News hardware Running games in 4K with the Steam Deck is possible… but you have to be a handyman
A tech Youtuber who will stop at nothing has challenged himself to boost the power of the Steam Deck as much as possible. His solution: add a desktop PC graphics card to Valve’s portable console, which is then no longer truly portable. But the results are there!
With the Steam Deck, Valve has achieved the feat of offering a portable console capable of running Elden Ring, Dying Light 2 or even Resident Evil Village at more than 30 FPS, all in a format that fits in a small bag. A small miracle made possible by the presence of an AMD Zen 2 processor, a GPU under RNDA2 architecture… and above all a definition limited to 1280×800 pixels.
The hack of the extreme
But what if you really want to play in 4K? The YouTube channel ETA Prime decided to take the problem head on and simply decided to add a Radeon RX 6900XT graphics card to the Steam Deck. A hazardous assembly, but possible, which involves connecting the GPU to the M/2 port of the console and using a power supply to run the whole thing. So yes, we see you coming: “but what use can it be”? As ETA PRIME says in its video “We do it because it’s possible”.
The Steam Deck becomes an overpowered gaming PC
The Youtuber also specifies that he was unable to connect a graphics card from Nvidia, but that the Radeon RX 6900XT works correctly. As a reminder, this is currently the most high-end card from AMD, a GPU dedicated to 4K video games and 3D creation.
However, it is necessary to take into account the “bottleneck”, ie the fact that a processor with limited power will curb the performance of the graphics card and therefore reduce the level of performance in game. In the case of this Steam “Pimped” deck, we clearly feel the limit on recent games, which must also rely on a good processor to run at full speed. Thus, if it is possible to play The Witcher 3 or GTA V at more than 60 FPS in 4K, Elden Ring or Cyberpunk 2077 will be more capricious and will have to be limited to 1080p to exceed 60 FPS.
So yes, the “CPU/GPU” balance here is completely unreasonable and the editing is of little interest in the medium term. But it’s also a way to show how flexible and modular the Steam Deck can be. While waiting to have a “Steam Deck 4” with an integrated 4K screen and an overpowered mobile GPU, we will have to be content with that!
By JiikaaJournalist jeuxvideo.com
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