It’s hard to believe Valve released the Steam Deck almost two years ago. As an answer to true PC portable gaming, the gaming community built up a lot of hype around the Steam Deck, but among plenty of new competition, did that hype hold? Is the Steam Deck worth actually buying, or are there better options for portable PC gaming out there?
What is the Steam Deck?
If you haven’t been keeping up with the gaming scene that much in recent years, then you might not be aware of what the Steam Deck is. Essentially, this little handheld offers unbridled access to your PC gaming library thanks to the power of Steam Deck-compatible games as well as Steam’s cloud-gaming setup, which lets you stream games directly from your PC to the Steam Deck.
Both options work fairly well, depending on your internet connection, and give you an easy way to play your favorite PC games while on the move. However, Steam’s cloud gaming does take a hit if you aren’t running a higher-end internet connection.
How does it compare to other portable PCs?
The Steam Deck is a solid handheld gaming PC, but its Zen 2 CPU isn’t going to stand up to some of the other handhelds out there. Take the Ayaneo Next Advance for example. It boasts an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U CPU, which is much more defined and ultimately performs better than Steam’s custom AMD processor setup. However, you’ll also pay significantly more for the Ayaneo, which starts at around $1,300, compared to the Steam Deck, which starts at $399.
Here’s a full look at the Steam Deck’s specs:
It also sports three different storage options:
64GB eMMC256GB NVMe SSD512GB high-speed NVMe SSDThe storage option you choose will change the price, with the 64GB option available at $399, the 256 GB running $529, and the 512 GB option retailing for $649. All three system options sport the same internal hardware, though.
When compared to other handhelds, the Steam Deck will hold its own, but it does sit at a noticeable disadvantage in raw performance. However, Valve has done a lot to ensure that games are specially enhanced and designed to take advantage of what the Steam Deck has to offer: The handheld’s cloud gaming feature ensures both graphics and performance are all tied up in your main computer, not the handheld itself.
If money isn’t an issue, then going with one of the more expensive options from Ayaneo, or Asus’s ROG handheld would yield more raw performance, though you will miss out on Steam’s built-in features, which make it easy to manage your games and accounts.
Steam Deck performance
Because the Steam Deck is built off of Linux, it doesn’t support every game out there. However, there’s a lot of wiggle room with the portable, as you can hack it to install a full, working version of Windows 11, and plenty of community-driven workarounds let you install other games not optimized for the Steam Deck, too.
Ultimately, the Steam Deck is a perfect fit for those who want to be able to play some triple-A games (like Baldur’s Gate 3, The Witcher 3, and even Red Dead Redemption 2) and a good mix of indie games. Hades is especially fun on the Steam Deck—the game’s graphics lend themselves well to the more limited power of the portable without losing much of their fidelity.
On the other hand, some games like Elden Ring can make the Steam Deck run hot, making it hard to keep playing for extended periods. Because the Steam Deck has less raw performance to bring to the table, you’ll see some of these higher-end games running at 30FPS, max, even on the lowest settings.
In my tests, both Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 capped at around 30FPS, even on the lowest optimal settings. However, I wasn’t expecting huge numbers from the latter due to the performance issues already plaguing it. I also noticed some hitching performance here and there on Horizon Zero Dawn, but it wasn’t to the point of being unplayable. When trying each of these in cloud gaming mode, the performance was better, but I did notice some input lag during intense moments where the console had to send a lot of information back and forth between it and the PC I had the games running on.
Should you buy the Steam Deck?
Ultimately, you’ll probably be able to run most triple-A and indie games on the Steam Deck at some point—though it might require some hacking on your part to get them running if they’re available outside of Steam. However, because of the Steam Deck’s more limited performance, you should expect to see some graphical hiccups here and there. I also wouldn’t expect the highest quality graphics either, as the Steam Deck just isn’t powerful enough to handle them on its own.
If you’ve been thinking about picking up a handheld console like the Steam Deck, and don’t think you’ll mind losing out on some of the higher graphical fidelity found on full-fledged PCs, then the Steam Deck could be worth purchasing, especially if you can find a good deal on it. There’s also a ton of emulation opportunity for the Steam Deck, though you’ll need to dig a bit to find proper instructions on how to pull that off.
