Valve’s Steam Deck is a seriously impressive piece of it, thanks in no small part to the power-efficient, highly capable AMD Van Gogh APU that runs the show. As we’ve already seen, this portable PC can match the PlayStation 4 experience at lower resolutions, while its support for ray tracing in combination with its built-in SSD stands it in good stead for future games. However, with demanding software on the horizon and last-gen systems finally starting to fall by the wayside, Microsoft’s Xbox Series S is establishing itself as the baseline for modern gaming. So here’s the question: can we push the Steam Deck to produce a viable portable alternative to the Series S experience – even on the most demanding games?
Looking at the specs, the two systems don’t look quite as far apart as you may think. Both machines are based around the same AMD technologies – Zen 2 CPUs paired with RDNA 2 GPUs. The Steam Deck is substantially pared-back relative to its stronger console cousin, but critically it is targeting a much lower output resolution. The Series S is typically aiming for pixel counts in the 1080p to 1440p range, while the Steam Deck is limited to just 1280×800 on its internal display, or 720p with 40-pixel black bars top and bottom.
So, the fact that the Steam Deck is theoretically a little less than half as powerful in GPU compute and RAM bandwidth isn’t a huge issue here. A seven-inch screen with essentially a 720p resolution is a forgiving canvas for game content relative to a large-format 4K television and in many cases, cutting resolution alone may be enough to give us the slack we need to equal the junior Xbox. One levelling factor to consider, however, concerns power consumption. Steam Deck’s APU has a 15W power limit, with full system power hitting a maximum of around 26W. Meanwhile, it’s impossible to gauge the Series S SoC’s power draw, but the entire system maxes out at around 82W of juice measured at the wall with a watt meter. There is, however, another factor in the Deck’s favour – it actually has more memory than the Series S.
| Steam Deck | Xbox Series S | |
|---|---|---|
| Graphics Technology | 1.0-1.6TF AMD RDNA 2 (8 CUs at 1.0-1.6GHz) | 4TF AMD RDNA 2 (20 CUs at 1.55GHz) |
| Central Processor | AMD Zen 2 (4 cores at 2.4-3.5GHz) | AMD Zen 2 (8 cores at 3.4GHz SMT or 3.6GHz no SMT) |
| Memory/Bandwidth | 16GB LPDDR5 at 88 GB/s | 8GB GDDR6 at 224GB/s, 2GB GDDR6 at 56GB/s |
| Internal Storage | 512GB NVMe SSD | 256GB/512GB NVMe SSD |
We can’t compare every single game that runs on both Deck and Series S – the list is just too long – but by targeting key titles we can get some idea of the handheld’s capabilities in the here and now, along with some idea of future prospects. In assessing each title, we’re aware that some compromises will be necessary. For Series S games that target its usual 1080p-1440p profile, we’ll be aiming for the Deck’s native screen resolution instead – or an intelligently upscaled version of that. Detail cuts may also be necessary, but remember that these are often significantly less noticeable on a handheld screen. Another important factor is the Deck’s recently acquired ability to run its display at 40-60Hz refresh rates – as we shall discover in our testing.