Steam Deck Portable Console First AMD Van Gogh APU-Powered Device

Specifications of Steam’s latest portable console have finally launched, sparking excitement thanks to the implementation of AMD’s Van Gogh APU. The new portable console will feature the latest Steam OS 3.0 alongside powerful internal hardware, allowing users to access the full Steam gaming experience on a handheld device.

The new Steam Deck will be one of the first devices to showcase AMD’s Van Gogh APU alongside RDNA 2 GPU cores for over 2 TFLOPs of performance power.

Steam Deck Portable Console Specifications

Taking a look at the official specifications list, the AMD Van Gogh APU used is only an entry-level offering – yet still providing more performance than the Sony PlayStation 4. The APU will feature Zen 2 CPU architecture alongside RDNA 2 GPU architecture – said to offer good performance in all AAA gaming titles at a screen resolution limited to 1280 x 800 (in a 16:10 aspect ratio).

Having said that, the new AMD Van Gogh APU will have full access to AMD’s FidelityFX Super resolution, allowing the device to reap the additional performance rewards that come with the technology.

The Steam Deck portable console will feature 4 cores and 8 threads, with an attractive base clock of 2.4 GHz (turbo 3.5GHz). Like all APUs, the GPU is built into the CPU of this device. It will feature AMD RDNA 2 architecture with 8 compute units and a total of 512 stream processors – clocking in at 1600 MHz. The CPU will apparently offer 448 GFlops, whereas the GPU will offer 1.6 TFLOPs of FP32 power – totalling 2 TFLOPs of performance. To put that into perspective, that makes the Stream Deck more powerful than both the original Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.

Complete Spec list:

• Processor: AMD APU
• CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
• GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.0-1.6GHz (up to 1.6 TFlops FP32)
• APU power: 4-15W
• RAM: 16 GB LPDDR5 RAM (5500 MT/s)
• Storage: 64 GB eMMC (PCIe Gen 2 x1)
• 256 GB NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3 x4)
• 512 GB high-speed NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3 x4)
• All models include a high-speed microSD card slot

Steam Deck Pricing

Steam will be releasing three variants of the Steam Deck, each differing on internal storage, memory speed, and additional extras. As you can see from the image above, the base edition will feature a $399 price tag and come equipped with 64GB of internal storage. The medium option will cost $529 and feature 256GB of ‘faster’ storage and a carry case. Finally, we have a 512GB variant that will feature a $649 price tag. It will come with double the storage of the ‘medium’ option, anti-glare glass coating, and a bunch of additional extras.