Smach Z (Handheld PC) Specs Finalized - Ryzen V1605B [UPDATE: Pricing Announced]

Specifications for the Smach Z, a handheld gaming PC, have now been finalized.

It will be using AMD's Ryzen V1605B:

Here are two pre-set configurations (although it can be equipped with up to 16 GB of RAM and up to 256 GB of storage):

Fernandez tells me the system will have a 46 Whr battery that can provide up to 5 hours of battery life while gaming and that the fan noise “will be very similar to the Nintendo Switch, 31dB.”

Credit Brad Linder (Liliputing)

Source: Liliputing

(https://liliputing.com/2018/02/smach-z-handheld-gaming-pc-specs-finalized-ryzen-v1605b-8gb-ram.html)

UPDATE - Pricing announced at Embedded World 2018:

Current pricing on their Indiegogo campaign is $490 USD for the entry model and $690 USD for the pro model. Their campaign closes on March 1st and estimated delivery is May 2018 (this seems a bit too ambitious, expect a further delay).

(https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smach-z-the-handheld-gaming-pc-games#/)

Interesting piece of kit, the pricing will be equally interesting.

Is it weird that even though I don't really like PC gaming or handheld gaming, I'm still kind of interested in this device?

That's neat and all, but I imagine it wont amount to much

According to this it would have a better cpu then the PS4pro and Xbox1x, which is definitely possible (looking at AMD's TDP numbers) but don't pre order because there has been some suspicious activity around this project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d00I_3THLBQ&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMUPx4DL5Vo

Only buy it when its released and independent reviews are out!

So it's way better than Switch, but will probably be 2-3x the price.

In what sense?

If you're talking about the device not making it to market, that's always a possibility.

No doubt, it's a niche product and will likely have limited availability. I can't see them selling very many, especially if it ends up being priced too high. Of course, it simply utilizes the PC ecosystem and is only limited by the hardware. That's the beauty of these types of products, they don't need to be successful to be useful. It could even be a one-off, and still, it would be able to play thousands of PC games.

Will flop harder than Steam Machine

Where did they come up with that awful name.

Something else for gamers to forget about 5 minutes after it's released.

Yeah, the name is terrible.

It was origianally supposed to be a Steam OS device, so I imagine it went something like this: Steam machine --> Smach

No idea where the Z came from.

Maybe they thought adding the Z will make it sound cooler

Oh look, it's an N-gage part 2!

N-Gage was a phone that had to build its own ecosystem.

This is just a PC running Windows, or Linux, that happens to be in a handheld form factor.

In that context, I don't see the similarity.

Cool idea, horrible name, extremely limited market. I don't see myself buying it though and the only reason I own a Switch and now Vita, were for exclusive games.

So... they finally got things up and running, or will this vanish like the first prototype did?

Given they now have populated boards, it looks like this thing might actually ship.

AMD also mentioned them in their Ryzen V1000 press release a day back:

https://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/amd-launches-epyc-embedded-2018feb21.aspx

I prefer flip top designs like 3DS and the other handheld PC options.

Do you pronounce it smatch z, smack z or smag z? Or with a soft g?

If it plays GTA V I'll get it.

I've heard it pronounced a few different ways, but I believe it's pronounced the same way as the word Mach (as in, Mach number).

It uses Vega 8, so it should be able to play it at low/medium settings.

i really really hope they deliver. a handheld gaming PC would be awesome. i have so many games on steam that would be great for a handheld.

the bump in specs is very nice. the old spec had it roughly around an xbox 360 so this should give it a nice bit of extra leg room. its still not going to play the latest AAA games at the highest settings and/or framerate of course but the PC gets many many games that dont need the latest and greatest and there is that killer BC also so anything from last gen should be good to go.

i was tempted by the GPD win 2 but im holding out to see if anything comes of this. the smach Z looks like its the better device for gaming.

I read the thread title as "Smash Z" and thought it was the new Smash Bros game LOL

I don't like the design, looks too big but still has a small screen? Almost like a gamegear.

I'll believe it when I see it. This is too ambitious for a no name company. The guys don't even dare showing their faces, which pretty much tells you about their confidence in the project.

In the meantime I'll assume it's a scam.

UPDATE - Pricing announced:

It was just being shown off at Embedded World 2018:

It's clearly a work in progress, but they did have populated boards on display:

Can it be hooked up to a TV? Because that would make it a Console.. Amright? :P

Logic is flawless.

Ths new CONSOLE is interesting.

those with displayport yes!

lol :P

Bad price is bad. This is not going to sell well at all.

lol :P

$700-900?

Well, good luck.

@NVIDIATI: Yeap and still no face to be seen. We don't know who these guys are except for their first KS video that might as well have been a fake with paid actors.

$550-600 is the most I'd pay for the Pro version.

ouch on the pricing. not unexpected (its not going to be a mass produced thing and it needs to sell at a big enough profit on its own).

the extra 200 bucks for the pro seems a bit steep for just a camera, an extra 4GB of ram and a 256GB SSD.

i mean 4GB of ram is 50 bucks. a 128GB SSD is 65. i would basically be better off buying the base model and upgrading it myself.

This is starting to become more elaborate than a "fake" moon landing, I don't know if I'm ready to put on my aluminum foil hat just yet.

The most cost effective approach would probably to buy the base model and upgrade it with your own RAM and SSD.

This would probably the best option.

Another potential drawback for the entry model (prior to upgrades) would be the use of single channel DDR4, this could become a rather significant bottleneck.

aye thats true on the bottleneck front. having 2 sticks in dual channel would make a significant difference in performance. i would imagine that the base model will have the 2 slots for ram though with just 1 populated.

on it being a scam: i dont think it is. i mean what do they have to gain be continuing to run with it now if it was a scam? they would have run a long time ago.

i think the team was just very naive and didnt have much experience with hardware. they were making wildly optimisitc predictions (delivered in 6 months after the kickstarter, passively cooled 12W SOC, their own linux distro ready to go and so on.). i backed it initially but pulled out more because i didnt think the project was going to deliver. it was (and is) a wonderful idea but i wasnt confident in the teams ability to actually make it happen. that doesnt make it a scam...just a risky pledge. they are also absolutely awful at PR and are currently doing everything behind closed doors.

when you do something on kickstarter i think you need to be more open about development than, say, Sony or Nintendo when they are making a device. i mean i think its been in the oven for about 4 years now and has gone through at least one core spec revision. the shell has probably gone through hundreds of iterations. there was, apparently, a scenario where the old SOC turned into molten slag when they tried the passive copper foam cooling. all that is perfectly normal (and waiting for the ryzen SOC was the correct call). but for a project like this to do it all behind closed doors and, basically, do nothing to try and reassure people that its grand is not good and doesn't raise confidence.

but we have a nearly final shell. we have actual boards (not dev boards). its still not a done deal. apparently the new SOC is fairly recent so they havent had the time to get it working before the show but they should have it booting within a couple of weeks (as per the grapevine so usual salt action and all that). hopefully they show that and show some games running on it. hopefully we also get some more solid info on noise, heat and battery life along with things like setting up controls (will it just be treated like a steam controller? does it need its own driver?).

UPDATE 2 - Preorder open March 15 & official press release

https://www.smachz.com/media/filer_public/6b/36/6b361516-a8bf-40a3-8cc9-0d177146e4bf/sz_-_press_release_v1000_announcement.pdf

https://www.smachz.com/

Benchmarks from the press release for a number of titles:

• The Witcher 3 (720p Medium settings) ~ 40 FPS
• Alien: Isolation (1080p Low settings) ~ 50 FPS
• GTA 5 (720p Normal settings) ~ 60 FPS
• League of Legends (1080p High settings) ~ 60 FPS
• Rocket League (1080p Normal settings) ~ 60 FPS
• Dark Souls 3 (720p Low settings) ~ 40 FPS

Emulation on the go.

@Pedro

A smartphone with a Snapdragon 845 and a clamp-style controller could probably handle a lot of that very well.

I think the ability to play native PC titles is the definite highlight. Of course, it is a PC after all, so it really depends on what the user wants.

I don't think it's that Nintendo is unstoppable in the handheld market, it's just that to this day companies don't know how to compete with their success. With a price tag like that, you're better off just getting a PC. We already learned this one before that the more expensive handheld bares no competition to the Nintendo handheld.

I’m not buying those benchmarks. We know what Vega 8 with 2133Mhz RAM runs like with the Ryzen 3 2200g. It doesn’t come close to those fps numbers.

That price seems to be a little steep too.

All we know for sure is that the Switch is no longer the best handheld to play BotW on.

It would appear they're using a dual channel configuration. If you're talking about a single channel implementation, that might explain the discrepancy.

For example, a version of the Lenovo Ideapad 720S uses Ryzen 2500U (Vega 8) with single channel 8 GB DDR4 2133 ram and it saw a considerable hit in performance because of it.

Even if you tried harder at shit-posting, you'd be incorrect. Smach Z isn't even out, and that negates your implication of the allusion that there's present-tense handheld that plays BotW better.

With price tag like that (and a willingness to actually buy one), they probably already own a PC. It's clearly a niche product and by no means is going to take on something like the Switch.

As I said before, it could even be a one-off and still be a useful device for some, because at the end of the day it doesn't need to succeed in volume for its ecosystem to survive. It's simply a PC.

according to digital foundry the benchmarks are plausible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEJoAoW944

they showed GTA5 at high and 1080P running at just under 30FPS. that was with 2400MHz ram. witcher 3 at 1080P at medium settings was around 20FPS (again on the 2400MHz ram).

so i dont think they are completely making the numbers up.

i am really tempted by this. my PC game catalogue in a handheld.....thats one hell of a proposition.

since this is SW: no its not going to kill the switch. it is a niche product. but its another way for PC gamers to play their games which is great. i have so many games on the PC that i would prefer to play on a handheld.

I think it would be really cool to have a powerful PC handeheld device. But this piece right here, it just seems like there's still a long road ahead before it becomes an intuitive option for gamer's to buy.

Funny because they've been demoing something. Let me guess: your next argument is that since it's not widely available it doesn't count. Fair enough. Technically I'm still correct since at least one device exists.

Don't be so worried though, it's obviously not going to suddenly kill the Switch or anything.

Finally, a handheld for those with discerning tastes.

Only a few months away.