It’s been a few weeks since the release of the Steam Deck and many players have become familiar with the device. Lately, Valve has been seeking user feedback so that they can continue to work on the system, especially when it comes to gaming.
One of the main selling points is the fact that it is a fully functional PC that can be used on the go, giving it a certain edge in the mobile market. However, one modder wondered what if it could be given the power of a desktop graphics card.
In a video uploaded to YouTube, the ETA PRIME channel decided to see what would happen if the Steam Deck of a better GPU. In this case, a AMD Radeon 6900 XTa card that is almost one and a half times larger than Valve’s own device.
Although this makes the portable console less manageable in the sense that it has to be physically connected to the powerful GPUthe goal was to see if it would have a performance impact.
By connecting via the device’s built-in M.2 and plugging it into a PCI-E dock, the 6900XT it gives a pretty significant boost to the frame rate during gameplay. However, the overall performance is limited by the CPU of the Steam Deckwhich means that it is unable to unleash the full power of the graphics card.
That said, games like The Witcher 3 and GTA 5 show noticeable FPS improvement on 4K outputs. But in games like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077, there doesn’t seem to be much of an increase. But again, this is probably due to the CPU.