A Redditor has designed and built a bulky, high-spec handheld PC, nicknamed the ‘RyzenDeck’, to play emulators.
Reddit user Raven0606 shared their RyzenDeck creation online, revealing it was their childhood dream to play emulators and PC games “on the run”.
Raven0606 spent nine months building their portable powerhouse, which features a 3D printed shell housing an 8 inch Waveshare touchscreen display, weighs a hefty 1.5kg without its battery pack (that’s almost three times the weight of the Steam Deck) and inbuilt custom LED lighting.
In terms of performance, the RyzenDeck is capable of running games like the Witcher 3 between 45-55 fps with a mix of low and mid graphic options, with the RAM overclocked to 4000mhz. The externally mounted 108wh battery provides up to four hours of power and the whole thing is kept cool with two gigantic fans on the rear of the unit.
Perhaps the most surprising element of the RyzenDeck’s existence is Raven0606’s claim that they “didn’t know about Steam Deck” until halfway through the project, although upon learning of Valve’s handheld gaming PC, Raven0606 opted to name the RyzenDeck in its honour.
RyzenDeck Specs
Raven0606 shared a list of specs for their bulky RyzenDeck, and it certainly has enough power to run those emulators they dreamt of as a child.
- Display: 8 inch waveshare 1280x800p touchscreen
- Mainboard: x300m-stx AM4 (looted from deskmini x300)
- CPU: Ryzen 5 – 5600G 6c/12t
- GPU: Vega 7 (iGpu)
- RAM: DDR4-4000mhz (overclock)
- SSD: Crucial P3 1TB
For now, it seems like Raven0606 is quite content to play games on the RyzenDeck and enjoy their efforts. When asked if they have plans to build another device, they said “gonna take a time off from analog tinkering for a while now. Maybe learning c++ and doing something in Unreal together with my wife, who is quite advanced at Unreal in the meantime”.
