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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Valve releasing Switch competitor SteamDeck Dec 2021, $399, Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU

My coworker and I were both able to
get reservations.



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I was able to reserve the 512 GB model. Wasn't fast enough for december though, so I'll have to wait until Q1 2022.

I'm pretty excited, because this thing pretty much looks like a wet dream for handheld fans like myself. It has quite some horsepower behind it and I can use it for whatever I like without the need of hacking it.

Will be interesting to see how well Linux performs when it comes to gaming. But I think I will put Windows on my machine anyway.



Official member of VGC's Nintendo family, approved by the one and only RolStoppable. I feel honored.

Has any one else managed to reserve a Steam Deck, i hope? Scalpers are hella unstoppable!

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/steam-deck-reservations-are-already-selling-on-ebay-for-absolutely-stupid-prices/



It's a good idea.



Thinking about it again, we should have a dock only version as a cheap replacement for NUCs and SFF gaming or even office PCs. The market for these small PCs is filled with overpriced, low quality junk and Valve can inject some quality into that segment.

No screen, battery, speakers and one bigger touchpad in the middle for $299 would sell a lot of units. Previous steamboxes were way too expensive.



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Pemalite said:
Darc Requiem said:

104MB/s Micro SD cards aren't going to cut it. That makes the Steam Deck a big nope from me. 

Why? Phones, Tablets, Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo all do it?

Phones aren't running modern AAA PC titles. Have you seen load times on Switch games that are optimized for the hardware? Outside of the potato CPUs the biggest albatross around the necks of the Xbox One and PS4 are the slow mechanical hard drives. If it supported UHS-II SD Cards, it wouldn't be an issue. It doesn't support that standard. It's stuck with the slower UHS-I standard that's in the Switch. Hell the USB 3.0 Thumb Drive I use to run my PS4 games on PS5 tops out at an early SSD like speed of 400MB/s. 



LurkerJ said:
shikamaru317 said:

I just can't get over how utterly ridiculous this picture looks. 

Needs more tattoo's!

我是广州人

there is one huge difference with storage space between the switch and this thing that many people are forgetting.
To some users, mostly thouse who go phisical, you don't really need that much memory unless the devs force it, an the switch. Ergo to quite a large portion of the audience, ay extra space they put in is effectivly wasted money.
steam deck not only does not have this option but its games are bulkier, sometimes by 2, 3, or 4 times in size on PC.

a 500 GB card is near endless on the switch, how much does 500GB get you on your gaming laptop?



TheBraveGallade said:

there is one huge difference with storage space between the switch and this thing that many people are forgetting.
To some users, mostly thouse who go phisical, you don't really need that much memory unless the devs force it, an the switch. Ergo to quite a large portion of the audience, ay extra space they put in is effectivly wasted money.
steam deck not only does not have this option but its games are bulkier, sometimes by 2, 3, or 4 times in size on PC.

a 500 GB card is near endless on the switch, how much does 500GB get you on your gaming laptop?

I don't know, but I'll get a 1TB microSD anyway. That'll be enough for me to take every single game ever made for NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy, GBC, GBA with me plus a few modern titles. I can swap titles with my external hard drive which I can just take with me on longer journeys or to a vacation or something. I enjoy endless possibilities as the Steam Deck will support every peripheral possibly imaginable. These options are what really makes this thing so damn exciting. You can do whatever the hell you want with it. It is a PC in the form of a handheld. Something I dreamt about ever since the 90s.

Honestly, if you aren't excited about that, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you. It doesn't mean the Switch is bad or has no reason to exist anymore. It just means that we will get another awesome device in the future for, mainly, totally different use cases. Use cases that are truly amazing for anyone who thinks of himfels as a gamer of some sort.



Official member of VGC's Nintendo family, approved by the one and only RolStoppable. I feel honored.

TheBraveGallade said:

there is one huge difference with storage space between the switch and this thing that many people are forgetting.
To some users, mostly thouse who go phisical, you don't really need that much memory unless the devs force it, an the switch. Ergo to quite a large portion of the audience, ay extra space they put in is effectivly wasted money.
steam deck not only does not have this option but its games are bulkier, sometimes by 2, 3, or 4 times in size on PC.

a 500 GB card is near endless on the switch, how much does 500GB get you on your gaming laptop?

Enough to be honest. PS5 and Xbox Series X haven't got the best memory solutions right now (PS5 literally does not have one lol) but that doesn't stop them selling out. The Steamdeck memory issue isn't ideal but its also not a deal breaker. 

I also don't think people are going to try and put their whole steam library on the system at the same time, like no one plays that many games simultaniously snd they''ll obviously be more selective with Steamdeck in terms what games they want to play portably.