SMACH Z the PC handheld console. Kickstarted achieved in 2 days. Specs and so on.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smachteam/smach-z-the-handheld-gaming-pc


CPU: AMD Merlin Falcon RX-421BD (12-15w) SoC at 2.1 GHz
  • Cores: 4/4
  • iGPU: Radeon R7 at 800 MHz
  • RAM: 4GB (SMACH Z) || 8GB (SMACH Z PRO) DDR4 2133 MHz
  • HD: 64GB (SMACH Z) || 128GB (SMACH Z PRO)
  • Screen: 6” FULL HD (1920x1080). Capacitive touch-screen.
  • Battery: 5 hours of gaming.
  • MicroSD Card Slot.
  • USB 3.0 type C.
  • HDMI video output connection.
  • Wi-Fi connectivity 5.0 Ghz. 4G LTE mobile network connectivity (PRO model only)
  • Bluetooth connectivity.
  • Front-camera 1.3-megapixels (PRO model only)
  • Windows 10 and Linux support
Price:
Smach Z 299 euros
Smach Z Pro 499 euros

Performance:

Alien: Isolation (35 fps 720p at Ultra)
Civilization 5 (28 fps 1080p at High)
Company of Heroes 2 (25 fps at 720p Medium)
Just Cause 2 (35 fps at 720p Medium)
Jotun (45 fps at 1080p)
Metro: Last Light Redux (35 fps at 720p High)
Overwatch (30 fps at 720p Medium)
Skyrim (25 fps at 720p High settings)
Spiral Knights (50 fps at 1080p)
Tomb Raider: Survivor (40 fps at 720p Medium)
Torchlight II (35 fps at 1080p Very Hight settings)
Xcom: Enemy Unknown (30 fps at 720p High settings)
 
Probably a better proposition for a handheld/TV convertor than Nintendo Switch for many, if you don't want N.'s library. As a Steam device, it's pretty compelling actually, if any good as hardware. What's the battery life like?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Probably a better proposition for a handheld/TV convertor than Nintendo Switch for many, if you don't want N.'s library. As a Steam device, it's pretty compelling actually, if any good as hardware. What's the battery life like?
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5 hours battery life, whether that it's considering certain tasks and games are lighter fare in general or not, I don't know.

by comparison with the most popular handheld, the 3ds has a battery life of about 3,5 to 5,5 hours.
 
These things never work out do they?

Especially via kickstarter which screams "no build quality or financial backing"

Cool concept I guess though. But, as with PC gaming, that included GPU will age fast.
 
Rangers said:
These things never work out do they?
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Nope. ;) Gizmondo, anyone. That said, these things invariably are go-it-alone platforms. A Steam device is something a bit different, no? It's a platform that already has thousands of games, and with customers who already have extensive libraries to play on it. Whether they want to play those Steam games on a handheld though...(?)
 
Rangers said:
These things never work out do they?

Especially via kickstarter which screams "no build quality or financial backing"

Cool concept I guess though. But, as with PC gaming, that included GPU will age fast.
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The GPD handheld is shipping out currently. Big thread on gaf http://64.91.255.7/forum/showthread.php?t=1190147&page=26

However this feels like a horrible time to do this with zen right around the corner
 
This is using a full Carrizo. I really thought it'd use the much slower Carrizo-L, but this is using the Excavator cores with the full 8 CUs unlocked, together with 2133MHz DDR4.
At 6" and for newer games I think it makes more sense to use a 960*540 resolution together (4 pixels = 1 in that 1080p screen) with some antialiasing, moreso than 720p.

EDIT: and it says it's upgradable. I never heard of this "ClickARM" before. Are there any products out there supporting this?

baten said:
now - how is this compared to switch, specwise?
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We would have to know what the Switch has.
 
Esrever said:
probably faster than the switch because this thing is using a 35w apu.
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The TDP of mobile Carrizo chips can be configured between 12 and 35W. They mentioned in their page that it's configured to 12-15W, so don't count on that GPU going much above 400-500MHz.

Still impressive for a 28nm chip, though.
 
The ergonomcs look awful. The thing looks as as thick as a brick. The specs are good for a portable, but playing AAA games? Maybe from 8 years ago. Im assuming the framerates listed are averages, meaning games that do not average higher than 30 spend a lot of time well below that mark. Its a really good concept for using Steams fantastic library to play game on the go, but the expectations should to play older AAA games, recent AAA games will be a slide show.
 
Goodtwin said:
The ergonomcs look awful. The thing looks as as thick as a brick. The specs are good for a portable, but playing AAA games? Maybe from 8 years ago. Im assuming the framerates listed are averages, meaning games that do not average higher than 30 spend a lot of time well below that mark. Its a really good concept for using Steams fantastic library to play game on the go, but the expectations should to play older AAA games, recent AAA games will be a slide show.
Click to expand...

Since it will be running PC games, in most cases you can adjust settings such that it'll run at a relatively consistent 30 FPS in most cases, even in modern games. Heck, you can run GTA V on a Surface Pro 3 which has a worse GPU at 30 FPS. Is it going to be on low settings? Yup, which is still better than any handheld on the market.

And if you want ultra quality? Just stream it through Steam and have 60 FPS at whatever your desktop can handle. Good for, I dunno, playing while sitting on the toilet? :)

Regards,
SB
 
800Gflops and 4 Excavator cores at 2.1Ghz, 15w at 28nm. Nice job by AMD. This spec is impressive.

On other aspects could be less overspec'd(using a 720p screen of course) in order to get the consumer price down.

I think that will get obsolete faster than the traditional videogame consoles, i wish it had an option to upgrade the brain to put in it a Raven Ridge APU later.
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Since it will be running PC games, in most cases you can adjust settings such that it'll run at a relatively consistent 30 FPS in most cases, even in modern games. Heck, you can run GTA V on a Surface Pro 3 which has a worse GPU at 30 FPS. Is it going to be on low settings? Yup, which is still better than any handheld on the market.

And if you want ultra quality? Just stream it through Steam and have 60 FPS at whatever your desktop can handle. Good for, I dunno, playing while sitting on the toilet? :)

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

Yup there are a lot of playable games on a quad core atom in a tablet. So this should play newer games okay. I am thinking 720p or 900p at low to medium presets. I think the amount of ram will be the problem
 
senis_kenis said:
From presentation video, GPU-Z reports 64bit single channel DDR4. It will be bandwidth starved if that's the case.
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Might be from pre-production hardware. The kickstarter page even shows 64bit DDR3.
 
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