Ultimate comparison: Valve’s Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X and PS5

Something about the Steam Deck’s details

Well, guys, first of all, the new device has some interesting specs to provide. It will be powered by an AMD APU along with a quad-core/eight-thread Zen 2 CPU, together with an AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 8 compute units. There will also be 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM.

Steam Deck will come in three models – US$399 will get you 64GB of eMMC storage, US$529 will nab you 256GB of NVMe SSD storage, and US$649 will be the best model with 512GB of NVMe SSD storage. If you are wondering, even the lowest tier of the new machine will offer you the most awesome performance, the Valve stated that “there is no in-game difference in frame rates or graphics quality” when it comes to the different models.

Except the touchscreen, you are obtaining some fancy inputs on the Steam Deck. A pair of trackpads lets you have mouse control, while there are four additional back buttons to give you more customisation. One of the more overlooked features would be the fact that the Steam Deck offers Bluetooth audio, and that is a huge plus.

As the portable PC, the new machine could theoretically let you install Windows on it. This way, you can tap on other services like Xbox Game Pass, Stadia, and Luna. You could possibly even get the Epic Games Store on it. The potential is quite exciting.

Matching Up

The comparison shows to be between the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck. On that front, both Valve’s machine and the new OLED model of the Switch are similar in being a handheld machine, with similar screen size, touchscreens, and design.

But, the Steam Deck is certainly more powerful, being able to run games that would be impossible on the Switch. The Bluetooth audio feature is also a big win for Valve, in addition to those extra inputs. The Switch does win out for battery life at 4.5 to 9 hours, while Valve’s latest machine will be between 2 to 8 hours.

Regarding the big console players, on paper, the Steam Deck is not doing so hot. The processor is simply not in the same league as those of Sony and Microsoft. Even the GPU will not cut it against the Xbox Series S, much less the Xbox Series X and the PS5.

In every area, the new consoles are performing better. Since the pricing for the Steam Deck comes closer to the consoles, consumers will have to weigh up the parameters accordingly before pulling the trigger.

Whereas, provided you are more of a PC gamer, then it makes all the sense in the world to keep Valve’s latest innovation in mind. The PC does get plenty of games already and having a machine that can give you more portability may just be what you are looking for.