GPD Win 4 is fast, but it's as loud as many gaming laptops

The GPD Win 4 has just started shipping to backers this month and we recently reviewed our own unit earlier last week. Gaming performance is impressive all thanks to the new Zen 3+ Radeon 680M GPU that blows every other integrated GPU solution out of the water. It essentially offers Playstation 4-like performance in a significantly smaller and more efficient package. The portable 6-inch form factor of the Win 4, however, unfortunately means that fan noise can be a lot louder than expected.

The fan in the Win 4 can be as loud as 49 dB(A) when running demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Witcher 3. The Asus Zenbook S 13, which ships with the exact same Ryzen 7 6800U CPU as the Win 4, would stabilize at a much quieter 40 dB(A) when under similar conditions. Though some fan noise isn't unexpected, anything approaching 50 dB(A) can be distracting if gaming without a pair of headphones.

In our experience, the Win 4 is loud enough that we'd feel uncomfortable gaming on it in quieter environments like libraries if others are nearby. On the other hand, the noise is much less of an issue during train or bus rides. In either case, expect the Win 4 to run a lot louder than the six-year old Switch in pretty much every scenario.