Steam Deck detailed
During Steam Deck Development Live Stream, Valve employees have explained the principles behind the upcoming handheld device.
AMD Aerith SoC features 4 cores based on Zen2 microarchitecture with clock speeds varying from 2.4 GHz up to 3.5 GHz. Valve claims that its goal was to offer stable clocks rather than focus on peak clocks that cannot be sustained over a long period of time. The same applies to integrated RDNA2 GPU with 8 Compute Units and clocks from 1.0 to 1.6 GHz.
The whole Aerith SoC will have a TDP from 4 to 15W. Valve actually insists that the developer should enable some kind of a frame limit for the device as the company confirmed they have not implemented any kind of artificial power limit that the SoC can consume. Instead, the device should offer the same performance no matter if it is docked or mobile over long periods of time. However, in some extreme cases such as using the device outdoors during summer, the device may need to reduce the power draw to maintain high GPU clocks speeds. Furthermore, Valve did confirm Steam Deck will feature a global frame limiter at some point in the future, should game developers not implement it themselves.
In terms of memory, Valve decided to use LPDDR5 technology as it offers the best efficiency for this form factor. Although most games would be running smoothly with 8GB or even 12GB of RAM, the company decided to extend the capacity to 16GB to ensure the device stays future-proof for games that have not even come out yet.
The cheapest model with 64GB eMMC memory will be slower than NVMe based 512/1024 GB models. Valve benchmarks have shown that game loading time will take 12.5% more time while the system will require load 25% slower.
Valve confirmed that the Steam Deck will support up to two 4K screens at 60 Hz through an integrated USB3 Gen2/DisplayPort 1.4 DSC connector. The cable offers up to 45W of charging power, enough to charge the console at full speed and sustain gaming at the same time. In fact, gamers can still attach peripheral devices such as webcams up to 7.5W, which should still be within the charging limit.
The live stream which is targeted at game developers also focuses on the user interface, game optimizations, and overall gaming experience of the device. Steam Deck has been officially delayed by two months. Valve’s first handheld gaming device should begin shipping to first customers around February 2022.
| Handheld Gaming Consoles | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VideoCardz | Steam Deck | One XPlayer | AYA NEO | Nintendo Switch | Nintendo Switch OLED |
| Picture |  |  |  |  |  |
| Architecture | AMD Zen2 & RDNA2 | Intel Tiger Lake | AMD Zen2 (Renoir) | ARM Cortex | ARM Cortex |
| SoC | AMD Aerith | Core i7-1185G7*** Core i7-1165G7** Core i7-1135G7* | Ryzen 5 4500U | NVIDIA Tegra X1 | NVIDIA Tegra X1 |
| SoC CPU | 4C/8T @ 3.5 GHz | 4C/8T * 4.2*, 4.7**, 4.8*** GHz | 6C/6T @ 4.0 GHz | 4x A57 + 4x A53 | 4x A57 + 4x A53 |
| SoC GPU | AMD RDNA2 8 CUs @ 1.6 GHz | Xe-LP (Iris) 96 EUs @ 1.35 GHz | AMD Radeon Vega 6 @ 1.5 GHz | NVIDIA Maxwell 256 CUDA | NVIDIA Maxwell 256 CUDA |
| Memory | 16GB LPDDR5-5500 | 16GB LPDDR4X-4266 | 16GB LPDDR4X-4266 | 4GB | 4GB |
| Storage | 64GB eMMC (PCIe Gen2x1) 256GB NVME (PCIe Gen3 x4) 512GB NVMe (PCIe Gen3x4) | 512GB*, 1TB **, 2TB *** NVMe SSD | 512 GB / 1TB * NVMe SSD | 32GB | 64GB |
| Display | 7″ 1280×800 IPS | 8.4″ 2560×1600 IPS | 7″ 1280×800 IPS | 6.2″ 1280×720 5.5″ 1280×720* | 7″ 1280×720 OLED |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5 | Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, USB 4.0 x2 | WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 |
| Battery | 40 Whr | 15,300 mAh | 12,300 mAh | 4310 mAh | |
| Weight | 669 g | 820 g | 650 g | 400g / 277g* | 420g |
| Dimensions | 29.8 x 11.7 x 4.9 cm | 28.8 x 13.0 x 2.1 mm | 25.5 x 10.6 x 2.0 cm | 23.9 x 10.1 x 1.4 cm 20.8 x 9.1 x 1.4 cm* | 24.2 x 10.2 x 1.39 cm |
| OS | Steam OS 3.0 (Arch) | Windows 10 | Windows 10 | Custom | Custom |
| Release Price | 399 USD (64GB) 529 USD (256GB) 649 USD (512GB) | 1,059 USD* 1,158 USD ** 1,599 USD *** | $789 (16G/512GB) $869 (16G/1TB) | 299 USD, 199 USD (Lite) | 349 USD |
| Release Date | February 2022 | June/July 2021 | March 2021 | March 2017 Sep 2019* | Holiday 2021 |
| * Standard Edition ** Pro Edition *** Ultimate Edition | * 1TB model | * Lite | |||
Source:
