There are still some serious questions surrounding the Steam Deck's ability to play games of the future, but in all the testing and demos Valve has done, there hasn't been a single game yet that the Deck can't play. In fact, Valve is so confident in the Deck's abilities, it's even recommending it for your next PC upgrade.
"We don't have a strong prediction that a bunch of people are going to choose it as their first PC," Valve designer Greg Coomer told Rock, Paper, Shotgun in a recent interview, "but as a lot of people choose to upgrade their existing PCs, we feel fairly confident that Steam Deck will be a choice that they make."
Fellow Deck designer Lawrence Yang agrees, calling the Deck a "little PC that you can plug stuff into." Yang added that you won't need the dock for the Deck to output to a monitor like a traditional PC does, and the Deck will perform the same whether it's docked or not.
You'll still need a USB-C to HDMI adapter to output in 4K, but Coomer admits that the Deck's performance at higher resolutions "really depends on the game."
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"It's like any other PC in that way where if you push it hard in that direction, there are many games that would start to go way below our target frame rate of even 30fps."
So far, the Deck looks pretty impressive in all the demos we’ve seen, but whether it would make an ideal upgrade depends on what you’re starting from. If you’re looking to upgrade from a rig that’s generations old, say something that was made over five years ago, then the Deck will probably provide a performance boost. But if you’ve got a GTX 1060 right now and you’re looking to ensure your ability to play games of the future, the Deck is less of an appealing prospect as a replacement for your desktop PC.
But if you want a handheld, the Deck is worlds better than the Nintendo Switch in terms of hardware, and it even beats out a lot of gaming laptops too.
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