GPD Win Max 2 Mini Notebook as Powerful as The Steam Deck Handheld Console

Recently, pocket gaming computers have become popular, which are comparable in performance to modern laptops and allow you to play a wide variety of games, but at the same time have a very compact form factor. Known for handhelds such as the GPD Win 3 and GPD Win Max, GPD has announced the GPD Win Max 2. The model can be equipped with an Intel Core i7-1280P or AMD Ryzen 7 6800U chip and has a peculiar design — a mix between a notebook and a portable game console.

Display & Design

WIN Max adopts an ultra-narrow bezel design this time, with a native horizontal screen, so there is no need to worry about the vertical screen problem of old games. The default resolution is 1920×1200, and the maximum resolution is 2560×1600. The screen supports 10-point touch, supports active stylus, 4096-level pressure sensitivity, original handwriting, and is compatible with Surface Pen. The camera is in the middle of the shaft.

Some people may wonder why the previous products did not have a 1080P screen, because when designing a handheld console based on a nuclear display, the first consideration was game fluency. The previous generation of nuclear display had the best fluency at 800P, and 720P was better. .

Then, with the upgrading of the processor and the improvement of the core display performance, it will eventually be possible to play games at more than 60 frames under 1080P, and we are achieving this goal. This mode of use can be uncomfortable, but the Win Max 2's compact size should make it easy to adapt: the device is 228 x 167 mm. In the images, the screen makes it appear that the dimensions are larger, but this is just an impression caused by the good use of the frontal space.

WIN Max 2 will be The World's First Two Versions of Intel and AMD

The Intel version is the top Intel Core i7-1280P of the 12th generation, with large and small core design, 16 cores and 20 threads, 24MB L3 cache, maximum turbo frequency 4.80 GHz, TDP 20W, up to 64W. Let’s talk about it, the small core of Intel 12th generation is not castrated, but close to the standard core of 11th generation, but the energy consumption is lower, and the scheduling between large and small cores adopts a scheme called Thread Director , which consists of soft The hardware is combined to achieve, but it is still necessary to cooperate with the task scheduling of Windows 11.

Therefore, Windows 11 is actually launched for Intel's large and small core solutions. The core display part is still Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7, 96EU, 768 stream processors, you may think that the core display has no improvement, but the fact is that the 12th generation has improved both memory and bus bandwidth. Correspondingly, the core display Some of them are improved by nearly 50%, and the nuclear display performance is almost exhausted. Most of the masterpieces in the past two years can run at 1080P and 60 frames.

The AMD version is the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U that everyone is thinking of, ZEN3+ architecture, 8 cores and 16 threads, turbo frequency up to 4.7GHz, 16MB L3 cache, compared to ZEN2 and ZEN3, the TDP of ZEN3+ is also improved, but the improvement is not large, up to 28W , 30W is the performance bottleneck. The core display is AMD Radeon 680M with RDNA2 architecture, 12CU, 768 stream processors, and its performance is equal to that of MX450. Under 1080P, most of the game masterpieces in the past two years can run at 45-60 frames.

• Both versions have memory: 16GB and 32GB optional
• Intel processors will use LPDDR5 5200 MT/s
• AMD processors will use  LPDDR5-6400 MT/s
• Both versions of SSD are available: 1TB and 2TB optional, PCIE Gen 3

Keyboard and Joystick are Newly Designed

Newly designed QWERTY keyboard, WASD conforms to standard keyboard layout. In terms of the handle, the rocker is still a sunken design, but it adopts an innovative Hall rocker, which is infinite, ultra-linear, without dead zone, supports downward pressure, and adopts linear trigger button for shoulder key, dual vibration motors, and three-axis gravity. Induction + three-axis gyroscope, six-axis design.

In addition, the humanized design of two joystick covers, magnetic suction design, can cover the joystick when not in use, and the cover can be inserted into the back of the fuselage when gaming. Below the interface in the picture is the effect of the insertion of the two covers. In addition, drawing on the design of WIN 3, two mappable back keys are added. Below is the position of the tiptoe.

Connectivity

On the right hand side are two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, both with a read and write rate of 10Gbps, followed by: headphone jack, USB 3.2 Gen 2, HDMI 2.1, Thunderbolt 4 (USB4 for AMD version), and a full-featured Type C port. Here to say, the USB 4  specification began to support the expansion of graphics docking station. That is to say, not only the Intel version WIN Max  2 users can experience the fun of playing games through the Thunderbolt 4 port external graphics dock , but the AMD version WIN  Max  2 users  can also play games through the USB4 port external graphics dock .

The fuselage provides SD and microSD slots, supports SD cards with SD 4.0 bus protocol, read and write speeds up to 300MB/s, and can be expanded up to 2TB; supports A2-level microSDXC cards, with read and write speeds up to 160MB/s, and the maximum capacity can be expanded to 2TB. Of course, it is also backward compatible with SD and microSD cards of earlier specifications.

In addition to the built-in M.2 2280 SSD, you can also manually add an M.2 2230 SSD without removing the back cover (the last time I wrote it wrong). The right part of the picture below is still NVMe  specification , read Write speed is not limited . Refer to WIN 2 for removing the cover and installing it .

In the left test, it is a 4G LTE module, which is an optional module, not standard. We will provide customized 4G LTE modules for users in need to purchase. It also does not need to remove the back cover, and the installation and removal operations are the same as SSD.

Price and Availability

Everything is very interesting here, but Win Max 2 is not an official product yet. GPD made the announcement of the equipment on WeChat (the company is Chinese), but did not reveal when it will be released. It is known, however, that the portable PC will be officially announced via a funding campaign on Indiegogo. Because of this, prices are also unknown at the moment. As soon as there is official news we will update the article.