Handheld consoles that fell into silence after PSP were revived with the release of Nintendo Switch in 2017. On top of that, with the introduction of the Steam Deck console last year, a new era has begun for people who love to play games regardless of location. Although it has a fierce competitor like a smartphone, we can say that handheld consoles have become extremely widespread by 2022.
Steam Deck continues to come up with interesting events that attract the attention of gamers. Finally, a YouTuber named ETA Prime connected a graphics card to the console and managed to play productions that require powerful hardware such as GTA V, Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring at high FPS.
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is connected to the Steam Deck console
Steam Deck is slightly different from the classic handheld consoles in terms of its technical features and what it offers to users. Because the device, which comes with an X86-based AMD processor and runs a Linux-based operating system called SteamOS, is a game-oriented portable computer rather than a handheld console.
The handheld console, which has also received Windows 10 and 11 support in the past weeks, is the AMD Radeon RX by YouTuber ETA Prime. With the 6900 XT graphics card connected, it almost went through an identity change. The video card was connected to the console via an adapter with an M.2 slot, as there is no Thunderbolt port.
The disadvantage of this process is that the handheld console works with microSD storage. However, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT ran 5 to 10 times faster than the current iGPU. At the same time, it managed to score about 27 thousand points in 3DMark Fire Strike tests and over 15 thousand points from TimeSpy. Of course, let’s also mention that the console has a bottleneck in feeding the video card.
Steam Deck ran 118 FPS in The Witcher 3, 73 FPS in GTA 5, Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 games between 47 and 70 FPS with the external graphics card. On the other hand, let’s add that the console does not open when Nvidia GPUs are installed and only runs AMD cards.
So what do you think about this issue? Do you think Steam Deck can achieve success in the mobile game console space? Do not forget to share your views with us in the comments section or on the SDN Forum.