For the price of the Valve Steam Deck, you couldn't even get a good graphics card.
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| Valve Steam Deck |
Valve Steam Deck
That's the situation of PC gaming in 2022, a hobby with such a high entrance barrier to entry currently that people with a significant amount of disposable income should avoid it.
Even if you could get a PC for the same price as the new Valve portable, I'm quite sure it wouldn't have a discrete GPU today, and I'm very sure you'd be disappointed if you tried to play anything older than 2006.
But Valve Steam Deck can run Elden Ring just fine—as well as anything could play that lagging PC port right now—and it's given me excellent gaming performance in almost every game I've given it.
Valve Steam Deck Price
Sure, you'll have to be frugal with the graphics settings and perhaps set a frame rate restriction if you want anything resembling a playable battery life, and it only runs at 1280 x 800, but it's a gaming PC that really can game and can be yours for only for $529.
Yes, the tricky issue with any praising of the Steam Deck is its limited availability, which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
Nobody on the PC Gamer community who reserved the mini pc on day one has received any indication that they're any closer to having their hands on it.
Gabe has stated that he has no idea when gamers will be able to have a Steam Deck, click purchase, and acquire one in a matter of days or weeks.
Though there is some great news in that Lawrence Yang, a Valve designer, has stated that he anticipates Steam Deck production will rapidly ramp up and reach the hundreds of thousands by the second month on the market. Hopefully, this means Valve will be able to get through those pre-orders soon.
And think about attempting to build a desktop PC with even minimal gaming capabilities for a fraction of the cost of the Deck.
Especially since AMD and Intel's top-tier integrated graphics are always associated with more expensive CPUs.
You can play PC games on the go with the Steam Deck, whether you're in the garden, at a pub, on your sofa, or at your workstation, plugged into a monitor, mouse, and keyboard.
It's a PC that can practically be anything to anyone, and it's highly versatile, portable, and shockingly powerful.
Valve Steam Deck Specs
All of this is available for a little more than $500. If you get the 64GB version and fill it with micro SD cards, it will cost you less.
Of course, there are restrictions. The Linux OS is extremely user-friendly, whether in the Deck UI for mobile devices or on the desktop, but it is still Linux and has a learning curve.
And, while Proton is doing an excellent job of making Windows-only games to function on the Deck's os, some just don't work, and others aren't supported on purpose.
We also know that two of the most popular games, Fortnite and Destiny 2, aren't compatible with SteamOS, so you'll need Windows (or GeForce Now) to play them on the Deck.
And, for the time being, AMD is still tinkering with Windows drivers for the Van Gogh-based Aerith APU at the device's heart, meaning you won't be able to run Microsoft's OS on it.
That is, though, the case with the pre-order reservists. You can guarantee that if the system is more commonly accessible and families are shopping for major birthday and Christmas gifts, the lower-tier Deck will start to shine.
It's the same scenario we've seen before, with the Xbox Series X being the main seller up front and the Series S coming in second.
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