GPD has a long enough history of producing miniature “high performance” laptops and handheld devices in clamshell designs equipped with various AMD Ryzen processors and Intel Tiger Lake processors.
The Shenzhen, China based firm currently produces a variety of these clamshell mini performance PCs such as the GPD WIN 4, the WIN MAX 2 and the WIN Mini. All of which come with either a Ryzen 7 7840U featuring 8 cores and 16 threads with the strong and powerful 780M integrated graphics or the slightly less powerful Ryzen 5 7640U processor with 6 cores and 12 threads featuring an inferior graphics alternative in the form of the “760M”.
Current generation Ryzen APUs are the backbone of any “high performance” modular device or portable handheld PC and GPD utilize AMD extensively for its many different product offerings.
However the Chinese company now proclaims that AMD have breached their supply contract by not supplying GPD with enough Ryzen APUs on time resulting in delays and setbacks for products such as GPD’s WIN Max 2.
Like all great companies that seemingly love to peddle in sketchy ventures, GPD’s WIN Max 2 was predominately marketed on crowdfunding services such as IndieGoGo, with the handheld machine being offered to backers equipped with either the Ryzen 5 7640U or the 7840U in May with an intended ship date of August.
GPD recently provided an update on their crowdfunding page regarding shipment delays for the Win Max 2, because it would seem the only individuals who actually received their machines were mostly review outlets and internet personalities / influencers.
The delays are attributed to a shortage of AMD chips, specifically the Ryzen 7 7840U APU. The second batch of these processors did not arrive as planned, leading to production delays for the console. GPD has raised concerns about AMD breaching their contract by not delivering chips on time to their upstream supplier.
There’s a multitude of different modular PC manufacturers utilizing Ryzen 7000 series APU processors extensively, such as ASRock and their Industrial “4X4 BOX” which come in a handful of different flavors, alongside other supposed handheld device makers that may or may not be full fledged scams they too feature these illusive Ryzen APUs that are in seemingly high demand and short supply.
I’ve no idea who “Aokzoe” are and I probably wouldn’t trust their products with a ten foot pole, other brands you might be familiar with would probably be AYANEO and their handheld devices of which their latest AYANEO “Slide” comes packing a Ryzen 7 7840U as well.
This is more than likely an AMD caused issue though, with the company seemingly supplying any and every OEM vendor at their own leisure instead of actually providing sufficient supplies to vendors of whom AMD have contractual agreements with.
These AMD Ryzen APUs, dubbed “Pheonix” are built utilizing a more advanced TSMC 4nm processing node, and are the first to introduce a dedicated “AI engine” embedded within based on AMD’s XDNA architecture, taking full advantage of their recent Xilinx acquisition, given the nature of the products themselves it’s fairly safe to assume that AMD doesn’t really have sufficient orders with TSMC in terms of wafer allocation for their 4nm process.
Either that are AMD themselves are purposefully stifling their mobility presence, pissing off their OEM clients and snubbing potential sales and mobile market share in the vain of leveraging their TSMC 4nm wafer allocation to instead be prioritized on enterprise products such as EPYC processors and Instinct MI Accelerators.
AMD could also be prioritizing their wafer allocation towards the production of Ryzen Z1 Extreme processors, which are being utilized by large OEM partners such as ASUS with their ROG Ally handheld device.
Lenovo are also looking to break into the Valve Steam Deck’s market share with their own Legion GO, which also utilizes AMD’s Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU.
This is a really crummy thing to do from AMD’s point of view, failure to supply enough chips to clients such as GPD who are in turn forced to delay their own product shipments in favor of producing products that actually produce large enough profits from what limited supply of 4nm wafers AMD has ordered from TSMC.
Surprisingly, no other vendor has openly criticized AMD like GPD has, although GPD might have to have a strong case of a potential contract breach. However, this supply issue isn’t exclusive to GPD and can be observed in other products in the mini/NUC-style systems and laptop sector.
While there is a scarcity of products utilizing the 7840U, alternatives like the 7840H are now becoming available in consistent supply, exclusive to Chinese markets without the XDNA AI engine.
This situation highlights the importance of caution when preordering hardware from companies primarily operating in the crowdfunding space, as demonstrated by these circumstances.
