The Steam Deck, Valve’s take on a Switch-style PC gaming console, is the most anticipated piece of mobile hardware since… well, since the Nintendo Switch. So it’s understandable that the tech press is championing every detail about it, even before its official release later this month. Pre-release modules are finally finding their way out of Valve’s clutches, and in the hands of at least a few YouTube reviewers.
While these preview videos aren’t allowed to go into all the exhaustive details of Steam Deck, they do give us a fairly complete look at the final hardware, and at least some indication of how it performed on a selection of popular PC games.
Given Valve’s stated goal of having a handheld device at a relatively low price to play “the latest AAA games and play them really well”, that’s probably one of the biggest fear points for those wondering if they should buy one (or those who’ve already ordered one). One). With some of the same AMD APUs coming into modern laptops, and tight integration with the Steam platform and service, it’s easy to see how well the Steam Deck could be ready to deliver.
Valve allowed LinusTechTips and Gamers Nexus to poke and nudge Steam Deck to show off that power, delivered by AMD’s custom Aerith APU powered by Zen 2 processor, Radeon-powered RDNA 2 graphics, and 16GB LPDDR5 RAM. Both testers found that the system could navigate low-power 2D games like premium games dead cells Without breaking a sweat, double (or triple) the device’s 60 Hz limit easily. Linus even went so far as to call the Steam Deck “arguably the most innovative gaming device in 20 years or more.”
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Steam Deck Performance
The more intense AAA games have much more variants. Well-optimized games tend to perform well on the Linux-based SteamOS platform (Windows would also be an option, but it wasn’t available for testing). Devil May Cry 5with its sustained combat action, was outstanding, never dropping below 60 fps for any of our testers. Gustrnera similarly intense action game, also performed well: Gamers Nexus scored it at 64 fps with ray tracing disabled (40 fps docked on a full 1080p screen), while Linus reported that it occasionally jumped as high as to 90 frames per second.
Other games have been less keen on performance on mobile devices. monitoring It will drop within 30fps in zones, and Forza Horizon 5 With its intense lighting engine and open world, strange physics issues will arise even as it stays at 60. Even with Valve’s pre-selected group of games, it’s clear that some will perform better than others, perhaps benefiting from some driver tweaks – the same were PC gamers in the situation For decades when new games and/or graphics cards are released.
Steam Deck battery life
Of course, with a portable system, the games themselves are only part of the equation. Battery life has always been a concern for what is a small computer that gets pushed into the console enclosure. Valve claims that Steam Deck can handle between 2 and 8 hours unplugged, depending on the density of games (or streaming apps) running. Of course, the games run on your original Linux-based SteamOS installation, not Windows.
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Gamers Nexus found those expectations to be a bit optimistic, and battery life doesn’t exceed 6 hours, even with low-power games and live streaming. Triple-A games had less than 90 minutes of gameplay with player input, necessitating a full three-hour recharge session. “You’ll need V-Sync and max tire tires during battery use, otherwise you won’t come close to the numbers Valve published in their spec tables,” GN Editor-in-Chief Steve Burke stated. “We think this is reasonable and logical; you need to trade in somewhere for a battery-powered device.”
Linus found an average lifespan of 3.3 to 8 hours, but this video does not specify that continuous gaming input has been tested. Between the two, battery life will obviously be highly variable based on the game being played, and transcontinental flights will require an additional charger or power bank.
Work and play environment
So that’s the hardware side of the equation, at least so that more people can compare Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS and the heavier but more flexible (at least in terms of gaming) Windows. But how does Steam Deck work as a portable gaming machine? The device is quite gigantic in these specific terms, much larger than the Nintendo Switch and even PC-based alternatives like the Aya Neo or GPD Win 3.
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Linus has almost nothing to praise for the physical design of the Valve 7-inch gaming machine. Inputs consist of dual sticks as well as a D-pad, A/B/X/Y, and dual shoulder buttons, as would be expected of any modern gaming device. But it also has four paddle buttons on the back, like an Xbox Elite controller and similar premium designs, Plus Two small touch trackpads inherited from Valve’s previous work on the Steam console. In between all these diverse inputs, Valve’s software allows users to customize the controls for everything from racing games to shooting games to top-down strategy titles.
For the most part, Linus says, it’s incredibly effective. He says the Steam Deck feel is “right there with all of my favorite consoles,” cleverly enhanced by Valve’s hardware design that keeps hot spots away from skin contact points. (Gamers Nexus found the device throttles itself to keep internal temperatures at or below 90 degrees Celsius, and described the thermal design as “impressive and very well executed for how small the device is.”) However, Linus noted that people with hands The small one may have trouble reaching the shoulder or the A/B/X/Y buttons, depending on the grip, but that won’t be a problem for most people. He also praised the screen’s ability to be very dim indoors, and the speaker’s wide resolution range (compared to those on the MacBook Pro).
While early previews praise the touchpad controls, they find haptic feedback is lacking.
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the negative side? tactile feedback. While console players and people using a PC console somewhat expect vibration as a subtle way to enhance immersion, Valve couldn’t find the space or energy in the Steam Deck to include traditional vibration motors, instead just leaving the same feedback Poor touchpads (again, see Steam controller). That’s a noticeable low point in the design, Linus says: “Currently, the touches on this device are a poo spot on a pure white sheet.”
I left three weeks
We still have very few ideas about how SteamOS will look on the Steam Deck, manipulate the PC game libraries of hundreds of games and sync progress across existing devices and mobile play, let alone how to run non-Steam games, whether on SteamOS or Windows. Epic just said today that it is not interested in creating a Linux version of It is an electronic game for Steam Deck, despite fighting for over a year to get it back in mobile game stores.
However, these unfinished glimpses of the Steam Deck will certainly be enough to convince some to pull the trigger when buying, especially if they already have a huge library of Steam games. Starting at just $399—less than half the price of competing PC-based mobile devices—it’s an incredibly tempting piece of hardware, especially for those who can use Steam’s streaming feature to boost it to games that simply require full desktop power.
We’ll have to wait until February 25th, when the first round of the final Steam Deck makes its way into the hands of consumers, to get a truly complete look at this device. But initial glimpses show that Valve may only be able to deliver on its big promises, at least in some situations and in some games.