Steam crashes once Steam Deck pre-orders go live
For many months fans have been hoping that the Nintendo Switch Pro was in development, an improved version of the smash-hit Nintendo handheld console. It turns out that it wasn’t in development, instead, Nintendo announced a regular Nintendo Switch with a slightly better screen. So, yesterday Valve decided to do what Nintendon’t and announce their own handheld gaming device called the Steam Deck. Why Valve went with the name when Elgato’s Stream Deck has been around for a few years we don’t know, but that is what they called it.
The Steam Deck will allow gamers to play their entire Steam library, everything from the smallest of indie titles to the latest AAA releases on a handheld device, powered by AMD’s custom APU Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU.
While it won’t be as powerful as many gamers PCs, for a handheld device it should be more than capable of a solid 720p 30-60fps experience, which is more than adequate for handheld gaming.
Pre-orders went live today at 10 am PDT/6 pm BST, and as expected the store crashed moments after they went live.
Many gamers have been met with similar pages to the image above, as well as having the store crash when trying to process their payment details.
It isn’t clear as to whether pre-orders will sell out, Valve will contact gamers that manage to reserve one in the order that the pre-orders were made, meaning that theoretically, Valve could allow everyone to pre-order, just it might take some gamers longer than others to get their hands on it.
Thankfully, we managed to secure a unit ourselves so will be bringing you an in-depth look at the Steam Deck when they begin shipping towards the end of the year.
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Steam Deck Specs
As mentioned previously, the Steam Deck will feature custom AMD architecture, which should put it in line similar to the previous generation of consoles.
Check out the full specs below.
| CPU | AMD Zen 2 |
| Core count | 4-core/8-thread |
| CPU clock speed | 2.4–3.5GHz |
| GPU | AMD RDNA 2 |
| GPU Compute Units | 8 |
| GPU clock speed | 1–1.6GHz |
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR5 @ 5,500MT/s |
| Storage | 64GB eMMC / 256GB NVMe SSD / 512GB NVMe SSD |
| Display | 7-inch LCD touchscreen |
| Resolution | 1280 x 800 |
| Refresh rate | 60Hz |
| Audio | Stereo speakers, 3.5mm jack, dual mics, USB Type-C/Bluetooth |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB Type-C with DisplayPort 1.4 support |
| Battery | 40Whr |
| Size | 11.7 x 4.6 x 1.8-inch (298 x 117 x 49mm) |
| Weight | Approximately 1.47 lbs (669 grams) |
| Price | $399 (64GB) / $529 (256GB) / $649 (512GB) |
Depending on which model you choose will depends on the storage capabilities, with the cheapest featuring 64GB of eMMC storage, similar to what you see on tablets, and the most expensive will feature a 512GB NVMe SSD.
All Steam Deck consoles will be expandable via SD cards, and will also be able to use third party programs despite running the Steam 3.0 OS, meaning you aren’t just limited to using it for Steam games, it could be used for a whole range of programs and other platforms including emulation.
Check out IGN’s first look preview video on the Steam Deck below, and if you like what you see you can pre-order the console here.
