Portable gaming PC maker AYA has announced plans to launch a new model powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processor with RDNA 2 graphics later this year.
The next AYA Neo 2 is the latest in a line of AMD-powered handhelds from the company, but it will be by far the most powerful to date.
The original AYA Neo and AYA Neo Pro came with Ryzen 4000U series processors with AMD Radeon Vega graphics, while the AYA Neo NEXT brought a modest upgrade with improved specs from the Ryzen 5000U chips, but which featured the same GPU architecture.
By upgrading to a Ryzen 7 6800U chip for its next-gen handheld, AYA promises a big increase in graphics performance thanks to AMD’s Radeon 680M integrated graphics based on the RDNA 2 architecture, as well as a more modest increase in processor power.
This could make the AYA Neo 2 much more competitive with Valve’s Steam Deck, which is currently the only handheld with RDNA 2 graphics. Of course, the Steam Deck also has a starting price of $399, which is hard to beat – most of AYA’s handhelds tend to sell for more than double.
But the AYA Neo 2 might actually be able to offer better performance than the Steam Deck, as the Ryzen 7 6800U has a few key advantages over the custom AMD chip that powers Valve’s handheld:
| Ryzen 7 6800U | Steam Bridge APU | |
| CPU architecture | Zen 3+ | Zen 2 |
| CPU cores/threads | 8 / 16 | 4 / 8 |
| CPU base/boost frequency | 2.7GHz / 4.7GHz | 2.4GHz / 3.5GHz |
| GPU Architecture | RDNA2 | RDNA2 |
| GPU Compute Units | 12 | 8 |
| Maximum GPU Frequency | 2.2GHz | 1.6GHz |
| Memory | LPDDR5-6400 | LPDDR5-5500 |
AYA says the result is a portable gaming PC that can handle AAA games as well as regular PC workloads.
The company has yet to reveal pricing for the new model, and we’ll likely have to wait a while for details on things like screen size and resolution, battery capacity and more. key specifications. But the company has confirmed that the AYA Neo 2 will feature LPDDR5-6400 memory, PCIe 4.0 storage, fingerprint reader and USB 4.0 ports.
And we have a series of images that show the design of the upcoming handheld.
The AYA Neo Air is expected to launch towards the end of 2022.
It’s not the only new AYA handheld coming this year. The company also plans to release a lower-cost (and lower-performance) AYA Neo Air thin-and-light portable gaming PC with an OLED display. It should be pre-ordered in China by the end of May ahead of a global launch. And the next AYA Neo Slide will be a high-end handheld with a Ryzen 7 6800U processor and a screen that slides up to reveal an RGB backlit keyboard. There is no word yet on price or release date for this model.
Update: AYA also unveiled a new lower-cost model called AYA Neo 2 Geek, which will launch in early 2023 for $699 and up. The physical design appears to be nearly identical to the AYA Neo 2, but this model will be available with a choice of AMD Ryzen 5 6600U or Ryzen 7 6800U processors, 512GB or 1TB of storage, and cuts a few corners to keep the price down (it caps out at WiFi 6 instead of WiFi 6E, for example)
via AYA Neo (YouTube)
