Next-gen gaming handhelds could be set for a big performance boost as new iGPU’s rival RTX 3050 in leaked benchmark

The AMD Ryzen 890M, an RDNA 3.5-based iGPU poised to debut in the Ryzen AI “Strix Point” series has been benchmarked, offering a glimpse at the power you can expect from the chip.

Gaming handhelds from the likes of Ayaneo, or even the ROG Ally X use AMD Ryzen-based APUs. But, they could be getting a massive boost in performance as benchmarks for the next-gen 890M iGPU have surfaced online.

The benchmarks in question were based on the Asus ProArt P16 laptop, which has an AMD Ryzen 9 AI 9 HX 370 APU, sporting the new graphics chip, alongside 32GB of RAM running at 7467 MT/s.

The benchmark results were posted on GeekBench 6, where the 890M scored 46298 in Vulkan, whereas the RTX 3050 4GB (laptop variant) scored 46146 (via WCCFTech), making them pretty much equal in power, with a 0.32% difference in performance between them.

The previous-gen 780M scored 31665, which makes for a notable 37% difference in performance for Vulkan workloads. The OpenCL scores for the 890M trailed behind the 3050 by just 5%, too.

The Ryzen 890M sports 16 compute units and represents a bit of a step further than the 80-series iGPUs in older gaming handhelds like the Ayaneo 2, and Air 1S. However, the chip will still likely be used in the highest-end next-gen gaming handhelds.

Ayaneo

There is also a Radeon 880M, which features 12 compute units. The older 780M has the same number of compute units, but AMD claims that its new architecture is up to 47% faster than Intel’s Meteor Lake iGPU, as seen in the MSI Claw. We’re still yet to see any benchmarks of the 880M, however.

If the 890M makes its way into high-end PC gaming handhelds over the next year, it could signify the first large boost in power since the introduction of the Steam Deck, which boasts RDNA2 graphics.

Handhelds only narrowly outperformed the Steam Deck after the release of the 680M, while the 780M failed to offer a meaningful boost in performance under gaming workloads.

However, this is just a synthetic benchmark, and the real proof of the Strix Point APU’s power will lie in gaming performance via independent benchmarks when it releases.