Compare Steam Deck with Nintendo Switch and handheld gaming devices

Valve has suddenly launched a “secret card” Steam Deck, promising to bring the Steam game library to all players. However, compared to Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Xbox Series S/X and Sony PlayStation 5, what advantage does Valve Steam Deck have?

First of all, let’s go through the specs of the Valve Steam Deck. This handheld is equipped with a custom AMD CPU with 4 cores, 8 threads using Zen 2 architecture, AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 8 compute units, and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM.

Valve Steam Deck has 3 options: 64GB eMMC internal memory priced at 399 USD (about 9.2 million VND), 256GB NVMe SSD for 529 USD (equivalent to 12.2 million VND) and 649 USD (equivalent to VND 12.2 million). VND 14.9 million) for the highest version 512GB NVMe SSD. While eMMC storage technology can make game installation and loading times slower, Valbe promises that “there will be no difference in frame rate or in-game graphics quality” between the two. 3 options.

Of course, the Valve Steam Deck’s most obvious rival is the OLED Nintendo Switch, two products that offer similar options, screen sizes, and designs. Both devices are equipped with 720p touch screens.

Of these two devices, the Nintendo Switch is definitely the less powerful device as it is powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra X1 chipset, a 4-year-old processor built on ARM architecture, while the Valve Steam Deck is powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra X1 chipset. equipped with the next-generation AMD Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU, which also appeared in the Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S. The Valve Steam Deck is also capable of handling titles that the Nintendo Switch cannot, such as Control. And games like Jedi: Fallen Order and No Man’s Sky have never appeared on handhelds before.

But since these two handsets are most similar in terms of form factor as well as price, it’s still worth comparing them, especially when considering the performance gap compared to the Xbox. The powerful X/S and PlayStation 5 series are gradually shrinking.

Unlike the Switch, the Steam Deck has several additional input methods beyond the traditional control system. This machine has 2 Steam Controller-style trackpads located on either side of the screen, combined with joysticks and 4 extra buttons located on the back of the device, which act as additional inputs. The Valve Steam Deck also has Bluetooth connectivity for connecting wireless headphones, which the Switch is still lacking.

However, the Nintendo Switch has the advantage of battery life when it can operate 4.5-9 hours for the OLED version, quite higher than the 2-8 hours of Steam Deck. Valve says that the Steam Deck can play Portal 2 for 4 hours at 720p 60fps settings. The Nintendo Switch is also much lighter than Valve’s machine, weighing only 422 grams compared to the Steam Deck’s 667 grams.

Choosing between the $349 Nintendo Switch OLED and the $399 Valve Steam Deck will largely come down to personal preference: Whether you like the level of polish and Nintendo exclusives, or need Steam’s vast library of games with PC equivalent power, despite the rougher design? In fact, the Steam Deck also has other advantages: since it’s a real PC, you can technically install Windows and use it as a portable Xbox Game Pass machine, install Epic Games Store or use it for steam services like Stadio or Luna.

Compared to next-generation consoles like Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, the Steam Deck is significantly worse. The processor inside this handheld cannot match the performance of the more powerful chips in consoles from Sony and Microsoft, and its GPU is also significantly less powerful than the Xbox Series S when it comes to gaming. has a graphics multiplier less than half that of Microsoft’s stripped-down console. Although the Steam Deck uses the same RDNA 2 GPU architecture, it is not in the same segment.

As seen in the chart below, PlayStation 5 and next-gen Xbox consoles win on almost every metric: more cores, faster CPU clocks than compute units, and GPU clocks. significantly higher, the GPU raw power also has higher Teraflops.

Although it may be lame, but, Valve Steam Deck has a price ranging from 399 USD to 649 USD, much higher than the 199 USD – 349 USD price of Switch machines.

At 1.6 Teraflops, the Valve Steam Deck will be between the Xbox One S’s 1.4 Teraflops and the PlayStation 4’s 1.8 Teraflops when it comes to raw graphics power. However, Valve Steam Deck uses a more modern RDNA 2 architecture.

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