A fully portable gaming PC is a reality with systems like the Steam Deck and AYA NEO Next vying for public interest this year. Which of the two systems is better for taking our favorite PC games everywhere, even to your future vacation destination?
The Steam Deck is not the only PC in the form of a portable video game console that exists on the market that we will see during this 2022 since the so-called AYA NEO Next will compete in the same space. However, despite the fact that the two share an AMD APU with different specs and form factor, the differences end there, and they are two very different approaches.
AYA NEO Next vs. Steam Deck
The first thing we need to consider is the SoC, because while Valve contacted AMD to get an ACustom PU for your Steam Deck this is not the case of the AYA NEO Next whose APU is a AMD Ryzen 7 5825U. This means that the two have their strengths exchanged. While in the Valve console we have a Zen 2-based 4-core processor and an RDNA 2 GPU with 8 compute units, in the case of your competitor we have 8 Zen Zen 3, but using a Vega-architecture GPU which, despite having 8 CUs, is much weaker in terms of graphics capabilities.
Regarding the second point, we find the RAM memory, where in both cases the memory configuration is UMA and, therefore, the CPU and the GPU share it. On the Steam Deck we have 16 GB LPDDR5 with a bus 88 GB/s, while in the AYA NEO Next its 32 GB LPDDR4X at 4.266 MHz speed and bandwidth 68 GB/s. Considering that the performance of the graphics card is directly related to the speed of the RAM assigned to it and that RDNA 2 is a far superior architecture to Vega, it is clear that Valve’s console is the winner.
We also cannot forget the storage, in the case of the AYA NEO we can see how they ruled out the MicroSD slot and decided to go for a 2TB NVMe SSD storage, which, although an impressive number, is the main culprit that the device costs more than 1200 dollars as an entry price compared to the 400 of the initial model of the Steam Deck, which although it lacks an NVMe SSD unit is ideal as a retro system and emulator.
The Steam Deck touchpad
integrated valve two touchpads, one for the thumb of each hand on your Steam Controller that your new laptop inherited, which is really handy for gaming games that usually require a mouse play as it is with MOBA or real-time strategy games. On the other hand, the AYA NEO Next, unlike the Steam Deck, does not have it and you will have to be content with the use of analog sticks for these games, which are much more uncomfortable for this type of game.
The operating system
If it is true that we can install Windows with Steam Deck your operating system is SteamOS which will allow us to run Windows games through the Proton interpreter with a high level of compatibility and without the processor having to load processes and applications in the background that they don’t matter on a video game console. What’s the point of having the antivirus process or the firewall process on a system where you’re just going to play? The security they probably provide, but that should be up to the operating system itself.
Even if it’s true, as we said a few days ago that we consider the Steam Deck’s four Zen 2 cores to be a bit short for future games and feel that a Ryzen 6000 based version would be better , the fact that the AYA NEO APU despite its 8 Zen 3 cores must load a full operating system with all that this entails limits its capacity.
Where is AYA NEO better compared to the Steam Deck? In applications and games that depend on CPU power. On the surface, it should run much better emulators, but it’s priced three times the base Steam Deck model, which loses some of its potential appeal. For this price we can get a Steam Deck with a 512 GB NVMe SSD and a large collection of games purchased on Steam that we can enjoy without problems.
