Handheld Gaming PC Benchmarks - All AYA NEO, GPD & ONEXPLAYER tested! - DroiX Blogs | Latest Technology and Gadgets (2024)

We have been wanting to do this for a long time but simply did not have the time and new handhelds were announced so it kept being delayed. But we finally have got all the current handheld gaming PC around for a big benchmark party! You’re all invited so keep reading!

Handheld Gaming PC Benchmarks Video

We will be benchmarking the following gaming handhelds:

• AYA NEO 2021 (4500U)
• AYA NEO 2021 Pro (4800U)
• AYA NEO NEXT (5825U)
• AYA NEO NEXT Pro (5825U)
• GPD Win 3 i5 (1135G7)
• GPD Win 3 i7 (1165G7)
• GPD Win 3 i7 (1195G7)
• GPD Win MAX 2021 (4800U)
• GPD Win MAX 2021 (1195G7)
• ONEXPLAYER 1S i5 (1135G7)
• ONEXPLAYER 1S i7 (1195G7)
• ONEXPLAYER AMD (4800U)
• ONEXPLAYER AMD (5700U)
• ONEXPLAYER Mini (1195G7)

We have updated all of the gaming handhelds to the latest Windows 11, along with their respective Intel and AMD graphics drivers. All devices are tested at the same resolution as each other to keep a fair comparison. And all handhelds are tested at the same TDP of 11, 20 or 35W. You can go higher, but you run the risk of overheating or other issues. And as you will see, there’s not a major performance increase in some cases. So we are keeping them to a reasonable TDP.

With all that said, let’s get started with the benchmarks!

PCMark Benchmark and Results

We start off with PCMark and are testing at 1280×800 resolution with 20W TDP. PCMark gives a good overview of a PC’s performance with a variety of tasks. These include software loading speed, web browsing, working with large documents and image editing.

See Also

Aya Neo Pro 2021 Handheld Review - A year with a handheld PC - Explosion Network

We have up to 25% difference in performance between the models. The ONEXPLAYER i5 scores lowest with 4,464, and the AYA NEO Next handheld PC scoring the highest at 5,773.

The scores are around what we expected, with the majority of the handheld consoles scoring in the late 4 to early 5 thousand area.

3DMark Benchmark and Results

For 3DMark we are testing at 4K resolution via output to a monitor. This is because 3DMark is a bit fussy when it comes to changing resolutions and we want to test each device at the same resolution. This will give us a fair comparison between the handheld gaming PC as their native resolutions range from 1280×720 up to 2560×1600.

We tested at 11, 20 and 35W TDP, this gives us an opportunity to see how the changes affect the CPU and GPU working together at different profiles.

There’s a massive 56 percent difference between the AYA NEO 2021 with the lowest score, and the ONEXPLAYER Mini with the highest.

We can see that the AMD based models score well at 11 and 20W TDP, but at 35W the scores do not scale up as well as the Intel models. At 35W, the Intel models are higher performing, even the i5 models just beating the AMD based AYA NEO Next.

Forza Horizon 5 Benchmark and Results

For Forza Horizon 5 we are running at 1280×800 resolution on the Very Low graphics settings. And we are testing at 11, 20 and 35W TDP. We have recently seen in our AYA NEO NEXT review that the AMD processors perform excellent on this game compared to Intel processors. And now we can see various handheld gaming PC tested together.

There’s a large difference of 39% between the lowest and highest scoring models, the ONEXPLAYER i5 and AYA NEO Next respectively.

The i5 models do struggle in this game, but the i7 models do far better with up to 16 frames per second increase.

The AMD based models such as those from AYA NEO see overall higher scores across the three different TDP’s. The extra boost in performance likely comes from the additional CPU threads.

Street Fighter V Benchmark and Results

We are testing at 1280×800 resolution, Maximum graphics quality, on 11, 20 and 35W TDP for Street Fighter V. This game is locked to a maximum of 60FPS so we can see which windows handheld hits that target and at roughly which TDP. We run the first match of the benchmark and see the average FPS at the end of it.

All of the Intel based models hit the 60FPS limit at either 20 or 35W, with the ONEXPLAYER Mini nearly reaching 60 at 11W which is very impressive!

The AMD based models struggle to reach 60 FPS, even at 35W TDP, with the AYA NEO Next scoring the highest of them with 58.5 FPS.

Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark and Results

Next we are benchmarking Final Fantasy XIV at 1280×800 resolution on the Highest desktop settings, with 11, 20 and 35W TDP. This is a good test which brings up some interesting results.

There’s a score difference of nearly 50% between the AYA NEO 2021 and ONEXPLAYER Mini Handheld Gaming PC which is massive.

We can see that at 11W TDP, the AMD based models score far higher than the Intel’s, over double in some cases. At 20W, they are both in the same ballpark area, with Intel’s nudging ahead. But at 35W, we can see that the Intel based models have a far larger increase in performance than the AMD models!

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Benchmark and Results

And last but not least we are benchmarking Shadow of the Tomb Raider, running at 1280×800 resolution on the Lowest graphics settings with 11, 20 and 35W TDP.

There’s a 26 percent difference between the AYA NEO 2021 and the ONEXPLAYER Mini with a 15 frames per second higher score. But overall the windows handheld generally score in the late 50s area.

Again, at 11W the AMD models perform better than the Intel models. At 20W they are roughly on par. On 35W, for the most there are smaller increases across the board, with the Win 3 and Win MAX 1195G7 models seeing the largest increase.

Handheld Gaming PC Benchmarks League Tables

We did some quick scoring from 1 to 13 points for the lowest to highest places in each benchmark and TDP, here are the final results.

11W TDP Winner

At 11W TDP the AMD based handhelds make up most of the top of the table. The dark horse is the GPD Win MAX 2021 windows handheld console, just stealing the lead ahead of the AYA NEO 2021 Pro. Followed by the AYA NEO NEXT and ONEXPLAYER AMD handheld gaming PC. The bottom half is made up of mainly Intel based devices.

20W TDP Winner

At 20W TDP there is more of a mix of Intel and AMD gaming handhelds across the board. The AYA NEO Next takes first place with a decent gap between it and the ONEXPLAYER Mini. There is a larger gap between 2nd and 3rd place, and a considerable gap between 3rd and 4th. The AMD based devices overall perform better at 20W which is the default TDP for most devices.

35W TDP Winner

At 35W TDP is where the tables are flipped when compared to 11W TDP, with Intel based devices having a clear lead in terms of performance. The Intel processors perform great at 35W and scale up very well with the extra power. Whereas the AMD based devices see relatively little performance increase from 20W to 35W.

Final Thoughts and Summary

So what can we take away from these results? The AYA NEO NEXT and ONEXPLAYER Mini are both excellent performing devices. There are however some factors that we do need to consider.

The first is optimisation, in particular how well a game is made for the Intel or AMD processors. For example on Forza Horizon 5, AMD blows Intel away, but on Final Fantasy XIV, Intel overal does far better. Some games may be optimised for one brand rather than another. They can potentially be demanding more CPU or GPU performance or taking advantage of more CPU threads on AMD.

This also extends to the TDP. We can see overall that the Intel based devices have higher performance at 35W compared to the AMD devices. The increase can be massive and definitely gives that extra edge for more performance. For low and medium TDP, AMD is what you want, and for highest TDP then Intel is ideal. But do take into consideration that the higher the TDP, the more battery power used.

Next are the graphics drivers, mainly the issue being the Intel drivers currently suck! To keep it fair, we used the latest drivers for both handheld gaming PC’s, but we did run into some issues on the latest Intel drivers. Each update seems to fix one thing and break another. In an ideal world we could pick and choose the best drivers for each benchmark or game to get the best performance. Whereas the AMD drivers just seem to work, we haven’t really seen any issues over the several months of different updates in comparison.

So either the AMD based AYA NEO NEXT or the Intel based ONEXPLAYER Mini should be the two on your list to consider. Both are among the best handheld gaming consoles, each with their own pros and cons in terms of performance which we have highlighted. Let us know in the comments which one you would pick and why!

That wraps up our Windows gaming handheld benchmark comparison, we hope you have found it useful! You can learn more and order from our range of Windows handheld gaming PC’s here.