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Steam Deck has the same raw GPU performance per pixel at 800p as the Xbox Series X at 4K resolution
- Thread starter Deleted member 10675
- Start date
- Valve Tech
Do you mean the 64GB model? If so I only see people super picky about the games they like and play getting that one. People who have small libraries, and only play one or two games on the go will probably go for that one. The casual non-hardcore consumers, new to the Steam platform will probably get it too. It is very much an entry level model for non-hardcore consumers new to all this.
Its a handheld whose only port is a USB C, so I dont think you can use external storage in general. Unless you either mean MicroSD or "having it docked at all times and having the dock connected to a external storage".
It only has a USB Type C connector...
My SSD also uses a USB Type C connector. Don't really need thunderbolt to utilize the SSD's rated speed. I hope there's a workaround since I think this would make the Steam Deck a lot more appealing to me.
I mean, then it probably works, just means that you wont be able to charge while playing with the SSD on. Its a PC and the USB C works that way.
I thought there are usb-c hubs with power pass through, like those people use with their macbooks.
You'll probably want to get a small port splitter with power passthrough to charge while using your SSD. But I can't imagine it wouldn't be possible since it's just a PC.
Yes, but you would need to be docked, as I said in my previous post:
"Its a handheld whose only port is a USB C, so I dont think you can use external storage in general. Unless you either mean MicroSD or "having it docked at all times and having the dock connected to a external storage"."
The Cezzane which is the 5000 mobile series APUs works with twin x64 memory controllers and can either use LPDDR4 or DDR4. Van Gogh, which is what the Steam Deck will probably use, is the same thing but is Zen 2 and supports LPDDR5. There is x64 LPDDR5. Valve is probably going to use two of this exact memory chip in order to run a dual channel 128-bit memory bus.
Like I'm not sure where this 32-bit/64-bit argument came from. x64 LPDDR4 and 5 is a common thing.
edit: Here's the topology of Cezanne...
x64 Flexible memory controllers that go to x64 width LPDDR RAM.
So would this be an Octa-Channel LPDDR5 setup?
Yeah. I hope so. I probably can't even get this till next year or so but if the external SSD works well enough, I'll probably save some money and get the 256 GB one.
I am fairly certain you can get a usb-c dongle which has a usb-c port on it to connect your external drive. It's a PC and it is supposed to be just a normal usb-C port, from what they have said so far.
It seems like maybe we need some sort of official confirmation because there seems to be some disagreement on stuff like the bandwidth.
There is this post earlier from me, explaining the situation:The Cezzane which is the 5000 mobile series APUs works with twin x64 memory controllers and can either use LPDDR4 or DDR4. Van Gogh, which is what the Steam Deck will probably use, is the same thing but is Zen 2 and supports LPDDR5. There is x64 LPDDR5. Valve is probably going to use two of this exact memory chip in order to run a dual channel 128-bit memory bus.
Like I'm not sure where this 32-bit/64-bit argument came from. x64 LPDDR4 and 5 is a common thing.
edit: Here's the topology of Cezanne...
x64 Flexible memory controllers that go to x64 width LPDDR RAM.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...at-4k-resolution.457552/page-11#post-69711351
Cezanne and Renoir have 2 Unified Memory Controllers.
Each controller handles either 1x 64-Bit DDR4-Channel or 2x 32-Bit "Virtual" LPDDR4(X)-Channels, it does not control LPDDR4 in 64-Bit granularity:
However, as mentioned in the post I linked, a memory channel is actually 16-Bit wide under LPDDR4, so AMD likely built in a command queue and controller design, which works on 32-Bit granularity instead of 16-Bit (That should also increase the memory transaction size from 32 Bytes to 64 Bytes).
Source: https://www.imec-int.com/en/imec-ma...-in-different-application-domains-an-analysis
Van Gogh on the other hand has 4 Unified Memory Controllers according to AMD's drivers and 4 Memory Channels.
(Source for 4 UMCs, you can open the files simply with the windows text editor:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/j7bpzs/an_update_on_navi_2x_firmware/)
Leaked roadmaps* from AMD claim only LPDDR4/LPDDR5 as supported and the Unified Memory Controller IP version is 10.0, it was 7.6 on Cezanne.
As such AMD likely built a new controller design which follows the LPDDR4/5 standard in a straightforward way and under LPDDR4/5 a memory channel is actually 16-Bit wide.
This checks out with 4 UMCs and a quad-channel configuration, each UMC controls 1x 16-Bit channel and the memory interface is 64-Bit wide in total.
What doesn't check out is Valve's claim about a dual-channel configuration.
One may speculate about a controller design which works with 32-Bit granularity, similar to how it works on Cezanne/Renoir, however that would mean that the Steam Deck is only using 2 UMCs and 64-Bit out of 4 UMCs and 128-Bit.
64-Bit granularity per controller makes no sense, it would mean that Van Gogh would have 256-Bits on die and the access granularity to memory would grow to 128 Bytes, that's larger than a CPU cache line and would impact performance negatively.
My current stance is, that the driver entries for Van Gogh are correct and Valve's claim about a dual-channel configuration is wrong.
I expect a 64-Bit LPDDR5 interface to be either connected to one 64-Bit (4x 16-Bit) LPDDR5 package with 16GB or two 32-Bit (2x 16-Bit) packages, each providing 8GB.
Just to repeat it again with a picture, a memory channel is 16-Bit wide under LPDDR5, a package with x32 or x64 bit is intended to work either as a dual-channel (2x 16-Bit) or quad-channel configuration (4x 16-Bit):
Source (Page 17): https://picture.iczhiku.com/resource/eetop/SyILhHYzAjOHfcnm.pdf
*
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So it's 88gb/s.
I always had faith but it's fantastic to get confirmation. Arguably this should be a new thread, as it's a really significant piece of news.
This device is going to be a major step up over all existing integrated graphics solutions, a genuine 720p powerhouse. Seriously impressive stuff.
Somebody from Steam Deck team was reading this thread.
DukeBlueBall
Unless it's still wrong, otherwise yeah!
4x 32-Bit @ 5.5 Gbps = 88GB/s, that would be pretty beefy and even at the "worst case" with 1.6TF provide more GB/s per GPU TF than on the XSX and PS5.
Just as a reminder:
XSX: 46.09 GB/s per GPU TFLOP
XSS: 55.91 GB/s per GPU TFLOP
PS5: 43.58 GB/s per GPU TFLOP
Steam Deck: 53.72-85.94 GB/s per GPU TF
I'm positively surprised since I was expecting 64-Bit.
With 4x32-Bit they might even use 4x 32-Bit LPDDR5 packages, the Aya Neo with Renoir uses 4x 32-Bit LPDDR4X-4266 memory.
Otherwise it might be 2x64-Bit packages, where each x64 LPDDR5 package runs as a dual-channel.
Another aspect to note, mobile Renoir and Cezanne APUs do clock the CPU, GPU, Fabric and UMC clock adaptively to either provide the best CPU latency or best GPU bandwidth.
It likely also works out for balancing energy consumption.
Now benchmarks have to showcase what clock rates are achieved in practise and how the run time of that device looks like.
From a raw power spec it looks pretty strong.
Unless it's still wrong, otherwise yeah!
4x 32-Bit @ 5.5 Gbps = 88GB/s, that would be pretty beefy and even at the "worst case" with 1.6TF provide more GB/s per GPU TF than on the XSX and PS5.
Just as a reminder:
XSX: 46.09 GB/s per GPU TFLOP
XSS: 55.91 GB/s per GPU TFLOP
PS5: 43.58 GB/s per GPU TFLOP
Steam Deck: 53.72-85.94 GB/s per GPU TF
I'm positively surprised since I was expecting 64-Bit.
With 4x32-Bit they might even use 4x 32-Bit LPDDR5 packages, the Aya Neo with Renoir uses 4x 32-Bit LPDDR4X-4266 memory.
Otherwise it might be 2x64-Bit packages, where each x64 LPDDR5 package runs as a dual-channel.
Another aspect to note, mobile Renoir and Cezanne APUs do clock the CPU, GPU, Fabric and UMC clock adaptively to either provide the best CPU latency or best GPU bandwidth.
It likely also works out for balancing energy consumption.
Now benchmarks have to showcase what clock rates are achieved in practise and how the run time of that device looks like.
From a raw power spec it looks pretty strong.
One of my biggest wishes last year was that someone would release a desktop HTPC with the form factor/power of a Series S. Valve came pretty close, but then they went ahead and turned it into a handheld.
I think this bandwidth per flop is just a technically correct thing that bears no indication of in-game performance. From what you listed, its true that XSS has the best bandwidth per flop of the next-gen consoles, and yet it usually performs worst, in some cases with missing effects than the PS5 and the XSX.
I personally think the Steam Deck will be a very good gaming machine but saying it has better bandwidth per flop is just like the premise of this thread with its better GPU performance per pixel than the XSX. While it's technically true, it doesn't really say much else about how the games will perform.
This thing is still pretty far from a Series S. I would say 1/3 or 1/2 of a S.
Darn, was beat to posting the spec update. Guess it's probably 88 GB/s after all. Pretty beefy, although some of that bandwidth will be taken up by the CPU, right? And it will probably eat a bigger chunk compared to consoles because there isn't as much starting bandwidth compared to consoles? I could have sworn early last gen there was talk about the PS4 CPU using up to 20 GB/s bandwidth.
Well yeah, but it's closer in size to a Switch than a Series S, and it will still be able to play most popular modern PC games.
Valve *could* scale this into a set-top box if they felt there was a market for it. The price/performance just beats out most manufacturers in this space.
So thrilled to read all the fantastic news trickling in. The wait is going to be unbearable once I start seeing hands-on reviews from the first customers getting their units. I now wish I bought the 64GB model as I'll probably swap out the 256GB NVME within the first 3 months lol.
You can still use the Steam Deck as a Desktop computer tho.
I could see Valve returning to the Steam Machine concept. Their approach the first time was flawed but they seem to have learned lessons from that (creating their own device, sorting Linux compatibility issues)
There's probably no reality where this happens but this would be killer in a slightly larger set top box form factor but fanless (or I guess crank up the frequncy a bit and include a bigger HSF).
I'd really like to see what a $500 Valve console would look like. Double all the core specs (CUs, CPU cores, memory bus width) and push clocks to the max (~3.8ghz CPU clocks and ~2.3ghz for the GPU) and you'd have a great little 1080p gaming PC. With the current state of the GPU market, there'd be a huge market for that.
I've been saying this for a while. It's why I've repeatedly said I would have day 1'd the Xbox Series X if MS had allowed Windows to be installed on it. All the good AMD APUs have only ever gone to the console companies. If MS isn't willing to go this route, I hope Valve also releases a 5/3nm SFFPC that can push a high quality AMD APU as far as it can go.
Damn, this thing sounds very imperssive, what i liked about how can be used as desktop pc too, soounds like good for everything. Just wished screen was Oled.
Maybe, I know that Dr. Ian Cutress of Anandtech commented about the ambiguity of the memory specification on his youtube channel TechTechPotato as well. He's been very vocal about how memory specifications are often listed in a way that's not very informative, or straight up misrepresents what you're getting.
Anyway, I'm excited that the overall memory bandwidth is better than we expected! I'm hoping that continued driver level optimization from Valve will allow large longevity for the Steam Deck. It's sad, but I'm already curious what a follow up would look like? It seems that a Zen 3 + RDNA2 small form factor APU, like what's used in the Steam Deck, won't be coming until 2023 based on the leaked roadmaps, so I'm guessing there won't be anything better from Valve until at least then...unless X86 translation layers have a huge revolution in performance for Linux and Windows, and Nvidia makes an insane SoC.
Edit: I'm curious though if Valve pulls a Nintendo and comes out with a more premium model with an more storage and an OLED screen at the end of 2022, if people would sell their Steam Decks and upgrade?
I would buy the game instantly! That's the PERFECT title to play on the Steam Deck!
Thats an unfair comparison. Series S technically performs worse compared to PS5 and Series X but also costs the least and has a significantly lower power footprint. Similarly, Deck is a handheld. In relative terms, thats no slouch.
How? My comparison is not a cost one but a technical one. Read what I wrote. What I said has nothing to do with the cost of the consoles but their technical abilities.
I'm talking about the technical abilities as well. To your point, Series S performs the worse despite having the better bandwidth per flop, which translates to better performance per watt. Steam Deck in a similar manner will squeeze alot more performance than the competing machines with a comparable wattage consumption. If you look at those benchmarks right now, you'll get a good idea of where it lands before we get the actual numbers.
Don't they have an always online check on the PC version or did they get rid of that?
I have no idea. I don't own it. I was hoping it would eventually release on Steam. I haven't heard any news about that either...
I recall seeing that and just checked their website and it specifically says you need one. I guess it's still a thing. Pretty ridiculous stuff.
It is a technically impressive machine, I stated as much in my post but that isn't the point. Performance per watt is impressive but so too is the performance per watt of the XSS. In fact, the Steam Deck and the XSS have a very comparable PPW. But that doesn't define its performance in game. Just as having better performance per pixel, and better bandwidth per flop than the XSX, doesn't mean it will translate to having the same experience but in an 800p res. It doesn't work that way.
None of this is to dismiss what it is. It IS an impressive hardware and, considering the confirmed bandwidth of 88gb/s, it will run current games very well and future games well enough for what it is. I just feel these technical comparisons, as accurate as it might be, doesn't really say much. But I won't comment on this again so as not to detract from the conversation anymore.
From looking at emulator performance on the Aya Neo, it looks like it being 6-core / 6 threads might have hurt it with higher end emulation. I'm wondering how the Steam Deck's 4 core / 8 thread design will do?
I'd go several steps lower and say that my 3400g can run Smash Ultimate 8 players and Astral Chain reasonably well, on Windows, where I have 7gb of RAM doing things in the background
Cemu, RPCS3 and Yuzu/Ryujinx would still be hit&miss a bit, but that's the extend of the bad news. Maybe PCSX2 on Linux is not as optimal as Windows, that too