Steam Deck performance numbers

[PoetPhilosopher]

Performance while playing games on Valve's upcoming handheld system: https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-deck-leaked-dev-kit-gaming-performance/

My comments: I had a hunch that the Steam Deck would perform similar to a desktop with a Ryzen 3400G and integrated Vega 11 graphics. After reading over the numbers in this article, and comparing them to results people have had with Vega 11 desktops and posted before, I can't say I was wrong.

The Steam Deck has some innovations in technology over the Ryzen 3400G. But because it's held back by thermal and power constraints, it took a bunch of innovations in technology to just bring it up to dead even with a Ryzen 3400G desktop, due to the tremendous amount of performance lost by using a 10-15W TDP in the handheld on a series of chips that performs best with a 65w power envelope. So the two end up about even in performance.

Before anyone questions my train of thought - you certainly can, but I own a Vega system myself and have experimented with TDPs on mine. It makes a huge difference. Just switching my chip from a 15W TDP to a 25W TDP gains 10-40 percent performance, no other changes... and this isn't even one of the most powerful Ryzen with Vega chips there is.

 

[Brickjectivity]

performance lost by using a 10-15W TDP

What's a TDP ? I understand whatever it is burns 10-15 watts.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

What's a TDP ? I understand whatever it is burns 10-15 watts.

The TDP is like a switch, existing in hardware and sometimes modifiable in software (BIOS, for example), that limits the watts the chip can use.

In a perfect world, you wouldn't want more watts being taken up. But these days, highly complex chips are sometimes being gimped by limited power envelopes. Sometimes it has to be done in order to put a highly complex chip into a smaller device.

The disadvantage is that some performance is lost. To try to make up for this performance, other improvements sometimes have to be done, like equipping the system with even better memory than the desktops.

That's the way I understand it, though I lack the technical know-how to be even more in-depth about it.

So the Steam Deck does have other improvements over most desktops with integrated graphics. But because of the limited TDP and thermal design, all these improvements just make it about the same as some desktops in performance. So ordinary.

Why this matters so much, is that I think it's important that, despite all the amazing technology in the Steam Deck, that it's important not to get one's hopes up too high.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

And it's not really that the chip is configured wrong for a handheld. I really think the TDP is about right for a handheld. It's just that the system may not end up super impressive when you try to play modern games in a year or two. You may only get 20 frames per second.

The only solution to this would have been a bigger budget to make even better chips. But then the handheld would end up costing a fortune for the consumer.