Valve has announced the Steam Deck, a new PC console that competes directly with Nintendo’s Switch. The concept is similar, after all, you can also gamble on the new platform on the go. We’ll give you an overview of the first details!
Play PC games comfortably on the go? Valve wants to make this possible with the newly announced Steam Deck. You are in direct competition with the Switch, because the new platform is also visually similar to the Nintendo console.
The company officially announced the Steam Deck last night for December 2021; there is no specific release date yet. It is certain that you will start this Friday at 7:00 p.m. Reservations for the different variants of the platform can make. There are three of them:
- Option # 1: 64 GB storage, eMMC, carrying case – 419 dollars
- Option # 2: 256 GB storage, NVMe SSD, faster storage, carrying case, exclusive Steam community profile bundle – 549 dollars
- Variant # 3: 512 GB storage, NVMe SSD, faster storage, high-quality anti-reflective & etched glass, exclusive carrying case, exclusive Steam community profile bundle, virtual keyboard with exclusive design – 679 dollars
The device was previously in the rumor mill under the name “SteamPal”, now the portable game PC is official. The Valve console is slightly larger than a Switch and has a 7-inch touchscreen, two thumb sticks, a D-pad and another layout with four buttons. There are two trackpads below the thumbsticks and eight triggers, four on the back and four on the shoulders.
Games from your already filled Steam libraries could be played. All you have to do is log in to your account. The individual games run directly on the hardware and do not use a cloud. In this context, Valve presented videos from Baldur’s Gate 3, Disco Elysium, Hades or Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on the handheld.
Another thing in common with the Switch: You can also buy a dock so that you can then couple the Steam Deck to your TV set and play there. This dock also includes a USB 3.1 port and two USB 2.0 ports. Video output is via DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0; a network connection via ethernet is available. You can achieve a maximum of 4K at 120 Hz or 8K at 60 Hz via the dock, but due to the technology used it is rather unlikely that these values will be achieved by games in native form without upscaling.
There is an AMD APU inside the platform. The CPU is based on the Zen 2 micro-architecture and manages up to 3.5 GHz. The GPU comprises eight RDNA-2 computing units with up to 1.6 GHz. The top performance should be 1.6 teraflops each. In addition, 16 GB of RAM, a microSD card slot to expand the integrated memory and the mentioned 7-inch display with 60 Hz and a 720p resolution of 1280×800 pixels with an aspect ratio of 16:10 are on board. Steam Deck supports dual-band 802.11ac WiFi with compatibility for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks, Bluetooth 5.0 for controllers, accessories and – in contrast to the switch – audio.
Another important point: According to Valve, the 40 watt battery in the Steam Deck should give you between two and eight hours of gaming fun. The bandwidth is so large because the load is heavily dependent on the software being played.
