The IO Air: A Portable Gaming Console That's Also a Desktop PC
The IO Air is a handheld gaming console that has been gaining attention from gamers and tech enthusiasts alike. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the IO Air's performance capabilities, particularly when it comes to indie games and AAA titles.
Indie Games Performance
One of the most impressive aspects of the IO Air's performance is its ability to handle indie games with ease. When playing unlocked versions of games like "The Art of Rally" at medium settings on 1080p, the IO Air can pull up to 20 watts of power and maintain an average frame rate of around 150 frames per second (FPS). However, when using VSync, the system drops down to 12 watts while still delivering a smooth gaming experience. For reference, even with performance mode enabled on "God of War", which is one of the more demanding games in terms of power consumption, the IO Air can only sustain around 30 FPS at original settings.
AAA Game Performance
In contrast, running AAA titles like "Cyberpunk 2077" and "Skyrim" proves to be a different story. When playing "Cyberpunk 2077" at 720p with performance mode enabled and VSync turned on, the IO Air can achieve an average of around 56 FPS. However, switching to ultra-performance mode can result in a frame rate drop to around 60, but at the cost of significantly reduced quality. On the other hand, "Skyrim" is another game that runs smoothly on the IO Air, even when locked to 60 FPS with high settings.
PC Gaming Performance
The IO Air also shows its capabilities as a PC gaming system. In a demo, the author's friend ran "Peppa Pig", an intense game known for its demanding system requirements, at 1080p ultra and achieved over 150 FPS. This is equivalent to what the same author saw on their main gaming rig with a high-end graphics card like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.
PS3 Emulation
Finally, in a surprising demonstration of the IO Air's capabilities, the author was able to run PS3 emulation using the RP CS3 emulator and achieved smooth gameplay at 20 watts. This was accomplished by utilizing the system's lower power consumption settings, but the CPU temperature did approach 86 degrees Celsius.
Conclusion
The IO Air is indeed a powerful handheld gaming console that can also be used as a desktop PC. Its ability to handle indie games with ease, as well as its performance capabilities on AAA titles and other demanding software like PS3 emulation, make it an attractive option for gamers who need portability without sacrificing performance. With the right accessories, such as a USB-C to HDMI dock or a more powerful keyboard and controller, the IO Air can be used in a variety of ways, from gaming on-the-go to using it as a full-fledged desktop PC.
Resources
For those interested in learning more about the IO Air, there are several resources available:
* Official website: [insert link]
* Indiegogo campaign: [insert link]
Additional Videos
If you're looking for more information or want to see additional content, be sure to check out some of our other videos on the topic. They can be found in the description below.
Thanks for Watching
As always, thanks for watching!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's going on everybody it's eta prime back here again today we're going to be taking another look at the io neo air this is an awesome handheld from io neo but this time we're actually going to be turning this into a full-fledged desktop pc because in this video we're going to be testing this handheld out in docked mode now first and foremost this is meant to be a handheld gaming pc but there's really nothing stopping us from connecting this to a larger display and using it as a full-fledged desktop these x86 handhelds nowadays are offering a lot of power and for some they can get quite expensive so i'm sure there's a lot of people out there that are kind of on the fence about picking one of these up you know you definitely want a handheld gaming pc but you'd also like to use it as your everyday desktop and that's exactly what we're going to be doing in this video so if you're not familiar with the ineo air this is a six core 12 thread ryzen cpu we've got two usb type-c ports these are full function 3.2 ports and we can do display out so this is exactly how we're going to be connecting it to a larger display be it a monitor or a television but before we get started here i do want to give you a quick rundown on what i'm using for my accessories when it comes to a controller i personally love the gila kit king kong pro this is the white version that was just released looks absolutely amazing and works really really well i've got a bluetooth razer mouse and when it comes to the keyboard here this is a new fi air 75 but you might notice this is io neo branded this is actually a special edition io neo air 75 from new phi i've been using these new fi keyboards for a little while now and absolutely love them it connects over bluetooth or 2.4 gigahertz dongle and in order to connect the ineo air to a larger display i've got this hdmi dock so this is usb type c to hdmi we can also charge it up to 45 watts and it's also got three usb 3.0 ports on it these are relatively cheap on amazon and this was actually designed for the steam deck but it does work well with the air you could also opt to use an inexpensive usb type-c to hdmi adapter i'll leave a link in the description in case you're interested in picking something up super easy to get this connected i'm just going to place it in the dock plug in that usb type-c cable wait a few seconds to detect that signal and i've actually got this setup to automatically just display everything on the larger screen but there's several ways you can go about this you could have it mirrored the display so both of them are working or you could use it as a secondary display it's really up to you but since i want to turn it into a desktop pc this is how i have mine set up right now and just in case you're interested in having both displays going as you can see it is working uh one thing i actually really like about this new five keyboard is we do have that i neo button and it does bring up i a space so from here we can actually change the resolution we can change the tdp and everything like that we've even got a game launcher built in but it's pretty cool to have the keyboard with that button ready to go i'll give you a quick rundown on the specs of the air for the cpu we've got the ryzen 5 5560u six cores 12 threads and it is based on zen three we've also got 16 gigabytes of lp ddr4x ram and the built-in radeon 6 graphics at 1600 megahertz and with those specs it actually offers a really nice little desktop experience with something like this if you want to do some web browsing some email checking some document editing you're not going to have any issues with it we do have wi-fi 6 built in so everything loads up really quickly and if it came down to it you could always get an ethernet adapter but yeah i mean it does offer plenty of power for a little desktop pc another thing i wanted to show off was a little bit of youtube video playback so this is only a 1080p monitor but it will do 4k 60 out of that usb type-c i'm still going to set this video to 4k 60 and at 12 watts 720 1080 and even 4k video playback runs really well whether you want to stream it or run it from an external device or the internal storage so in handheld mode from ispace we have the option to go from 5 watts up to 12 watts and right in between there you can go to 8. great for indie gaming personally in handheld mode i like running this at 15 it really does open it up but when i'm in dock mode or desktop mode like this i usually have it plugged into a power adapter just to keep that battery up so i don't have to worry about battery life and i actually like taking this up to around 22 to 23 watts and the built-in cooling system can handle it i was actually really impressed i was hoping we could do 30 in dock mode but it does thermal throttle quite quickly depending on what you're doing given the form factor of the handheld itself but for me the sweet spot is around 23 watts and while gaming at 23 watts on this in dock mode it offers a really nice experience so first up we've got forza horizon 5. we're at 1080p low and we do get a few dips under 60 here i actually averaged 62 fps but as you saw it did go down to around 58 in some areas you will see that so what i did was just take it down to 900p and the performance gain is definitely noticeable we can now get an average of around 73 fps out of this game at 900p low very playable and personally i still think it looks absolutely amazing at 900p next on the list we've got marvel vs capcom infinite i'm at 1080p low settings and we can get a constant 60 out of it with these fighting games you definitely want that constant 16. another one i tested was street fighter 5 and with that we can actually do 1080p with a low medium mix and just run it all day you might notice that the air is kind of on its side right now and that's because i did need to access that other usb type-c port because i've got a usb type-c ssd here that has a lot of games installed on it and of course when it comes to indie games you don't need to push this kind of power i mean it's gonna handle most of the indie games that are on steam right now but uh you know unlocked with something like the art of rally at medium settings 1080p we're pulling 20 watts and this will jump up to around 150 fps but with vsync on we're only going to be pulling around 12 watts even though i have it set up for around 23. moving over to some harder to run aaa games here we have god of war 720p fsr set to performance and we're at original settings i've locked this at 30fps because no matter what we do even if we were running this at 35 watts we're not going to run this game at 60fps so i'd say 30fps is pretty good with original settings or if you did want to run this at a constant 40 you could drop it down the low but even at 30fps on a little setup like this is still pretty decent cyberpunk 2077 did way better than i thought it was gonna do we're at 720p fsr set to performance and we can get an average of around 56 fps out of this game now if we turn fsr to ultra performance we can run this at 60 with vsync turned on but i just think it downscales it way too much at ultra performance and everything is just super jacky and you know i had to throw some og skyrim in here where at high settings 1080p looking really good here playing at a constant 60. this is one of those games i always keep locked i mean you can actually unlock it if you want to from the config file but 60 is perfect with this game and it plays just fine on this system with eldon ring at 720p low we can average 41 fps now a lot of people have been playing this on the steam deck and i haven't actually tested it in a little while but last time i checked at 720p with the low settings i was getting an average of around 47 fps out of this game and finally for the pc gaming side of things we've got my friend peppa pig so this is a really intense game i mean it definitely takes a lot of power to run it we're at 1080p ultra and i'm getting over 150 fps last time i tried this on my main gaming rig which has a 3080 ti i couldn't even run this at 5 fps at 180p so yeah i mean this thing is definitely pushing some power in my opinion this is kind of like crisis was back in the day if you can run my friend peppa pig then you've got a powerful little setup and the final thing i wanted to show off here was a little bit of ps3 emulation at this higher wattage this is a harder one to emulate we've got skate 3 here and i'm using rp cs3 i did see a couple dips every once in a while down to around 55 and i think we could fix that by taking the tdp up a little more but as you can see our cpu temperature is already almost at 86 degrees celsius so going up to around 26 watts on this would probably thermal throttle us but i was kind of impressed to see this running at 20 watts this well so yeah the io air can be turned into a full-fledged desktop and i completely understand that first and foremost this is a portable handheld gaming console i know that you know that but there are some people out there that are going to put their money down on something like this and they might not have extra to you know pick up a laptop or a desktop so yeah i mean the air can be used just like this now you don't need a super fancy keyboard or a super fancy controller or even a super fancy hdmi to usb type c dock to get this working you can use what you got and maybe pick up a cheaper usb type-c to hdmi dock and get this up and running on a bigger monitor i've got a few suggestions and i'll leave some links in the description but yeah i mean it definitely works out really well and we don't have to worry about battery life because we're basically in docked mode and we can take that tdp up and get a little better performance out of this system so if you're interested in learning more about the air i will leave a link to the website and their indiegogo in the description i've also created a couple other videos if you want to check those out they'll be on screen right now but that's gonna wrap it up for this one like always thanks for watching\n"
