Thursday, November 9th 2023
Valve Updates the Steam Deck with OLED Display, Overhauled Internals
Valve has announced an updated version of the Steam Deck and the headline feature is the new 7.4-inch OLED display. That's a mere 0.4-inches bigger than the original Steam Deck LCD display and it retains the same 1280 x 800 resolution. However, everything else related to the display has been improved and the refresh rate is now 90 Hz rather than 60 Hz. The display is also a lot brighter, with an SDR rating of 600 nits and an HDR rating of 1000 nits. Valve also claims a 110 percent P3 colour gamut, a one million to one contrast ratio and a sub 0.1 ms response time. On top of that, Valve has added what the company calls "high performance touch" which is said to improve the responsiveness of the display.
It's not just the display that has been improved, as Valve has moved to a 6 nm AMD Zen 2 based SoC which seems to allow the GPU to run at 1.6 GHz at all times, as Valve no longer lists a frequency range for the GPU. The power envelope remains the same though, with a range of 4-15 Watts. Paired with the new SoC is faster LPDDR5 memory at 6400 MT/s, up from 5500 MT/s, which should provide a small boost in gaming performance. An improved cooling solution is also part of the package, which is also likely a reason for the more constant GPU clocks. Gone are the entry level storage SKUs and the OLED version of the Steam Deck only comes with 512 GB or 1 TB of internal storage. The WiFi and Bluetooth module has also been overhauled and now supports WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The battery has also been boosted from a 40 Whr pack to a 50 Whr pack and Valve now claims three to 12 hours of battery life during gaming, as well as faster charging times. Finally the weight has dropped by 29 grams, which might not be much, but still impressive considering the larger battery pack. The downside you ask? That would be the price, as Valve is asking for US$549/€569 for the 512 GB version, with the 1 TB coming at US$649/€679 when it becomes available on the 16th of November.
Source:
Valve
It's not just the display that has been improved, as Valve has moved to a 6 nm AMD Zen 2 based SoC which seems to allow the GPU to run at 1.6 GHz at all times, as Valve no longer lists a frequency range for the GPU. The power envelope remains the same though, with a range of 4-15 Watts. Paired with the new SoC is faster LPDDR5 memory at 6400 MT/s, up from 5500 MT/s, which should provide a small boost in gaming performance. An improved cooling solution is also part of the package, which is also likely a reason for the more constant GPU clocks. Gone are the entry level storage SKUs and the OLED version of the Steam Deck only comes with 512 GB or 1 TB of internal storage. The WiFi and Bluetooth module has also been overhauled and now supports WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The battery has also been boosted from a 40 Whr pack to a 50 Whr pack and Valve now claims three to 12 hours of battery life during gaming, as well as faster charging times. Finally the weight has dropped by 29 grams, which might not be much, but still impressive considering the larger battery pack. The downside you ask? That would be the price, as Valve is asking for US$549/€569 for the 512 GB version, with the 1 TB coming at US$649/€679 when it becomes available on the 16th of November.
124 Comments on Valve Updates the Steam Deck with OLED Display, Overhauled Internals
And I would assume they are thinking we would rather do all that for the Deck 2 which may come with Zen 5/6 APU.
*cant be said on here
Playing Warhammer Darktide in 1080p 60hz due to swapping out the ROG ALLY’s ram with not only 32GB of RAM but FASTER RAM at 7500mt/s. May be not at 12 watts but the fact that it’s doable is impressive. Next upgrade I’m gonna do is put in a bigger battery to compensate that horrible battery life.
Cute OLED screen tho and 90hz is neat! Too bad AYANEO already did that(minus the 90hz) so it’s not that impressive but good to Valve CATCH UP.
generally this feels like what Steam Deck was supposed to be (how i wanted it) ...
next refresh would be nice with Zen 4 and RDNA 3, bit sad it isn't already , but that shall come up with at least 1080p or better 1440p screen :D
Also i'd use it with Windows instead.
waiting is good. I told myself the gold words of Magneto (X-Men) when he said once:
In Chess,the Pawns go first
AnthonyEmily) talked to Valve about hall-effect sensors and was told that Valve had reliability concerns, which makes perfect sense. You likely be able to upgrade them to hall effect modules yourself once they hit the market and the default sticks are both decent and easy to replace like-for-like, based on Valve's current track record.I can believe Valve though, since Hall-effect sensors are quite complex, requiring microcontrollers and many more parts each of which is prone to failure and when mass-produced down to a price rather than built up to a quality, could easily be an RMA nightmare for Valve.
Regular analogue sensors are just super-simple potentiometers. They are a single two-piece component with one moving part. They may have a finite lifespan, but that lifespan is pretty decent and the metrics for reliability per cost are likely very difficult to beat. I'm not saying they're perfect, but I have used 25-year-old PS2 dual-shock controllers that still work fine, thanks to voltage drift being something that's easy to measure and automatically recalibrate. The deadzones might be a bit larger but they're still passable to provide enough analogue control to distinguish between creep/walk/run/sprint and it's a gamepad, not a life-or-death keyhole surgery controller :D
I am happy it's there at all, as it means valve is likely to look more into it and make sure it's good
OK, you want to keep the pricing the same. But how much more would a VRR screen have cost? $50 each? Well worth the cost. The Deck absolutely needs it for any game that's not indie or older.
That being said, I still love my Steam Deck. VRR OLED would have made me actually upgrade.
And 1280x800 is fine for the screen size. For older or indie games that are absolutely not demanding ... under a game's settings in the Steam Deck, you can chose the "native resolution" of any game. So in essence, you have built in SSAA. I use it and it significantly reduces or eliminates jaggies.
Hence, the valid question - is the screen is prone to the burn-in at the same scale as TV's and monitors? If no, than this is the reason of "delay" for OLED Steam Deck. Since Valve might be experimenting until they got truly reliable result. This might explain, why they hold the "refresh/facelift" of OLED screen to pair it with the die shrink. The fact that they discontinue "lower" LCD variants, might be a sign of their confidence. But let's see how it goes over time.
Another great thing is, that Valve actually discounts the older version, instead of stacking they newer ones with prices above current (looking you , the "green" company). And I consider such handheld devices, much more complex, than slapping the GPU and some memory over existing PCB and fat-ass previous gen cooler surplus.
The only concern, is that it missing the huge chunk of market. Especially in countries with low income, where this device could be a great alternative to existing low-end desktops, which are hugely abundant.
Thus ˅˅˅
Yet people buy Stem Decks illegally from other countries, as much as using the "workarounds" to get the unavailable games on their lists. And this seems completely fine for Valve.
Once Valve singlehandedly reduced piracy to zero, and now doing otherwise with stupid restrictions.
Overall though, I’d say the Steam Deck still provides a good value even considering the new OLED version it just could have been a better value.
I guess we should be thankful that the Steam Deck even has serviceable parts. In todays day and age, pulling an Apple would mean everything is integrated into one proprietary chip with no storage upgrade option at all.
I personally wouldn't play heavy games like Elden Ring or Cyberpunk on my Deck. I have a nice desktop. That doesn't stop hundreds of thousands of other gamers.
Valve chose a custom APU that is specially tuned to perform better at low power. If you look at benchmarks comparing the Deck to the Z1 and Z1 extreme, the Deck performs definitively better at 10w and below. It isn't until you get to 15w where the Z1 begins to perform better in some games.
Now, one of the best things about the deck was the value of the base model, and that one has now became a worse choice, went from 64 GB to 256 GB and that's about it, still the first LCD model, still the same price 2 years later, and will not be discontinued