Words: Musanna Ahmed
While the Steam Deck's button layout may be a mess and you won't be able to play major multiplayer games on the device (maybe, anyway), there are still reasons to be excited for Valve's foray into portable gaming. The latest of these comes our way thanks to Twitter user @Locuza_, who's also a YouTuber who makes technical analysis videos about AMD, Intel and Nvidia. His investigative work into the console's capability has unveiled a much more powerful system than we previously imagined.
Forget everything you think you knew. Okay, well, not everything, but at least certain details the publisher provided about the upcoming handheld device. Initially, Valve reported that the Steam Deck would have a custom-built AMD APU that would deliver a great experience with its 16GB of dual-channel LPDDR5 RAM. As @Locuza_ observes, the initial RAM spec was an inexplicable choice, but it has since been updated to reflect that the device will instead come with a quad-channel 32-bit LPDDR5 RAM.
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Check out the reveal of the Steam Deck in the video below...
Essentially, this means that the Steam Deck is going to be so much faster and stronger than we first expected. The quad-channel memory means that the device will have considerably greater bandwidth, which will allow for it to deliver a much more efficient experience than we previously realised. Both the system's CPU and GPU are using the same memory allotment and therefore, quite simply, the more memory they can access, the better the gaming experience will be.
The arrival of the Steam Deck in conjunction with PS5 and Series X shortages will make things tougher for the undecided customer. In addition to the revelation around its RAM, @Locuza_ notes that the PC platform will even offer more GB/s per TeraFLOP from a graphical perspective, pointing out that the Steam Deck could process between 53.72 and 85.94 GB/s per GPU TF. This mighty range clearly outshines the Xbox Series X's average of 46.09 GB/s, the Series S's 55.91 GB/s, and the PlayStation 5's 43.58 GB/s. However, it's important to note that the native resolution of Valve's handheld is just 1280 x 800 pixels, so let's not start another console war just yet.
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This news should give hope to the lucky folks who have already pre-ordered their system and should certainly entice those looking for a solid portable experience, especially in light of Nintendo's announcement of a new OLED Switch model that only has a couple of improvements over the system that came out in 2017. It's safe to say the Steam Deck has the potential to be an essential item for any gamer on the go - just be careful where you go looking for it.
Featured Image Credit: Valve