Valve has employed a rating system, replete with tiers and badges, to indicate how well suited games are to play on the device.Īll of this is to say that we have fewer options to work with than usual for testing, especially if we then want to cross-reference that list with games we have existing test results for, and games that have repeatable built-in benchmark utilities. The device, in theory, can play games from your Steam Library, but not all titles are equally compatible with the Deck. Testing the Steam Deck is certainly more complicated than running simple game benchmarks on a run-of-the-mill laptop. Testing the Steam Deck: Solving for Some Unique Challenges This background is worth reading, as you'll learn a bunch about how the Steam Deck handles games you're used to playing on PCs. Below is a rundown of how we structured the tests, within the confines of obstacles unique to the Steam Deck. To answer these questions, we’ve run a series of in-game benchmark tests using a host of real-world titles, and pitted those results against our existing testing data from our many laptop benchmarks.

But where does it fall on the gaming-capability spectrum compared with a general-use laptop twice its price, or a with budget-priced gaming laptop? Is the Steam Deck a solid alternative to spending more than $1,000 for playable PC-gaming performance? Plenty of benchmark results out there show the general capability of the Steam Deck.

(Also check out our Steam Deck 101 primer.) Now, alongside our full review that's in the works, we’re taking a dive into the hard performance numbers, to see how this device stacks up against existing alternatives. The first shipping samples of the much-anticipated Steam Deck have finally arrived, and we’ve already brought you our initial impressions.

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The steam deck