I love the Steam Deck for everything that it is: an industry-defining form factor, a comfortable and intuitive handheld PC, and a gargantuan leap forward for Linux gaming. Every time I pick it up and play something, I feel the years of R&D and iteration Valve put into this device. I appreciate the many successes and failures that informed its final design. But as we start staring down the end of 2024, it’s time to face reality. The Steam Deck won’t survive another year without a meaningful performance upgrade.
Technology moves forward at light speed, and that’s especially true in the PC gaming space. Only 2.5 years ago, my Steam Deck review was subtitled “An Unrivaled Portable Gaming Powerhouse.” It began with this sentence: “The Steam Deck is truly peerless and exists in a class all its own.”
Time has swiftly erased the truth of both those statements.
A Crowded Market With Demanding Games
With the likes of Lenovo, Asus, MSI, and now Acer challenging Valve for handheld dominance — not to mention smaller contenders like OneXPlayer and Ayaneo — consumers are now spoiled for choice. And if those consumers place the most importance on raw gaming performance (not an unreasonable expectation), the Steam Deck could be considered irrelevant by next year.
When Valve and AMD debuted the Steam Deck’s semi-custom Aerith APU in 2022, it was a revelation. No one expected that thing to even run a game as demanding as Cyberpunk 2077. Certainly no one expected it to handle DOOM Eternal on Ultra quality. With a steady influx of software magic like systemwide FSR, frame pacing optimizations, and rapid improvement of the Linux graphics stack, the Deck’s performance remained impressive through 2023.
In 2024, however, we’re beginning to see our beloved Deck losing steam (sorry).
It’s not even a question of the performance delta between Steam Deck and its rivals (but we’ll get to that). The question that will negatively impact future sales is “can Steam Deck run X game at all?” Sure, we know it can’t run games incorporating certain anti-cheat systems, but Windows can be installed to circumvent that. The core issue is: does it have the power to deliver minimum playable framerates for the upcoming games you’re excited about?
In the last month alone, we’ve seen three disappointing examples of games that are too demanding for the Deck. Star Wars Outlaws is unplayable on Low settings, even with FSR set to “Ultra Performance.” Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 can’t reach a steady 30fps at the lowest quality setting. And based on the demo, Final Fantasy 16 is unplayable without FSR and Frame Generation, and afflicted with stuttering and horrible frame pacing with those scaling features enabled.
The frequency of cases like this will only increase.
The AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme Story
During the past few weeks, a lot of hardware news has emerged that helps us piece together what 2025 holds for handheld gamers. We’re in for some awesome leaps forward in performance. But first, let’s establish where handheld gaming is right now.
Considering the Steam Deck APU’s lean 15W power limit, Valve’s device holds its own admirably against the ROG Ally and Legion GO. At least when the competitors are also restricted to 15W.
But even at 15W, the ROG Ally’s Z1 Extreme processor often has a noticeable advantage. In a game like Forza Horizon 5, it outperforms the Steam Deck by almost 25% at similar resolutions (1280×800 vs 1280×720). With the added boost of power using the ROG Ally’s 25W Turbo Mode, that lead surges forward by nearly 70%.
A general rule of thumb is that if Steam Deck can render 45fps for a game at 1280×800, the ROG Ally can match that framerate but at 1920×1080. At 1080p, the Radeon 780M inside the ROG Ally is pushing about double the number of pixels.
Now consider that AMD just announced the Z2 Extreme, which should be headed to market by early 2025. It will likely include the same RDNA 3.5 graphics we see inside the Ryzen AI 300 series. That would be the Radeon 890M. Let’s explore that.
In the video above, the Radeon 780M is pitted against the Radeon 890M. When both processors are restricted to 20W, the Radeon 890M is up to 37% faster than the Radeon 780M in the Ryzen Z1 Extreme.
Imagine your ROG Ally or Legion GO games running 37% faster. That would be a significant generational upgrade.
The Intel Lunar Lake Story
But then there’s the growing buzz surrounding Intel’s Lunar Lake. Intel claims the Arc Xe2 integrated graphics inside its new processors (which begin launching this month) boast 16% faster performance than AMD’s best, which is currently that Radeon 890M.
MSI has announced that the follow-up to its unsuccessful Claw A1M handheld will adopt Lunar Lake, which should easily its performance above the ROG Ally and Legion GO. (I’ll have a much clearer picture of how Lunar Lake stacks up later this month after hands-on time with the new processors.)
The Sobering Conclusion
I own a Steam Deck OLED, ROG Ally, and Legion GO. Despite it being underpowered, I still enthusiastically reach for my Steam Deck the majority of the time. That’s simply because it feels better in my hands, and the OLED display is superb. But as more unplayable games get released, that enthusiasm is waning.
As far as SteamOS goes, if you crave the smooth and snappy Steam Deck-like interface, you can install Bazzite on your ROG Ally or Legion GO right now. You’ll get a nearly identical software experience, but with more performant hardware. And soon enough you’ll be able to install Steam OS itself on these rival handhelds.
Don’t worry. I can practically guarantee Valve started exploring a Steam Deck 2 even before the original Steam Deck launched in 2022. The runway for console upgrades is lengthy if you want to do it right. You can bet Valve is already prototyping the next generation with various hardware possibilities. Perhaps that monster Ryzen Z2 Extreme? Perhaps another semi-custom solution that once again establishes Steam Deck as the front runner?
Whatever the solution is, the Switch approach won’t save the Steam Deck. What I mean by that is that Nintendo can get away with underpowered hardware because it has a steady stream of exclusives. With Linux under the hood, Valve doesn’t have this luxury. Linux gaming improves by leaps and bounds on a monthly basis, but Valve simply can’t afford to keep existing in last place when it comes to core specs and performance.
What do you think?
