How big is the Steam Deck?

Since we are talking about a portable device, for starters, we will arm ourselves with scales and a tape measure. And here is the first surprise. The dimensions of the Steam Deck are never compact: 117x298x49 mm, weight 670 grams, the display is exactly 7 inches. If the 400-gram Nintendo Switch was jokingly called a smartphone with obesity, and some game journalists got tired of it, then Steam Deck asks for comparison with a tablet, to which a gamepad was attached. And the touch screen only adds to the similarity. For comparison , the iPad Mini 2021 weighs 293 grams and measures 195x135x6mm. And here is an even more visual comparison with a banana, thanks to the kind people from the Sweclockers portal.


What games are supported?


Theoretically, Steam Deck will be able to run any game from the Steam library. Since December, Valve has been testing for compatibility, running the most important games from the Steam library through the console. On the one hand, the requirements of the game must pull the SteamDeck itself; on the other hand, the game must support control using a controller, be friends with popular layouts and be able to work at a resolution of 1280x800 or 1280x720 pixels. This is the base display resolution of the console. You also need to get a blessing from the developer company. On the last point, only the developers of Fortnite, who are embarrassed by the lack of anti-cheat in the Valve console, are still resting.

As of mid-February, about 500 popular titles have been verified and assigned a certain status.

  • Full Compatibility: The game runs perfectly on Steam Deck without any additional configuration.
  • Playable (before starting, the player will have to manually configure some parameters)
  • Not supported
  • Unknown (the queue for verification has not yet come up).

The list is constantly expanding. You can find it at https://www.steamdeck.com/ru/verified.

Popular game consoles

And what games will the console really pull?


Steam Deck is really capable of delivering quite comfortable frame rates in many AAA titles like DOOM Eternal, God Of War 2018, Death Stranding and Star Wars Fallen Order. How did it happen? But how - the insides of the console are like a vinaigrette from the compact hardware of the old and new generation of Sony and Microsoft consoles.

Installed in the Steam Deck, AMD's custom 8-thread Zen 2 processor is the twin brother of the chips from the PS5 and Xbox Series X, but with a reduced number of cores and a slightly lower clock speed (3.5 GHz vs 3.8 GHz). The amount of RAM is the same 16 GB. But the graphics card in a portable laptop naturally falls short of the new generation consoles, otherwise the Steam Deck would weigh one and a half to two kilograms more.


The GPU console from Valve is equipped with 8 computing units with operating frequencies from 1 to 1.6 GHz, and its total power is 1.6 teraflops. For comparison, the video chip in the Xbox One S had 1.4 teraflops, and the PS4 had 1.8 teraflops. That is, the graphical capabilities of Steam Deck, plus or minus, correspond to the consoles of the previous generation. But there are two important clarifications. The portable display works at 720p, which means that the load on it will be less than on PS4 and Xbox One S. And small roughness on a compact display is not as striking as on a large 4K TV, so even at the minimum settings the same Control looks great. Plus, the console's video adapter supports ray tracing and VRS. Thanks to the more modern RDNA 2 architecture.

Okay, but how much FPS does the console give out specifically?

The term "will pull the game" is very vague, so let's turn to the measurements. The first thing to know is that all games that have received the "fully compatible" status will work without problems on Steam Deck with medium graphics settings at 720p resolution. Depending on the specific game, the FPS level is in the range of 30 - 80. Moreover, we are not talking about Tanks or CS: GO, but about voracious AAA titles of the caliber God Of War and Control. The example with the latter is especially indicative: at low graphics settings, the brainchild of Valve consistently gave out about 55 FPS, and at medium settings it kept within 35 FPS. Cool, right? Even cooler is 40 FPS in Ghostrunner with ray tracing enabled. And, for example, in Devil May Cry 5 at medium settings and with anti-aliasing turned on, it generally goes under 90 frames per second.

Gaming Laptops

How is it generally played?


Surprisingly smooth, without brakes, drawdowns, suspensions and departures. At least in those AAA titles that are already available. We are sure that the conditional Cyberpunk 2077 or Deathloop will make the brainchild of Valve spin at triple speed and sweat like in the first crossfit workout. However, in this case, the questions are not for the console, but for game developers - the Poles from CDRP fell victim to their own ambitions, and Arcane forgot about optimization.

What is important, Gabin and the team have thought out the cooling system perfectly, there is no particular discomfort during the game. The average temperature of the processor and video chip during active use does not rise above 82°C, the case in the centre warms up to 45 - 50°C, and the side parts, which the player holds during the game, heat up the least - up to 25 - 27°C.

So this is from the left crown, and from the right funeral on the Nintendo Switch?


No, and again no, the competition between Valve and Nintendo was invented by journalists for the sake of extra clicks. Financial figures and a huge Nintendo fan base showed that the Japanese live in their own universe and are not interested in small-town showdowns. Powerful hardware, the Steam library, Switch's modest graphics capabilities, and even Pockemon Legends-like graphics won't force Nintendo fans to renounce their faith and defect to a nearby church.

It is more correct to compare the Steam Deck with other "portable computers" like AYA Neo, GPD Win Max and ONEXPLAYER. Judging by the initial tests, Steam Deck confidently does them, but so far there is little specifics in this field to draw any far-reaching conclusions.

And what about the software base and additional features?


Steam Deck is powered by a custom operating system called SteamOS, which is based on Linux and optimized for portable devices. And this greatly simplifies the life of the player. Firstly, Steam is already built into the OS, so you can literally launch Steam Deck in a couple of clicks, select the desired game (after installing it) and, in fact, play. Moreover, this is not some kind of Steam Lite, but a full-fledged Steam with an adapted interface for a 7-inch touch screen.

Secondly, the console has already implemented many useful Steam goodies, such as the ability to create profiles with different controller layouts or cloud synchronization of game progress. That is, you can play lying on the couch, and then continue the game from the same place already on the PC. It also implements an analogue of the Quick Resume feature, which allows you to exit the game and then continue it from exactly the same place. Well, in the future, Steam Deck will be able to stream games from a PC if the power of its own hardware is not enough. To do this, Valve launched the Steam Remote Play service, which is essentially an analogue of GeForce Now.

And how is the Steam Deck with controls?


The Steam Deck control layout is a cross between Xbox and PS controllers. With the difference that the sticks are located on top and not on the bottom. At first it seemed that this could kill the gaming vibe and instead of enjoying the gameplay, gamers would fight with the sticks. But no, Valve engineers did everything with an eye to how the player will hold the console case in the palms, so the sticks fit exactly under the thumbs and you get used to them in just a couple of minutes. Additionally, paddle levers are hidden on the back panel like in the Xbox Elite tournament controller, and under each stick there are small touch trackpads. The display, by the way, is also touch-sensitive.

How many games will fit on the Steam Deck?


3 versions of the set-top box will go on sale, which differ only in the size and type of built-in storage. The younger version is equipped with 64 GB of eMMC class memory, the middle and older models are equipped with 256 GB and 512 GB NVMe SSDs. In the first case, there is not even enough memory to install MK11 or Forza Horizon 5. In other cases, we have quite sane gaming PC-level drives, on which you can roll several large-caliber projects and dozens of indie games.

Therefore, all versions of Steam Deck were prudently equipped with a microSD memory card slot. At first, this caused a lot of controversy, doubts, moaning and abuse in the gamer community. But as tests have shown, with a moderately fast card, the download speed of games is not very different. For example, Control takes 44 seconds to launch in both cases, Ghostrunner boots in 8 seconds on an SSD, and 19 seconds from a memory card.

According to rumors, Valve has provided the ability to replace the standard SSD with any other M.2 SSD in 2230 format. But as long as games are quickly loaded from a memory card, this makes no sense.

Can a Steam Deck replace a PC?


But not just games. In a certain sense, Valve's portable console can replace a desktop PC and tablet. With built-in wireless adapters and a Linux-based operating system, Steam Deck allows you to do the same things as on a regular computer or tablet. For example, use a browser, dig into the mail, watch videos on YouTube, scroll through posts about success on Instagram, respond in instant messengers, etc. Fortunately, most modern services moved to the web a long time ago and, usually, they do not have a hard garter for Windows or MacOS.

Interestingly, Valve itself prefers the term "mobile PC" instead of "game console", emphasizing that this is a completely new type of device. In order not to go into your pocket for a word, the user is given full control over the system. If you want, remove SteamOS and roll Windows instead. Don't like the stock game store? Install Origin or Epic Game Store. Or play games from other platforms using popular emulators.

The only negative of such a Steam PC is that of the connection ports in the case, only USB-C is provided and that is for charging. However, in the near future, Valve promises to release a docking station with audio / video / network ports with which you can connect Steam Deck to a monitor, connect a mouse with a keyboard and work with tables, texts or code. It will be possible to play, but here you need to keep in mind the difference that the hardware of the console is not omnipotent and is designed for 720p resolution.

What about disadvantages?


So far, Steam Deck has only 2 notable drawbacks. The back gets tired from lying for a long time, and the charging cable does not always reach the outlet. But seriously, there are small problems with the battery. During the announcement of the console, Valve talked about 8 hours of continuous operation from a single charge. Knowing how quickly gaming laptops drain, it was hard to believe, and it turned out to be so.

In fact, gluttonous games like Control or Forza Horizon 5 dry out the battery in a maximum of 2 hours. In most tested AAA projects, the battery lasted no more than two and a half hours. If you play with the graphics settings, disable some particularly demanding features or lock the frame rate at 30 FPS, the battery life can be increased to 3 hours. When launching less voracious indie games like Dead Cells, the situation is expected to be better and the player can expect 4 to 6 hours of continuous play. However, if you really want to play on the road, no one has canceled power banks.

The second disadvantage of the console is its size. Almost 700 grams of net weight is not so little, in the prone position, the hands numb pretty quickly. Owners of 12-inch tablets will not let you lie. Why, some individuals managed to complain that the 400-gram Nintendo Switch is hard to hold in hands filled with soy and muscles.

Also confusing is Valve's previous experience with the "revolutionary" Steam Machine computer and the "innovative" Steam Controller. Remember those? Exactly. At one time, there was a fair amount of hype around them, but Valve could not properly promote the devices and enlist the support of partners, so a few years later they were safely forgotten about. Valve is good at prototyping, but they're not very good at promoting them.

When and how much?


Three options are available for pre-order. As mentioned above, the main difference is in the amount of memory, the hardware is the same there. The younger version with 64 GB costs $399, the average with 256 GB board will cost $529, the older one costs $649. How much they will come to our region - only God knows. We hope that mining on them will not work, dealers will not run amok and prices will not jump 2-3 times, as was the case with consoles and video cards. The start of sales is scheduled for the end of February 2022. The first batches will go into the hands of people who have pre-ordered, so deliveries to stores will have to wait. Most likely a month or two.