Round II of testing BC-250 vs Strix Halo Ryzen 9 AI MAX+ 395. 1080p + 4K with HelixSR upscaling.

Summary

The video presents a second gaming comparison between the AMD BC-250 and the GPD Win 5 with Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (“Strix Halo”), roughly ten months after an earlier test. The presenter notes that community work has since unlocked more BC-250 CPU cores and GPU compute units, improved its drivers, and added system optimizations.

Test systems and method

• BC-250: 36 GPU compute units running at 2 GHz, an 8-core Zen 2 CPU running at 3.8 GHz, and 16 GB of unified GDDR6 memory. It also uses an asynchronous-compute patch and other community optimizations.
• GPD Win 5 / Strix Halo: A 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 CPU; a Radeon 806M GPU with 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units running at up to 2.9 GHz; and 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory. The device was tested with an 85 W power limit.
• Both systems ran Bazzite, providing a broadly comparable Linux gaming environment.
• The presenter tested 12 games and applications at 1080p, using the same graphics settings on both systems. Selected 4K tests used HelixSR upscaling in performance mode.

Results and analysis

At 1080p, Strix Halo is generally faster, especially in games that benefit from its substantially more powerful CPU. The presenter nevertheless finds the BC-250 surprisingly competitive in some demanding AAA games, given its age and origins as mining hardware.

The 4K comparison narrows the gap in several tests:

• Black Myth: Wukong: BC-250 — 42 FPS; Strix Halo — 43 FPS
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: BC-250 — 37 FPS; Strix Halo — 39 FPS
• Superposition 4K Optimized: BC-250 — 7,600 points; Strix Halo — 7,300 points

Strix Halo remains ahead in Forza Horizon 6 and Cyberpunk 2077.

The presenter emphasizes that the systems differ substantially in power use, design, and overall capability. The GPD Win 5 is a modern, integrated system, while the BC-250 is older hardware adapted by enthusiasts for gaming. The conclusion is that the BC-250 is aging but still capable, with more potential than its origins might suggest.

Technology and tests covered

• HelixSR: A project described as running Nvidia’s DLSS E-model neural network on AMD hardware without an Nvidia GPU. It is used for selected 4K performance-scaling tests.
• 4K test titles: Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 6, Black Myth: Wukong, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, plus Superposition’s native 4K Optimized benchmark.
• Guide or tutorial: The video is primarily a comparative benchmark and analysis; it does not provide a step-by-step guide.

Main speaker and source: The channel’s presenter, Old Lamer, who also credits the BC-250 community for its development and optimization work.