GPD Unveils Pocket 4, The First AMD Ryzen AI 300 “Strix” Handheld: Shares Radeon 890M “RDNA 3.5” & Arc 140V “Xe2” iGPU Benchmarks

GPD has unveiled the first AMD Ryzen AI 300 "Strix" powered handheld & also shared benchmarks of Radeon 890M against Intel's Arc 140V "Xe2" iGPU.

GPD has disclosed its next-generation Pocket 4 handheld "AI PC" which is an ultra-portable platform that not only serves gamers but casual PC audiences too who want something with lots of performance in a compact form factor. This new PC device is equipped with AMD's Ryzen AI 300 "Strix" APUs which are the fastest "AI PC" SOCs at the moment and there is a good reason why many handheld and compact PC makers are going to integrate these chips into their products.

Starting with the specifications, the GPD Pocket 4 handheld features the top AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU which packs 12 Cores based on the Zen 5 architecture, 16 iGPU cores based on the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture and a 50 TOPS NPU, rated at 20-28W. The handheld also comes with up to 64 GB of LPDDR5-7500 memory and storage includes a Gen4x4 M.2 slot which can offer up to 4 TB of capacities.

The display on the GPD Pocket 4 is an 8.8-inch IPS panel that supports a resolution of 2560x1600 (WQXGA) and a refresh rate of up to 144Hz. This screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio, a pixel density of 343 PPI, and a maximum brightness of 500 cd/m2.

I/O on the handheld includes a USB4 port, one HDMI 2.1, 1 USB 3.2 Gen2 (Type-A), 1 USB 3.2 Gen2 (Type-C), 1 USB 2.0 Type-A port, and a 2.5GbE LAN port. It also comes with expansion modules which include KVM control module, 4G LTE SIM modules, an EIA RS-232 Module, & a microSD card reader module for expanded storage capability.

The GPD Pocket 4 isn't a typical gaming handheld as we have said before & comes with a QWERTY keyboard with a backlight and a Power On/Off key. It even features a precision touchpad & a three-button mouse pad.

The screen supports a 180-degree rotation and can be laid fully flat on a surface. That's not all, the screen can also be rotated counter-clockwise and folded for unique displaying angles. If you plan to use the device as a tablet, then there's also support for touch and that makes it a very robust PC solution.

GPD has also shared a few performance metrics of the GPD Pocket 4 running the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix" APU. They first compare the single-core performance which is ahead of the Ryzen 9 7950X while in graphics tests, the company compares the performance of the Radeon 890M iGPU against the Intel Arc 140V (featured on the Core Ultra 7 268V).

The graphics test was done using a 45W TDP for both chips and the GPD Duo (a different device than the Pocket 4) ended up with 6% better performance on the Radeon chip. The performance shared here is slightly slower than what the company had posted previously.

The previous tests were running the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU at a 54W TDP whereas the new benchmarks were done at a 45W TDP. This marks a 16% uplift in performance with a 20% TDP bump. Also, we know that Lunar Lake "Core Ultra 200V" SOCs have a peak TDP of 30W so GPD's listed TDP of 45W may not be correct. With that said, the Radeon 890M iGPU is still impressive in gaming tests that we have covered here.

It should be noted that currently, AMD's Ryzen AI 300 "Strix" APUs are in short supply and even major OEMs have limited access to them. The same is true for Lunar Lake which launches next month. Mini PC manufacturers have already stated that the first products will launch in October at the earliest so GPD sharing these numbers would suggest that they have acquired samples of these chips earlier than the rest. So we will wait till the final product launches to confirm these claims.

There's no word on the pricing or release date of the GPD Duo laptop or GPD Pocket 4 handheld devices yet but we can expect more information from the manufacturer in the coming months.

News Source: Hoang Anh Phu