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The specs of the Steam Deck are important for prospective buyers who are thinking about purchasing Valve’s handheld computer.
Steam Deck: Specs of the handheld computer in detail
The Steam Deck is a handheld gaming PC running SteamOS 3.0 that has the following specs:
- The heart of the Steam Deck is the AMD APU processor, based on the Fusion concept with a power of four to fifteen watts. The chip combines a GPU and CPU so as not to limit the handheld’s mobility.
- The 8 RDNA 2 CU graphics unit offers 1.0 to 1.6 GHz with a processing power of up to 1.6 TeraFLOPs FP32. With the Zen 2 4c/8t CPU, there is 2.4 to 3.5 GHz (448 GigaFLOPs FP32) of power in the Steam Deck.
- The handheld has 16 gigabytes of LPDDR5 RAM. The onboard solution thus offers sufficient RAM for a variety of games.
- Depending on the selected version, the Steam Deck has 64 (eMMC), 256 (NVMe-SSD) or 512 (high-speed NVMe-SSD) gigabytes of memory. This can be expanded by up to two terabytes via the microSD card slot.
- The Steam Deck offers HD resolution (1,280 x 720p) with a 16:10 aspect ratio. The size of the 60 Hz Optional Bonding IPS LCD display is seven inches and it features a touch and ambient light sensor.
- Bluetooth 5.0 and 2× 2 MIMO dual-band WLAN (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac) ensure effective connectivity while gaming. The 40 watt-hour capacity battery provides two to eight hours of gaming time.
Steam Deck: specs comparison
Before buying a Steam Deck, it is recommended to compare it with other gaming solutions.
- When looking purely at processing power, the Steam Deck is slightly behind the Xbox Series S with 1.6 TeraFLOPs. The handheld can be compared more with the PlayStation 4, which offers 1.8 TeraFLOPS.
- In direct comparison to a PC graphics card, the Steam Deck offers about the performance of an Nvidia GTX 1050, covering many last-generation games.
- The processor is comparable to an Intel Core i5-8400 or Ryzen 5 3400G. The Steam Deck thus plays more in the entry-level class.
- The installed RAM memory is comparable to the DDR4 type and is thus significantly weaker than current consoles or PCs. However, the Steam Deck is significantly stronger than the Nintendo Switch in terms of RAM. It can best be compared with modern top-class smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G.
- Compared to the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion GO, the Steam Deck hardly makes any concessions. Here you can simply choose your favourite.
