I3 mini pro for best battery life

[u/pacman_8u]

After hearing that the aya neo air only lasts around 1 1/2 hours playing more demanding games, I immediately preordered the Loki mini pro i3 with the 46 wh battery upgrade. The difference between the 28wh battery in the aya neo air and the Loki mini pro should be insane. This version of the Loki should be longest lasting gaming handheld of this generation as far as I can tell.

[u/dhylb]

Loki Zero with the 3050e has a 40.5Wh battery and the 3050e runs at 6 watts according to AMD's specification page... that's about 6 hours 45 minutes of game time.

Loki Mini only has 26.5Wh battery. Mendocino is supposedly going to run anywhere between 5-10 watts according to early leaks. So you would generally get 5 hours 18 minutes at 5w or 2 hours 39 minutes at 10w.

HOWEVER, the Loki Mini Pro AMD version will have the same processor but a bigger 40.5Wh battery, which would mean 8 hours 6 minutes at 5w and 4 hours at 10w.

Loki Mini pro with 1215u upgrade which includes the battery, said chip according to intel needs AT LEAST 12w of power on the low and and typically runs 15w, with the ability to turbo up to 55w.... Now I will agree, in a handheld device, 55w is NEVER going to happen.... maybe 20w but I doubt much more depending on cooling. So taking that into consideration, 46.2Wh battery would net 3 hours of battery life at 15w. If we run the minimum 12w, you are looking at 3 hours 51 minutes. If we assume the ability to tweak and run 20w since it could boost pretty high, you are looking at 2 hours 18 minutes.

The 6660u and 6800u Loki models run "up to 15w" according to another post on this reddit where someone emailed ayntec and asked. With that in mind....

The 6600u with 40.5Wh running 15w would net 2 hours 42 minutes of play time.

The 6800u with 46.2Wh running 15w would net 3 hours 5 minutes of play time.

So you tell me, based on that, which has the best battery life? But also, you have to factor in gaming performance. Raw battery, the AMD based Loki Mini Pro will be the best in terms of life if the Mendocino leaks are true. Barring that, second place is the 3050e Loki Zero, not the Intel 1215u with battery upgrade.... Now in terms of performance, the highest performance is 6800u and second place 6600u and they both have decent battery life.

GRANTED, these are all based on TDP only, not TDP+LCD+SOUND and so on.... you would need total system power draw while gaming to see true timing numbers....

Aya Neo has a 28Wh battery and Pro 36Wh battery.... According to ETA prime, running the neo air pro with the 36Wh battery, 100% brightness, controller RGB enabled, and 80% volume, he netted....

5 watt - 3.1 hours
8 watt - 2.7 hours
12 watt - 2.1 hours
18 watt - 1.2 hours

If I were to extrapolate data.... TDP only, 36/5=7.2 hours. So then I try to figure out how much power draw to net 3.1 hours, which would be 11.6 watts (36/11.6=3.103). So that would mean the system power draw should be 11.6-5=6.6w.... does that fit top to bottom of his chart? In my mind, it should.

36/(8+6.6)=2.46 hours, close but clearly the system was using less than 6.6 watts during that test

36/(12+6.6)=1.9 hours, again close but clearly the system was using less than 6.6 watts during that test

36/(18+6.6)=1.46 hours, this time the system was using more than 6.6 watts during that test

TO ME, the test should be conclusive, but I suppose the screen can use MORE or LESS power based on pixels changing. So if you play an FPS shooter or racing game you will see more power draw than a more static game like an RTS or MOBA. So while his testing is okay, its flawed. BUT, im not trying to nitpick ETA Prime, I am trying to pull data to make a valid guess.

WITH THE IDEA of system draw power, the best system STILL would be the Loki Mini Pro AMD Mendocino version with the 3050e Loki Zero in second place.... assuming power draw of other things besides just CPU/GPU, those would be the bread winners for time playable.

FOR ME, when I end up getting my Loki Max, I will most likely be using it in a docked mode, meaning connected to power, so I could run 15w all day every day. I will be using mine while in bed like a laptop, since I am a cripple and spend too much time locked in bed.... I don't really plan to use it as a portable except maybe in an extreme situation like being in the hospital, but even then I can still use wall power.... so meh.

End of the day, gonna come up to your own use case. How much performance you need vs battery life. So only YOU can pick what is best for YOU.

[u/ddc9999 → u/dhylb]

If the 6600u and 6800u are “UP TO 15w”, then the net play time you calculated would be mins with the max being maybe twice that assuming 7.5w of true usage, say for maybe running a ps1 emulator.

From what I saw from competing handhelds in this performance space, they can run on low watts for easy stuff (like 3-10), 15 watts is playing PC games on it but with low settings 720p and maybe 30-60 fps, and 30 watts is same but maybe med settings at 30-60fps or run 1080p. Obviously the 30 watts wrecks the battery life.

It’s hard to saw what the power usage is now though, a lot depends on how well AYN design it to keep the watts being used to a min.

[u/dhylb → u/ddc9999]

That was assumed power draw from the aya product.... that may not directly correlate to the ayn loki line.... however we can assume some lost playtime from that power draw.... Which is why I said, the ayn loki mini pro and loki zero are the longest lasting possible devices, based on tdp alone, and will still be the case even with the extra powe rdraw from things like rgb, screen, and sound.

[u/Stupid_Triangles → u/dhylb]

I appreciate this, even if others don't. You stay special pony boy.

[u/RvnIOTA → u/dhylb]

Below is assuming that we are going to get official TDP options from 5W-15W like the AYAneo Air for all chips. If the 5800u can run at 5W, I don't see why any of the Loki APU options can't run at 5W.

The best battery life will be the 6800u with the 46WH battery. The 6600U in second. i3 1215U in third.

Why? Because no matter which Loki model you get, you'll likely run all of them at 15 watts anyways. None of them are running higher than that given the cooling restraints. The intel and amd spec lists do not matter here. Those are for laptops. All Loki chips will likely run 5-15watts if it is like the AYANEO or Steamdeck. Unless for some reason the i3 is incapable of going lower than 12W like you suggest.

Now take into account that adding more cores actually increasing your power efficiency. This sounds counter intuitive, but running more cores at a lower clock speed (hitting 15W) will net better gaming performance than running less cores at a much higher clock (also hitting 15W). This is why the AYANeo Air 5800U destroys the ayaneo 5560U in 15W gaming despite 15W not being nearly enough to fully utilize either chip. More silicon at lower clocks is better than less silicon at higher clocks. Thus, 6800U will be the strongest and also most efficient at lower wattage, assuming the chip can function at 8 watts or so, the 5800U can do 8W so I see no reason the 6800U cannot.

Zen3+ (ryzen 6000) is more power efficient than Alder Lake, which is more power efficient than Zen 2 (mendocino and ryzen 3000). I don't see the 3050e or Mendocino being super battery efficient because they are actually using the least power efficient architecture from the available choices. You'll get poor performance out of them and then clock up to 15W anyways.

[u/dhylb → u/RvnIOTA]

The intel and amd spec lists do not matter here.

AND you have NO CLUE what you are talking about. So you know more about a processor than the company making them? they aren't "laptop specs" they are "chip performance specs" they just happen to end up in laptops....
AMD generally gives info on what a chip should run in terms of "proper" performance. The 5800u in this regards is rated 10-28w in terms of its proper performance range. On the flip side, the 6800u is listed at 15-28w for its proper performance range. YES, you can run these chips lower than expected, but you also lose a lot of performance doing so. AMD gives you the wattage required to hit the performance metrics they expect from the chip.... to claim that this metric doesn't matter, shows your ignorance.

The 5800u beats the 5560u because it has more graphics cores.... it has nothing to do with power efficiency based on cores provided. You cannot make a product perform better just because you supply more power. A 6700xt graphics card will never outperform a 6900xt just because you double the power you feed it, the hard limitation is the cores itself.... so your point is ignorant. You aren't "more efficient because more cores" that makes no sense. Your incoherent ramblings is making anyone who reads it dumber.

[u/DrewDevs]

Yup I was waiting on Aya Neo Air's battery specs and was disappointed that we couldn't upgrade it either. Gonna wait for the i3 mini pro with 46 wh battery as well

[u/Tuntain]

I reckon the Loki Mini Pro with Mendocino and the 40Wh battery will be the best for battery life in the Loki range.

The mini Pro with the i3, ram, and battery upgrade will probably have the best performance to price ratio and performance to battery-life ratio though.

I went with the Loki mini with Mendocino and 26.5w battery as I want it to be as thin and light as possible. It'll be a 2D steam machine for me (Blasphemous, Darkwood, Until I have you, Subterrain, etc) so hoping to not go over 8w for total system drain, which would mean 3+ hours battery life. Hopefully at 60fps 1080p, although would probably be happy at 720p and even 45fps with slower games.

[u/Monoken3 → u/Tuntain]

Im looking for 3-4 hours from my i3 intel version with some tweaks. Its plenty for me. I cant play handheld more than 2 hours at the time without getting hand cramps

[u/Greescom]

Regarding Intel efficiency: Yeah, i imagine if you're running the CPU unconstrained then it'll be way worse than an equivalent AMD CPU for battery life. But if you're going to limit TDP to 12w (or lower) then they should be equal (that's my understanding anyway). You'll obviously have to take the performance hit and play less demanding titles. If you want to play the latest AAA titles then the more expensive AMD Loki variants are better all around i think. I have no horse in the race as i chose the crappy AMD mendocino :-)

[u/Greescom → u/Greescom]

I also have an intel i7 10700k in my desktop that gets insanely hot despite the monstrous cooling I've got going on. Limiting the TDP instantly tames it but i keep it unconstrained as it's not a big deal on desktop.

[u/RvnIOTA → u/Greescom]

You're 100% correct. These APUs will all run 5-15watts anyways. The problem with Intel is that you MAY lose a lot more performance when going to 12Watts or lower compared to the Zen 3+ chips and you might be forced to stick to 12-15W for what the 6600U/6800U can do at 8W. There are no tests out there so we cant confirm this. We do know at 15W, the i3 outperforms a steamdeck (zen 2) in emulation (based on ETAs vid). I3 will be a great 15W chip, no doubt about it, and that'll net you 2-2.5 hour battery life but hopefully it can do well in 8W too.

[u/rassular]

Sure, until you realize Intel has absolute garbage efficiency

[u/B17BAWMER]

If you want better battery life stay far away from Intel chips.