Steam Deck - SteamOS, Zen2 4C/8T, RDNA2 1.0-1.6 TF, 16 GB LPDDR5 88 GB/s, starting at $399 [2021-12]

wow holy... yoooo so good

 

Reminds me of that Razer gaming tablet I came across at Best Buy years back. This is much cheaper but that ran Windows.

 

So I pretty much called this. Just for the wrong company:

https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech

Processor
AMD APU
CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.0-1.6GHz (up to 1.6 TFlops FP32)
APU power: 4-15W
RAM
16 GB LPDDR5 RAM (5500 MT/s)

 

Gamesradar's interview confirms the RDNA2 GPU in there supports hardware raytracing.

 

Wow, this looks fantastic for the price.

16:10 screen ratio, kind of a weird choice isn't it?

 

This is supposedly Game Pass compatible too. I wonder how that works?

 

Just wait

But 1.6tflops is getting very close to series s power. I might grab the 256 or 512 gig one . Much better investment to me than a switch oled.

 

FSR in this thing will have to step up .
Hopefully by time this launches there will be more titles.

It uses proton, so the windows games will work, as long as it is listed here
https://www.protondb.com/

 

Valve you have my interest.

 

You mean PS4.

Steam Boy done right.

 

You can also install a proper version of Windows, if you desire such things.

At a glance, it's a nice device. Does depend of proton to a degree. I don't travel enough to warrant one, but in prior jobs I'd have definately had one to chuck in the travel bag.

 

Unlike a ps4 however its using the same cpu and gpu found in the xbox series just lower clocks. So it can do ray tracing. 800p screen with something like amd's new upscaling could make a pretty good

 

I wish it had a 1080p screen for ultra crispness, especially with FSR being able to put the console rendering at 720p then upscaling.

But otherwise it looks like a day one purchase for me.

 

price looks great for this type of device, but very curious to see the pricing out in areas that generally consoles are priced much higher (than the USD) due to import taxes etc.

 

Even if we're getting the short end of the stick, it's still an immensely higher value than the AYA NEO, GPD Win 3 and friends.

 

Some thoughts.

• It's Steam, so you can stream your games from any PC on which you have Steam. Quality will depend on your internet/LAN connection. Not super great, but decent enough for casual games. Laggier controls but possibility for running graphically demanding games through streaming.
• NVME SSD. Is it easily user replaceable? If so, buy the cheapest model then upgrade the NVME yourself.
• How easy/hard is it to install Windows and will all the controls and buttons still work with Windows?
• What's battery life on it like? A range would be nice, from indie games to AAA games.
• DP, HDMI, and USB-C nice assortment of outputs and inputs.
• What's the resolution of the display?

Not sure if I'd get one at full price, but with a discount it would enter impulse buy territory. It looks bulkier than the NSW, so not sure it'd make for a nicer portable device, but the benefit would be not having to rebuy some games on NSW in order to easily play them on the go.

Another benefit, if it's easy to install Windows, is that it would also double as a nice portable PC, although you'd have to bring your own KB/M.

Something like this is much better than their earlier Steam Machines initiative.

Regards,
SB

 

The official website has a specs page. It's 1280x800.

40Whr battery. 2 - 8 hours of gameplay

 

If it works as well as they're saying, Proton really makes a difference versus the original Steam Machines. The other is by doing the hardware themselves. It looks really solid. The Steam Machines were expensive and looked like poop.