consoles makers the hardware isn't subsidized by game royalties.
I'd imagine the BOM is likely similar to that of the PS4 or XBO, but their only avenue for profit is in hardware margins of the console itself.
As they are low volume products, the margins as a result will have to be significantly larger than that of high volume products. IE - the product is likely to be higher cost than a laptop featuring similar or same hardware.
Regards,
SB
I'd imagine the BOM is likely similar to that of the PS4 or XBO, but their only avenue for profit is in hardware margins of the console itself.
As they are low volume products, the margins as a result will have to be significantly larger than that of high volume products. IE - the product is likely to be higher cost than a laptop featuring similar or same hardware.
Regards,
SB