- [Linus] Just a few
(trap music) short weeks ago, we got a firsthand look at the latest book in Lord Gaben's Gospel, the Valve Steam Deck. It's the PC gamers version
of a Nintendo switch, except, instead of running
light casual games, it can run the latest AAA titles. It looks freaking awesome. But the thing is, while Valve is definitely
pushing the landscape forward, when it comes to handheld gaming, they are not the only
player in this field, and their competition
isn't standing still. This right here is the
GPD Win Max 2021 Edition. It's the first time
that GPD has ever built a Ryzen handheld and it has
eight flipping Zen 2 cores, but wait, there's more. (gaming console lands on table) This is the
(grabs gaming console) GPD Win Max 2021 Edition Intel Edition, the first GPD Handheld
with Intel Xe Graphics, and they're the most powerful
onboard graphics we've seen from Intel, yet. Man, there are going to be some
interesting stories to tell, like the story, about our sponsor. Thanks to Honey for sponsoring this video. Honey is the free to use shopping tool, that helps search for some
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(music beeps) (music drop) Plot twist, I'm gonna kick
(trap music) things off with the Intel version, because this is the first device we've ever gotten hands on with, with Intel's top of the
line Tiger Lake CPU, the Core i7-1195G7, (grabs gaming console) (gaming console closes) and heh, whew,
(puts down gaming console) On paper, anyway, it promises
to be an absolute beast. It's got four cores, eight threads, boosts
up to five gigahertz, can be configured to multiple
TDP levels, up to 25 Watts, and perhaps, most importantly, has 96 Iris Xe compute
units, in its onboard GPU, which means it should be
significantly faster than the Ryzen 4,800U, and who knows,
maybe even competitive with the upcoming, RDNA 2
graphics, on the Steam Deck. That's what I really want to find out. While we've got it open,
this is a perfect opportunity to compare the GPD Win Max
2021, against what we know about the Steam Deck. First and foremost, the CPU and memory are both soldered to the main board, but that's pretty much a given
in any machine this compact. Where they differ is the SSD. They both use a standard
M.2 slot, which is great. That means if you're
willing to put the work in Valve has said that, theoretically, the Steam Deck should be upgradable, but it should be noted
that this one it will, A, be easier to upgrade, and B, probably more worthwhile, because the Steam Deck uses
a 30 millimeter M.2 slot, which up until now I believe, only even goes up to one
Terabyte of capacity, whereas the GPD Win Max 2021
uses an 80 millimeter M.2, which, it looks like you
could only fit a single sided, so that's good to know,
which means you could go up to four Terabytes at least, presently. While we're digging around in here, some other notable features
are the dual stereo speakers, MicroSD slot,
(taps MicroSD slot) the Steam Deck has one of those as well for storage
(taps MicroSD slot) for expansion, the Intel
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip set, as well as a full-sized
gigabit ethernet jack, which gives us our first hint as to what the real intended use of the GPD Win Max is. This is more than just a gaming machine, which isn't to say that
it's not gaming focused. Both valve and GPD have taken
very different approaches (taps gaming console) To how to handle joysticks. If there's one thing we know for sure, it's that low-profile joysticks
do have reliability issues, that, we as gamers, have
observed over the years. So GPD, rather than increase
the profile of the machine by having the joysticks
stick up out of it, has actually sunk the joysticks into the top deck of the laptop,
and then you can see here, (closes laptop) they take up almost the entire
depth of the machine inside, and they've actually had to
build the PCB around them. There's no doubt in my
mind that Valve's handheld has a better Integrated
Controller, but to GPD's credit, these joysticks feel pretty
darn good, for low-profile ones, so does the D-pad and the
ABXY buttons, have both nice, clicky switches,
(clicks buttons) as well as, this is a really
nice touch, secondary printing on the legend, with a cross,
circle, square, triangle, for PlayStation users, because, let's face it,
(clicks buttons) you're going to be emulating games. (laughs) Unfortunately,
(clicks buttons) both the shoulder and trigger buttons, use the same switches, so if you're super into
driving games, or anything where you want that
nice, fine analog control on your trigger, you're
not going to find it here. But it does make up a
lot of that ground in IO. So in addition to your ethernet port, you've got HDMI 2.0, two USB Type As, and, yes, my friends,
Thunderbolt, that means any number of docking solutions, and
even external graphics cards, which, naturally, we'll be trying later. And that's to say nothing
about one of the Win Max 2021s biggest undocked benefits, the massive 57 Watt Hour battery. Now Intel's Tiger Lake chips,
they're pretty power hungry, but GPD claims that still good
for up to three hours of use, under heavy load, with up to 14 hours (closes laptop panel) under a light load, of course,
you're gonna wanna configure your TDP, and squeeze even
more out of it, right? Let's screw this thing back together and see if it still works.
(laughs) (puts laptop down) Now that we're in windows, one last bit of IO
(taps laptop) I didn't show you, is this cool
(taps laptop) toggle switch right here. It changes the game pad
into a native mouse mode, so that, unlike other handheld devices, you don't have to have
a little utility running in the System Tray, it
just freaking works, so your left shoulder
button is your left click, and it actually rebines (clicks buttons) some of the keys as well. So you can see this left
analog stick is WASD. So it allows it to work in more of like a keyboard-mouse mode, if that is, for whatever
reason, what you prefer. With some games that could be better. One thing I noticed just,
moving the mouse around, though, is that, while the 8"
display on the Win Max 2021 runs at the same 1280x800
resolution the Steam Deck, and it's IPS, and actually
gets like, quite, quite bright. You can see there's a fair bit of sneering as I move the mouse around. Can you see that? This is not the most responsive
display I've ever seen. To be clear, this is not a game breaker, it's only a 60 Hertz display, so it's not like you're
going to be like, "Oh wow, this is just a completely smeary mess." or anything like that,
(clicks button) but I have seen better. (clicks button) Moment of truth, DOOM Eternal launch. We made it this far last time. (clicks button)
(game starting) - [Jake] Before? - Yeah, we made it to where
the master chief is standing on his thing. - [Jake] Yeah.
(laughs) - [David] So it's not master chief. - I know you had to
- [David] Master chef, you had to. You had to say something. - [David] Oh.
- Oh, wow. Ah, oh, ooh. Oh, had a little, little moment there. - [David] Hmm. - Lemme flip it into controller mode here. (clicks buttons) Holy shnikies, this might actually work, which shouldn't really be that impressive, but, okay,
(clicks buttons) I wanna go ba- Ooh, ooh, it's definitely got some issues, some issues.
(clicks buttons) Here we go,
(machines running) we've got both machines
configured to their maximum TDP, so around 25 Watts, although you can see, that according to RivaTuner, Intel is actually drawing
significantly more than that sometimes, as high as around 35 Watts. But the bigger takeaway here, is not necessarily, that
Intel is drawing more power, but rather that Intel
is actually not managing nearly the same frame rate, even when it is running smoothly. So what are we getting? Around 35, 40 FPS, when it's going? - [David] Ooh. - [Man] Yeah, sometimes
it doesn't go as much. Whoa, not only that, but you can see, our Intel CPU managed 100 degrees, max. URRRRRRHUH. Meanwhile, our AMD system,
remember this is with a 4,800U, is running at a pretty
consistent 60 plus FPS. (clicks buttons) And this is at exactly the same settings. So all medium, native resolution, with motion blur turned off.
(clicks buttons) And this is, ooh, this
is way more playable. You know though, I am
surprised, at how close this performance is to the RDNA 2 graphics in the Steam Deck.
(clicks buttons) When I compared to
head-to-head and DOOM Eternal while I was at Valve's headquarters, I found that the Steam
Deck was about 50% faster, looking at exactly the
same scene as the AYA NEO. So let's go ahead and take the
AYA NEO into the same scene. (clicks buttons) And check this out. We're running at anywhere from around 35, (clicks buttons) up to around 50 FPS, but
generally in the 40 to 45 range. (clicks buttons) This is not what I was expecting, but we also know that DOOM Eternal is not properly optimized
on Intel Xe graphics, so let's move on to something else. Hopefully in Dirt 5, we're going to see a more even competition here. The Intel machine managed
to load into the game a bit faster, but that's
not particularly meaningful (person steps) from like, a gaming enjoyment- It's down, whoa. Okay. Wow. This is a dead heat. Intel looks like they
might be, maybe, maybe, like three to 5% ahead
in performance, but it's- Or maybe not. Holy crap, I don't remember
the last time I saw anything be this close, AMD versus Intel.
- [David] (indistinct) are you? - Only the results will
tell us the answer. In the meantime, I want
to run the AYA NEO, because this is the one
device that I've had a chance to run head-to-head
against the Steam Deck. So that will, hopefully, give us an idea of where the Steam Deck
falls, in all of this, obviously, I'd, hmm, rather, be testing the Steam deck right now,
but I don't have one. Wow, these are close, when we
look at average frame rates, they're within about 1% of each other, although, I still consider
this a win for Intel, since their minimums
didn't dip quite as low, though, certainly this isn't as big a win, as DOOM Eternal was, for AMD. As for the AYA NEO, it's
result, of around 30 FPS, seems to suggest that both of our Win Maxs (put down gaming console) could very well end up
(picks up gaming console) within striking distance,
of the Steam Deck. But of course, it should be noted, that these are both 25 Watt
TDP CPUs, rather than 15 Watts. Next up F1 2021, we're
running at native resolution, low settings, TAA enabled. Man, this is a really good
looking game, even at low. Oh wow, Intel is slaying it here. The 4,800U and the AMD Win
Max, is already looking like it might end up competitive
with the Steam Deck, maybe a little bit a bit behind, but the Intel machine is running at 80, almost 90 plus FPS in some
places, like we could actually, probably turn that it's up to medium. That is a big difference in performance. Woa, that's not even close. Wow, Intel's a solid 30%
ahead of AMD on this one. Then after that great showing, I managed to make it as far
as the prologue cinematic in Halo 4, and I got a fatal error and the game completely crashed. Come on Intel graphics drivers, like you guys are launching
a discreet card soon. (taps desk) You gotta be better than this. To be clear, I understand,
there's probably workarounds for just about all of this stuff, in fact, GPD even quotes
performance numbers from DOOM Eternal, on their website, that are much better
than what we observed. But average users can't be
expected to go find that stuff. This is not a great experience. Both of them are running at well over a hundo FPS here, though. We see some dips, very
solid though, very solid. Our thumb's ticking two
controllers at the same time, would not recommend, they call me "sticky man." - [Jake] Ugh, no they don't. - So this is LittleBigPlanet. This is running in a PS3 emulator, RPCS3. And on the Intel system, I mean, we are getting a solid locked 30 FPS, which is what this game runs at. But you can see it's got some problems. Meanwhile, on the AMD system,
we're getting framed drops. It says 29 FPS, I don't believe it. This is definitely not
completely running properly, but we're getting far
fewer graphical anomalies. Although still some. Something to bear in mind though, is that PlayStation 3 emulation
is already very challenging, because of the unconventional architecture of the PlayStation 3, and
LittleBigPlanet, in particular, is quite demanding. - [Jake] Oh, wow,
- Ooh, wow. - [Jake] this is 60 FPS. - Oh, oh, oh
- [Jake] Oh, oh, oh, oh - We got to see through Sumo. Check this out.
- [Jake] Oh, oh. - [Man] Look at my see-through Sumo here. - [Jake] Knocked out baby, I
won, I just clicked A a bunch. This is totally playable. - Oh for sure, no, this is like, perfect, this is totally usable. - [Jake] I think this-
- Wait a minute, his clothes appeared. Yeah, we just unlocked
(clicks buttons) the frame rate, so my- Ooh wow. The game speed
(clears throat) is a little different.
(clicks buttons) But, assuming that the end
game physics is not tied to the frame rate, because the developers
(drops laptop on desk) are chode. (laughs) - [Jake] Whoa.
- [Man] this is the web- (laughs) Wow, my entire character is
- [Jake] Look at the loading animation.
- [Man] missing, yeah, this is very fast and very broken. (laughs) I'm at like anywhere from 100 to 120 FPS. - [Jake] I'm like 90, but different map, but I imagine, that's
probably has to do more with the graphics, not the map. I guess if you want to play
Tekken 6 it works pretty good. - [Man] Yeah, I wouldn't
recommend unlocking the frame rate though. - [David] Not it.
- It seems a little more broken on the Intel one, like I don't have that much stuff missing. - Yeah, oh, it's definitely more broken on the Intel machine. But it runs faster.
(clicks button) Now, Markbench, our benchmark for premiere,
was designed for much more powerful systems than these ones, but it can still tell us a lot. So you can see here, we've
got four separate 4K clips, all playing back at the same time. And on our Intel system,
it actually handles it, and the transitions,
reasonably smoothly, albeit, at 1/8 resolution. Meanwhile, on the AMD
system, we go from usable, but not perfect, to not really usable. One thing that's nice about
these, that I didn't mention before is, if you want
it, there is a trackpad. It's not the greatest experience
ever, but there are times when it'll probably come in handy for you. All right, let's go ahead and start our encoding benchmark now. Yeah, I think our poor Intel system is just going to get slapped here. There it goes, it's just slow. Yeah, if it can manage a
victory here, I'll be impressed. Wow, this 4K encoding benchmark ended up not even being close. The Intel machine's been done for a solid 20 seconds already, and the AMD machine is still
finishing up, even though, we started the Intel
machine slightly afterward, 'cause I misclicked. So the big pattern
that's emerging here is, Tiger Lake and Xe graphics,
when they work, they're fast, and when they don't, it sucks. Of course, one of the
key benefits of going with the Intel version, is
that you're not necessarily married to the onboard graphics. Let's go ahead and dock it to this Gigabyte EGPU Box here. (rubs box)
(taps desk) It's got networking, USB,
and of course, an RTX 3080 graphics card in it. Let's see if it just fires up for us here. - [Jake] Whoa.
- Look at that. (snaps fingers)
Just like that. Oh, we're going to need some
drivers, well, look at that. (background chatter) Jake pre set up the drivers for us. (tapping desk with mouse) I need a mouse pad. Lttstore.com (throws mouse pad on desk)
Boom. I mean, let's see if it'll
play DOOM Eternal now. (laughs) How do you like me now? It's got this,
- [David] Dun. - [Man] It's got this, don't even worry about a thing.
- [David] It can't even keep the display up. (clicks mouse and keyboard) - [Man] 'Nother key
benefit of Thunderbolt, I don't need my power adapter
(unplugs power adapter) anymore, I can just get power from the Thunderbolt
connection to my dock. Casual 100 plus FPS, DOOM
Eternal, absolutely maxed out. It's actually we running at that too. (clicks mouse) Like this is very smooth. CPU is at 83 degrees, in terms of power, it's pulling anywhere from
around 27 to 28 Watts. So considering that we're
not even touching the integrated graphics,
that's pretty impressive. Like, just absolutely no stutter
whatsoever, butter smooth. Who needs stutter when you've got butter? - [David] THPPTPHTPHPHHPH. (laughs) Now for Dirt 5, we've got
this crank to ultra high, we're going to turn on some
ray traced vehicles, shadows. Honestly, the car shadows are so soft, because of the fact that
the sun's behind the clouds, that I'm having a hard time telling if they look
better, because they're retraced or whatever.
- [David] Hmm, yeah. - [Man] Which is probably an
indication that it's working. Yeah, this is not a trivial game to run, and it's like 55 to 60
FPS the whole time, at 4K. I keep watching these car
shadows here, yeah, it looks- Now that there are a bit harder, that is very, like accurate. But something we haven't
talked about up until now, is, what is the GPD Win Max even
like to use as a controller? Right now, great. Everything feels accurate and responsive, the switches are all nice and clicky. But,
(sighs) I also have the device resting on a table in front of me. If I had to actually hold
it up, it's pretty heavy, and the ergonomics are far from perfect. Compared to most controllers, where you're, kinda
cradling them like this, and your thumbs have this
great degree of movement. On the Win Max they're
kind of stuck like this. And it kinda brings you're
elbows in sort of funny. So the design is only
going to appeal to people who want a gaming device
that is also useful for other things, because
even though the keyboard, quite frankly, sucks for typing,
it's obviously a lot better for typing, than just not having one
(person steps) (laughs)
at all. What we can't fault is the performance. Despite the fact that neither
of the 2021 Edition Win Maxs have RDNA 2 graphics, and not to mention, that they're only running
DDR4, rather than DDR5, they both get surprisingly close, to where we're expecting the
Steam Deck to eventually land. So as long as you don't find
the form factor off-putting, you may not have to wait,
although, you will definitely have to pay a significantly
higher price, chshshsh. What you won't have to pay
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at freshbooks.com/linus. (upbeat music) If you
guys enjoyed this video, check out our first
impressions of the Steam Deck, or maybe, the full review of the AYA NEO. Man, this handheld console space, is really heating up right now. And that's not just
joking about how the Intel (indistinct) hot.
- [Jake] Oh. - Ay, got 'em.
I like that this gives the current handheld market some deserved recognition. The Steam Deck may prove to be a better overall product (extremely likely IMO) but other devices already have the same capabilities. Even with the 10-13W higher TDP on the i7 Max to roughly match performance of the SD, battery life should be fairly comparable to the SD given the 57Wh battery.
There is also a lot more utility provided by the Max which may be worth the premium to some users.
So either you could pay double for an AMD Vega processor that might perform within spitting distance of the Steam Deck, or pay double for an Intel processor which IN THEORY could have better performance but in reality have such bad drivers that it’ll be a coin toss whether a game will perform better on Intel graphics let alone launch. Thanks but no thanks I’ll go Steam Deck. Aya Neo Pro if I’ve gotta have something now.
I want the 2021 win max but I just can’t bring myself to pull the trigger on it. To many concessions have been made at this point, no wifi6, worse screen than last years win max, really questionable communication around the USB4 / thunderbolt 4 changes on the IGG page, failure to directly comment on or otherwise address the SD reader speed outside of saying “it is A2”. The terrible communication around all of this has me too nervous to risk $1000.
From a marketing point-of-view, the video seems to be advertising the Steam Deck as much as it is the Win Max. Linus definitely likes the Deck.
Also, the AMD version seems to be about as good or better than the Intel one. I feel like the only thing going for the Intel version is if you're actually planning on using an eGPU which I doubt many will.
I’m tired of the unnecessary comparisons to the steam deck. Completely apples to oranges and serve different functions entirely.
Win max is currently the only all in one laptop gaming device on the market. You can’t even compare it to the deck which is purely a gaming handheld pc like the win 3. That said I won’t get any win max until it has better joysticks.
Even comparisons to the win 3 are fucking weird. The deck is literally twice the size of the win 3. Neither system can do what the other can because they’re vastly different so can we please stop with these weird comparisons?
do NOT get the Intel version. Their drivers are absolute dogshit! Can't even play single game of COD either Warzone, Modern Warfare. Blackops (2020) is completely broken, and other games lack support from Intel.
Notice https://youtu.be/8NK1I6S_vFs?t=369
Talks about screen smearing... same as the ghosting in the other review. Was hoping it was just a fluke but seems to me they used a poor screen on these devices :(