Valve Announces Steam Deck, a $399 All-in-One Portable PC Gaming Device with AMD Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU

Tsing

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Valve has officially announced its heavily rumored entry into the console market, the Steam Deck. An all-in-one portable gaming device that starts at $399, Valve’s Steam Deck is a handheld PC that features an AMD APU (Zen 2 CPU, RDNA 2 GPU), 7-inch 60 Hz 1280 x 800 px LCD screen, 16 GB of RAM, and up to 512 GB of high-speed NVMe SSD storage. Controller-wise, Valve’s Steam Deck seems like an impressive evolution of the Nintendo Switch, offering not only traditional buttons and bumpers but 2x analog sticks with capacitive touch and 2x square trackpads with haptic feedback as well. There’s even a dock that allows users to extend the Steam Deck experience onto a larger display. Reservations for Valve’s Steam Deck portable will open this Friday on July 16 at 10 a.m. PDT.









We partnered with AMD to create Steam Deck’s custom APU, optimized for handheld...
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Never got in to handheld gaming much but this could be handy for doing the dailies in ESO lol
 
I had a switch and sold it because I couldn't get into the handheld portion of it, so I doubt I would be getting this. Nice concept though.
 
Niner51 said:
I had a switch and sold it because I couldn't get into the handheld portion of it, so I doubt I would be getting this. Nice concept though.
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My biggest issue with the Switch is that it's too damned uncomfortable to hold. Tiny buttons and awkward spacing.

At least what looks nice about the Deck is that it's still fundamentally a PC in a package. Could make for some interesting projects.
 
Yeah, I'm feeling pretty pumped for this thing. Having my Steam library on the go with pause/resume, docking ability, unlocked hardware (Windows can be installed on this thing) is great. Also really surprised the base model is only $499 CAD (though 64GB eMMC is disappointing). I'm going to reserve the $649 CAD 256 GB NVME version tomorrow (or at least try to).

I see the Decks support for FSR and FSR going open source as really allowing this handheld to be playable with future titles as well.
 
I have 2 questions

1 what will the battery life be like?
2 where are they getting the APU's from or will they launch with 10 devices worldwide like Sony and Ms did?
 
This is pretty weird. Odd mix of older tech like Zen 2 and newer tech like RDNA 2 and LPDDR5, especially if it's all on one SoC.

It's also hard to imagine actually wanting to use this thing in its base form, while expandability is extremely limited.

First thing that comes to mind is not you're average gamer. It's folks seeing how this can be hacked and modded to do other things.

Denpepe said:
1 what will the battery life be like?
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15W part, 45WHr battery... they claim '2-8 hours'. I have my thoughts on that.
Denpepe said:
2 where are they getting the APU's from or will they launch with 10 devices worldwide like Sony and Ms did?
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These are quad-core parts and apparently support LPDDR5 while still being Zen 2 - looks like a distinct product run and if they're not otherwise available at retail, availability might not be terrible. Could be something that AMD and Valve have been stockpiling for a while too.

And also, hard to imagine who this is for. Which makes demand hard to gauge.
 
Will wait for this to drop to $10 like Steam Link and Steam Controllers did, then I'll be all in.

This is somewhat interesting, although not necessarily for gaming on. I'm with @LazyGamer on this one.

My guess on Zen2 cores - AMD probably still has a good stock of them (3000 series CPUs can still be found new in package retail with some good discounts, after all), and offered a good deal on them in a SOC package - and Valve took it to keep the price down. After all, for a mostly gaming SOC, the CPU mostly takes a back seat to GPU.
 
Wonder if it can cast to a tv? Yup, through Type C. Nice.
I'm not a fan of consoles, but, this could make gaming on company time a bit more possible. Especially on out of town jobs.

And yes, I too see Steam losing interest in this and selling at a very reduced price eventually.

Wonder what they can be modded to do? A new version of Steam OS? Still debian based? Oh, now very curious. How hard I wonder to get the 256 model and upgrade on your own? I'm betting a 1 terabyte nvme might eventually end up in there.
 
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I wonder why portable consoles have huge bezels. The screen could easily be at least 7.5 inches in the same form factor.
 
Valve & AMD have probably been scheming on this APU (Van Gogh) since the time Nintendo announced the switch

At this point this is the first ever RDNA (1/2) APU from AMD

So definitely this has been a long time in the works
 
I'm not going to spend on a platform like this until I see it has a couple generations under it's belt. Steam has had issues with sticking to a platform of any sort beyond their steam store.
 
Grimlakin said:
I'm not going to spend on a platform like this until I see it has a couple generations under it's belt. Steam has had issues with sticking to a platform of any sort beyond their steam store.
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It's Steam on Debian + KDE Plasma + Wine/Proton. Drop SteamOS on an AMD APU system, and more or less the same thing.

Biggest difference is the newer, beefier APU and faster RAM to support it, and well, hand-held form-factor.

So yeah, 'new', but 'new platform' might be stretching it? This thing should have the same 'platform' as any AMD Ryzen + RDNA2 GPU running SteamOS.
 
Dogsofjune said:
Alright..... I reserved a 512 unit.....


It is going to make an amazing Pi-Hole
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I signed up for a 256 GB. Figure that should be enough to install a AAA game or two and lots of Indies. Load up a SD card with old school ROMs/emulators and I'll have me a great portable/back up PC.
 
SeymourGore said:
Yeah, I'm feeling pretty pumped for this thing. Having my Steam library on the go with pause/resume, docking ability, unlocked hardware (Windows can be installed on this thing) is great. Also really surprised the base model is only $499 CAD (though 64GB eMMC is disappointing). I'm going to reserve the $649 CAD 256 GB NVME version tomorrow (or at least try to).

I see the Decks support for FSR and FSR going open source as really allowing this handheld to be playable with future titles as well.
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Good news for you:

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