Check out our Lenovo Legion Go review! th-cam.com/video/I37mxlDqLrk/w-d-xo.html If you want data of the Deck vs. Ally at different power levels, you can find our original review at this link. It hasn't changed in the relative/comparative sense: th-cam.com/video/Na1y7DyDe2w/w-d-xo.html Watch our Steam Deck OLED tear-down! th-cam.com/video/9jhRh11bTRA/w-d-xo.html This testing is expensive to conduct and takes sometimes weeks of work just to complete testing, if not months at times. Help support our efforts to provide extremely detailed reviews by heading over to the store and buying something useful that helps us at the same time! Like on of our large PC building anti-static modmats! store.gamersnexus.net/products/large-modmat-gn15-anniversary Consider also our 3D coaster packs with a unique PC part theme: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-drink-debug-coaster-pack-4-custom-3d-coasters-100x100mm-4x4 Or get a super comfortable heather T-shirt with a memory module diagram: store.gamersnexus.net/products/disappointment-pc-2023-heather Or you can grab a soldering & project mat: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-project-soldering-mat Watch our ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme review: th-cam.com/video/Na1y7DyDe2w/w-d-xo.html And our ASUS ROG Ally Z1 non-Extreme review: th-cam.com/video/Lg624-NHqcw/w-d-xo.html
hey do you have testing with FreeSync on the ally? I mean wouldn't that be a reason you would even consider the rog ally that and the landscape display ?
Hey Steve, Got a question for you, Which would you Buy, The Be Quiet 360 AIO or the Liquid Freezer III? And What are the Temp Differences, The only thing that stuck out at me for the BeQuiets, Pure Loops are the Regular Fans and The Be Quiet Silent are the Silent Wing Fans??? Maybe you could do a Review and Comparison? Lastly, Can you get by with a Good Air Cool when Undervolting a 5800X or X#D when under volting to keep Pwr draw down? Cheers. R.M.
The OLED does clip the highlights in HDR mode when going above 75% on the brightness slider, so maybe there's some software oddities causing the crashes in the battery tests.
Please do a review on the Framework 16. Notebooks might not be your usual thing, but whom else shall we trust in judging if quality in notebooks is back with this?
"Competition." This was Valve's plan all along- They wanted a flashpoint where handheld PCs would become a thing. Why? Because now you can buy more STEAM games to play on the go. They played it smart, and they're reaping the rewards.
Exactly. Simple and effective, they did handheld RIGHT and marketed it better than anyone, because other similar devices have existed before the deck but none of them had the marketing or the price down, on top of having some annoying problems. Steam came in with a better package, dedicated OS, and half the price of the competition.
Absolutely! Valve is selling products yes, but they're also making a market. Competition is good for everyone..especially the person who owns the main service those products use regardless of the platform.
@@mortal465 As much as I think Valve got a massive W here, I don't think this affects Nintendo at all. These handheld PCs are still PCs. If I'm a regular dude who wants to play Nintendo games and doesn't know how or doesn't want to tinker to make stuff work, I'm not gonna buy a Deck or an ROG Ally instead of a Switch.
Haha, we appreciate that you notice! This one was tough since it had so many different kinds of tests. Adding latency, thermals, and acoustics is a lot more work for us than more game charts!
@@GamersNexus next long 35min+ you should cut in the old movie refreshments cartoon. With the candy, soda and popcorn "let's all go to the lobby. To get ourselves a treat!". -- officially known as Technicolor Refreshment Trailer No. 1--- There is an actual intermission specific cartoon, drive-ins played, but it's like 10min long 😜
Yeah, I got the Deck OLED and think it's the best current option. It's so nice not having Windows. I'm hoping the Deck 2 when it comes out has USB5 egpu support.
I tell people all the time that if they are wondering what Valve is actually doing, it's being an OS developer. Linux is now a viable OS for PC gaming and the Steam Deck is pretty much a perfect "demo" platform for Proton OS
@@trickm0nkey I'd argue the Steam Deck is kinda (almost) a perfect entry now for anybody to PC gaming if you're already a console gamer. All you need to do is sign into an account, buy the game and install. I know it's not (yet) as streamlined as a console, but for a PC it is by far the best point of entry.
I thought Steam Deck OLED was a bit of a BS money grab upgrade. Then I bought one and it’s fucking brilliant. I’ve had mine for about three weeks and still, every so often I look at it, smile to myself that it’s just so brilliant. It just goes to show that an intelligently, well made and use friendly product is better than just going “MAX POWER” regardless of anything else.
I really cant see how you would think it was a money grab upgrade when they dropped LCD price and kept OLED at that price. It's not Valve's fault that gamers have hella FOMO...
Bro i've put aside some money for a hand held console and i can't come to a decision between rog and steam deck oled just because i can't play games outside the steam library without doing some over the top adjustments. Im not a hardcore gamer by any means but i would like to jump on COD every now and then , then switch to BG3 later on lol
yeah that's what people who never had OLED would say lol. It just perfects it. My first reservation on the Deck, when it launched, was the obviously lame display. I could tell it was very lacking just by seeing it through videos. Cameras don't capture what the eyes can see, they say, but in this case it sure did. Just look the more recent comparisons, one is brilliant through the lens, the other looks like a chinese toy screen.
At least for me there's one more big advantage of the Steam Deck compared to the Ally: The trackpads. I know many players more or less ignore them on the Deck, but I think they're a godsent and make so many more titles playable on the go, particularly strategy and simulation games through mouse input or custom menus to access extra key bindings.
Not just for desktop mode and strategy games. Set the right pad to "As Mouse", raise the horizontal sensitivity (lower the vertical scale) and in many people's experience (including mine) you get control far superior to stick, especially without aim assist.Trackpad + gyro on the Deck feels extremely mouselike once you get used to it.
It's actually crazy how Valve was just like "fuck it" and released a very good handheld PC that's still pretty competitive with newer competitors 2 years later, just with some minor upgrades
It's a very Valve thing to do, we're just lucky we're getting more than just the 1st steam deck, Typically they drop something amazing then disappear never to be seen in that market again
They legitimized this market. 2 years ago everyone was debating if it made sense. Now there's a ton of both less powerful and more powerful devices. I think the value proposition of the steam deck still makes it king for many. I think it has also propelled the market of handheld emulation. Products like the retroid pocket 4 pro are less powerful and smaller, but cross some of the same market segment while Ayaneo basically makes roided up handheld PCs for 2-3x the price of a deck.
For me the problem with the Ally and other "high-end" handhelds is that they don't really have anything you would want a handheld for, they're essentially bound to a charging port because of the extra power and that extra power isn't used for a majority of games on Steam... if anything to compete with the deck one of the less powerful options would make a better handheld imo. Like one of the gameboy knock-offs.
@@XrayTheMyth23 yeah u can really tell a lot of these competitors do not understand handheld gaming at all and they're just tryna cash in on big impressive looking numbers without understanding what makes handheld good, and if my handheld can barely last an hour on it's "full power" mode what's the point? But on the other hand i can see something like the Asus one being a desktop replacement for relatively cheap that u hookup to some peripherals maybe, so who knows
You have to consider that Valve is not only building an amazing device to play games on, but also has helped improving the software behind it so much, helping the entire Linux community. Even if Steam Deck had a much poorer performance, I'd still buy it just for that fact.
I bought one bc it seemed like the more polished device on the market as far as handheld computers and now that I have my hands on it that viewpoint was confirmed it’s easily the best bit of tech I’ve ever owned
Mostly unrelated to this video, but I really want a "bigger number better" shirt. It's become one of my favorite quips/sayings over the past few months.
8:19 This must be the flattest frame time graph in GN benchmarking history. Steam Deck is the first gaming device I've ever had where you can run every game with no tearing and V-Sync off.
yeah, I would say that turning off VSync in the settings of the games will always give you a far better experience because it eliminates so much input latency. There are far better tools for syncing games to refresh rates on Linux. To a point that they make even 30fps somewhat tolerable
@@matthias6933 Woah woah woah I wouln't go as far as to run games at 30fps. 45fps though? th-cam.com/video/LkrV6VlGPIE/w-d-xo.html Steamdeck OLED actually gets less input lag at 45fps than at 50fps so that's my lowest acceptable framerate. I haven't played Elden Ring on the Deck yet though so that game might break my standards, we'll see. (Most performance reviews are very close to 40fps at lowest graphics, I might actually bump down the resolution for this one if it can lock to 45fps.)
Oddly, disabling vsync on my steam deck in the first descendant causes latency spikes when running in circles in Albion. Keeping it on keeps the frame rate consistent.
@@richardyao9012 On Steamdeck you're supposed to set the screen refresh rate per-game to something just below the average framerate, this way the system is almost never running fully saturated and you get the most consistent frametimes.
@@richardyao9012 It's important to specify, you don't want to use "vsync" which buffers frames and causes input lag. Best performance is always with the system level framerate cap, which does not buffer frames and just paces the game engine rendering.
Ive used my (upgraded) 64gb lcd deck as a pc for months now and it is seriously one of the best values on the market The fact that you can get the 256gb for that now is fucking insane.
Excellent breakdown, makes me very happy with my OLED. Also love the UI for your graphs having reverse loading bars along the side to indicate when the graph will change, -very- nice touch!
I knew I wouldn't end up using it much but for $400 I'm really happy to support the start of this arms race for an incredibly cool form factor of pc's. Never thought so many companies would make competitors so fast.
Try using the deck for emulation. It hits a perfect performance point where it can pretty much seamlessly emulate up to PS2 and GC. There are now many dedicated emulation devices like the retroid pocket 4 pro or the Ayn Odin 2, but the steamdeck is overbuilt for it performance wise.
@@dogboy0912the thing is i dont have much usecase. I have a gaming PC with a nice big screen and a comfy chair. When im outside, i do other stuff than gaming. I think this product is more for people who have limited access to their main rig because of work distance, family, etc..
@@dogboy0912 Though for some more serious emulation for example PS3 with RPCS3, the Steam Deck unfortunately lacks a lot of CPU potential compared to the Z1 Extreme handhelds, unfortunately.
The better framerates from the OLED version can also be from the APU itself. Using a smaller manufacturing node makes is use less energy. Which, in some scenarios, means it can reach higher clock rates. That is, at, say 12W, the 7nm one in the LCD version might run at 2.8GHz, while the 6nm one in the OLED might, at the same 12W, go to 3.1GHz.
The other thing is the Steam Deck thermal throttles like absolute hell, (another factor to why undervolting is so good here) so the OLED running cooler means it can maintain higher clocks for longer
This has nothing to do with the Deck or the content of the video, but Valve's Chicony charger reminded me that the keyboard for the very first PC I ever built all the way back in 2003 was a Chicony membrane keyboard I paid like $10 USD for. It lasted fifteen years before keystrokes on some keys stopped registering and I had to replace it. I tried to replace it with another Chicony, assuming I'd get another fifteen years of service out of it, but by that time, they were selling for like $40 USD.
The Steam Deck OLED is an INCREDIBLE starting place for designing the Steam Deck 2... tbh, as long as Valve keeps making Steam Decks every 2-3 years, I don't think I will be bothering with literally any other gaming hardware... its replaced my Xbox, Playstation, Switch and gaming PC and I haven't been happier.
Had my steam deck oled for less than a week now and I love this thing I’ve got most of the games I play on a daily basis in one spot now and it’s fantastic it has indeed replaced my Xbox as well as my switch lite as my new daily driver
@@Talon18136I would say it great but so many faults like fps and free will to play any game but you can’t play any game on the deck cause the dumbass anticheat shit which pisses me off cause I like to play rainbow siege or rust or just other popular games
As a long term Linux user, and owner of both an LCD and OLED steam deck, I will say... I actually just use it like any handheld console and forget the device is even running Linux. It just works most of the time. Especially great on my daily commute / lunch break, just put it to sleep and continue later or the next day. I really expected me to be tweaking with undervolts, different Linux distro's and so forth, but that is not how I use it at all.
Absolutely, it's been seamless since I got a deck v1 about a month ago from a friend, the only time I've dropped into desktop mode has been during initial setup to get emulators, chiaki4deck, and heroic launcher for gog games up and running If you don't need those things then you will literally never have to use desktop mode or see a terminal window, which seems like an odd thing to praise it for, but that kind of thing makes the barrier to entry basically zero for newcomers to Linux and that's hugely important After I got those set up I've spent the entirety of my time with the deck in game mode and it has been perfect, Valve has nailed the UX with the deck
I've absently left games like Fallout New Vegas on pause for days or weeks while doing other stuff on my main (Garuda Linux converted) desktop PC, and the game is still ready to go instantly, meanwhile on Windows I had games crash if it went into automatic sleep mode for even a moment
The battery improvements on the OLED Deck are no joke. I knew it was better, but I didn't realize just how much better until I got one and used it for a few days. If I set the frame cap to 30 fps, I can play Valheim for over four hours before I have to even think about plugging in the OLED Deck. The screen is great, but the battery improvements actually changed how I use it since I'm not worried about always being near the charger anymore.
Even the LCD got massive "upgrade" to battery life with all of the updates to driver, kernel and compatibility layer. Like all 2D games I play can be played for longer than I can play without hurting myself xD
The explosion of portable consoles has been fascinating to watch. It's interesting what you can get away with with integrated graphics these days. It's almost ridiculous that the old steam deck is something you can find for 200 bucks.
Well, both PS5 and Xbox Series also use AMD integrated graphics. AMD has done a great job with their chips for sure. One advantage for ROG Ally is that it also has better support for FSR 3 because of the RDNA 3 graphics, official drivers are not out from Asus yet, but people have been testing with the AMD drivers.
I picked up an ROG Ally open box from best buy for $500. No regrets! I'm just thrilled there are so many good PC handheld options and a bright looking future for them
@@lino100x100 Definitely not, my micro sd was hotter in the deck than it is in the ally with it literally burning me to have it touch any skin inside the deck. At any rate, the Ally supports a 2280 mod where the deck does not so getting double or triple the maximum storage capacity AND performance of the deck for less money is fully possible, to say nothing of how absurd the gaming performance gains are in a 25w profile on a case by case basis.
I am with you; I like that there is choice. Although all of these "gamer only" fans can't imagine why they'd dock other than to play more games on a big screen. I use my docked Ally to live, like it's my main PC now too, my wife uses the other. We play things like Age4 over the network. This Windows 11 PC does everything and has power to run games well on my touch monitor. If that rare time happens that I need to extend play for 3+ hours out of the house, I carry a battery pack. Linux on the desktop is less user friendly than the Armoury Crate or XBox App ever was. I'm tired of PC gamers complaining about launching a game on Windows only to lock themselves into Steam, meanwhile jumping through complicated hoops to play Gamepass and run Linux etc. For a person like me you get more options with a Windows based handheld.
Most reviews of the Z1 are never done with Chimera OS, but that really is the secret sauce. It makes the Ally a nearly identical software experience to that of the deck with almost no missing features, right down to the ultra specific TDP sliders, the instant pause and resume, the CPU governors that valve likes to use giving the impression that Steam Decks have some sort of black magic, and the console-like OS. I run that on my Ally now because that was the thing I missed most from the steam deck, so now I quite literally have the best of both worlds with a high vitality device that has variable refresh rate and more performance than I could ever dream of getting from my measly deck (6GB of VRAM and 25w TDP really help with that). Windows was what held the Ally back.
Aside from what the above user said, the ally for some reason runs hotter on other systems and there are also bugs being ironed out by bazzite for example. You're essentially switching better ui for more temp. Just use handheld companion on windows, while not quite the same it provides enough ease of use imo.
Best of both? Still has worse thermals, worse battery, worse screen display (despite higher resolution), worse ergonomics, and cooks sd cards. The Ally in its current form will never be a better all-around machine. It's just better in specific use cases or for pure power - which is fine. Just wish Ally fans wouldn't gloss over its significant flaws so easily.
@g9cw It's quieter than the deck by a landslide (even the OLED), it has equal battery to the old deck and produces more frames per watt at 15w than the new deck still, VRR and LFC makes the display a toss up at best (but still likely in favor of the Ally given that neither hits 90hz+ across an entire game suite), ergonomics is the first fair point you've made but there are cases and grips to solve that, and the SD in my deck got FAR hotter where it would burn me whenever I accidentally touched it (the issue is only with the port), and the speakers blow the deck out of the water (0 contest, the decks speakers are dookie comparatively). I've owned both, the Ally is equal or better across every measurable metric excluding power constrained scenarios and ergonomics. The deck really just doesn't have a lot going for it other than its software, they needed to go all in on an SoC update if they were going to change it at all but they fumbled that.
I've been watching Gamer Nexus for a while, but I never subscribed until now. The reason I decided to subscribe was because of the mentioned acoustics. I've been a benefactor of this channel's diligent work for some time, and to know that they spent that much on a room just to measure sound, I feel like it's the least I can do (Jesus Christ). I'm also very happy that they're getting into the latency measurements. What you guys do is appreciated🙏🙏
Just bought a steam deck even though i own a top of the line gaming PC. I legit game more now. It's just so fun to play games on the thing i can't explain it.
I love my steam deck OLED. I haven’t used my PC in a month now. A few games I used to play that I haven’t been able to but broke out some of the older games I loved and haven’t played in a few years and they run amazing. Locked at 60 fps high graphics in MCC, only game that’s been annoying is BL2, something in its online connection is super slow and cuts out from time to time and crashes the game. BL1 and Pre-Sequel run flawlessly, haven’t booted BL3 yet. Other games have worked but games like timberborn and factorio that need a mouse get annoying fast trying to use the track pad. It’s good for short use but after half an hour my thumb starts to cramp
Yeah, I do that all the time. One of the best parts of the steam deck. Only had one game that doesn’t pick right back up after going to sleep, but everything else has been great!
I don't have kids myself, but I remember as a teenager carrying my GameBoy Advance everywhere and doing exactly that. Many games were designed with that in mind.
@@sodvar5047 So is the PSP. Sony trying to get back into the game again with leaks of Vita 2 makes sense when looking at the cash cow of Switch has been.
What I love about Steam Deck is that it runs an opensource and lean and privacy respecting GNU/Linux OS, and none of that bloated spyware from Miicrosoft. And it is nice how it by default functions like a real console a la Playstation and then you can switch to a powerful proper desktop environment provided by KDE Plasma. Simply amazing and it is about time we see MS OS monopoly broken. Hopefully Steam Deck can help with that.
Nah Windows 11 blows SteamOS out of the water, sure it is not as optimized nor offers a console-like simplicity but the FULL compatibility with everything is a huge selling point for the Ally.
The increased performance of the Steam Deck OLED vs the LCD version is impressive, but what really amazes me is the improved thermal performance while simultaniously increasing battery life and capacity. Those changes they made really make it a much better device overall in spite of the fact most of the processing hardware remains identical.
Which vent smells the best? I've had my Steam Deck LCD for 5 months. At first the vent smelled excellent. Recently it doesn't smell great anymore. Just kind of bland hot air
My LCD had a notable decline in the quality of its exhaust after a few months, but after owning it for over a year it seems to have settled into a nice place. Don't despair yet
this review makes me really happy with my LCD steamdeck! it's still competitive despite not being on "the latest hardware" and it's just all-around an awesome addition to my games-on-the-go options
I'm impressed by how comparable even the Deck LCD still is. Definitely excited for when true 2nd gen handhelds start coming out, but for now my Deck LCD is doing just fine!
I been saying this for awhile the steam deck holds its own against the newer chips, gives Better battery, better experience with steam os, no reason to spend more when the deck oled performs as well as it does. Yes 25 watts on the z1 extreme will give you more, but the point of a handheld (for me) is to play away from the wall with decent battery life, steam deck the only one that provides this.
This precise concern is what allows me only one option. Fortunately, it seems to default to the better one, especially considering the additional track pads. I'm glad I'm not alone.
I much prefer the asymmetrical buttons and sticks on a regular controller it feels natural but on a handheld it’s hurts the hands on the deck it’s so easy to reach all of the buttons with very little movement it just sits perfectly in the hand
@@Talon18136 i have used both a xbox and ps controller and the chunky asymmetrical design of the xbox controller was so unatural to me it gave me the impression it was a first time gamer.
Well, the Ally does offer better performance if you crank it up a little bit. And there's some newer AAA games that don't really work on the Deck, while working pretty good on the Ally. Asus has luckily updated the software with a bunch of tweaking possibilites as well, options to turn off cpu overclock (battery savings), changing dedicated vram, adjusting the performance/wattage on the fly. 18w mode is pretty nice. And running it in 900p mode is a pretty good compromise between 720p and 1080p. That being said, I think the Deck is the "indie king" for sure. But for anyone also planning to sometimes use the device docked at home, I think the Ally is the better option. At least if you use Gamepass, Epic games and so on.
Something I haven't seen gaming sites do is directly compare the OS' effect on performance. On my desktop system, I dual boot Win 11 and Holo OS. Without raytracing, Holo OS is way faster compared to Windows w/o raytracing. Raytracing flips the results in the other direction. Valve really needs to make a current release of their Steam OS. With this info, im sure more people would try it.
I got a Z1 extreme for 450 brand new. It’s my daily driver with a dock. I watch benchmarks on the steam deck knowing I will do like 20% better if not more. But any of these handlehelds even legion go is worth it for sure.
One of us, one of us, one of us,... Good job as always, Steve! Such an incredible device. Nearly all decisions Valve took for the OLED mid-gen refresh proved really clever. Even the 90Hz panel, because 45FPS at 90Hz is no joke.
Suggestion: input delay tests with fighting games. Precise frame data for attacks are always available for games like Street Fighter and Guilty Gear, They're also games that are very commonly played in these handheld from my experience as LeagueOps. If a player doesn't have a gaming laptop, they definitely carry a Deck with them. Would love to see comparisons between the handhelds so higher level fighting game players and tournament organisers looking to scale up their tournaments can have better insight!
I think one of the most overlooked aspects of the Ally is how it is actually closer to being a Surface than a Switch. It functions pretty well as a tablet along from giving you comprable gaming performance
I have the Ally and I love it. If I had chosen the Oled Deck I would have loved it. If I would have chosen the Legion Go I would have loved it. All these came around at the perfect time when my 4 year old jacked my Switch from me. It belongs to him now. My Steam library has since grown.
I disagree abour the weight reduction not being that meaningful, i took it out of the box and the weight loss was actually noticeable. I asked my boss to lift both and he also said it is noticeable. So I'd say, albeit anecdotally, it is meaningful.
Yeah I was wondering that, I've seen countless reviews say that even thought the weight reduction is small, the difference is quite noticeable when holding it, and I suspect it's because of how Valve have rebalanced the components inside the unit so it gives a better balance and feels lighter when holding it. But yeah, I agree with you, it feels lighter than the weight suggest.
The Deck may have less power on paper but it's clearly using the Gunpei Yokoi philosophy of using less power to maximize battery life. And much like the Yokoi's Game Boy, it's clearly working quite well for the Deck.
During battery testing, could you swich from capping screen brighness at 50 percent to something better comparable? E.g. setting it to 250nits since screens differ in brightness?
I researched practically all the handhelds for months, but for my non traveling, just around the house, handheld "need" I landed on the below setup. It weighs less, has longer battery life, cheap as chips excluding the host system, its silent, and doesn't require lowered settings. $50 10" tablet $20 BSP D8 Sunshine/Moonlight
@@GamersNexus I very nearly did the same on mine when replacing the backplate. It's so easy to forget even if you'd opened them before. I made it my first thing on the to-do list before touching a single screw.
Yeah, and this is with emulation for windows binaries, Just imagine how much even better it could be ig gamedev companies made just as well optimised native GNU/Linux binaries.
Having used both for a fair amount of time, I've found it just comes down to what OS you want to use. I went with Ally so I can install different launchers, use game pass etc. Sure, you can do that with Deck but I'm not one to tinker.
This is such a good review! Excellent work, GN team, you've really knocked it out of the park and are continuing to show the review and benchmarking industry what good data driven reviews actually look like. Keep it up ❤❤❤
Everything else aside, the Steam Deck is the only one to put the Dpad in the correct spot. Having to reach for it in any game you want digital over analog controls is not acceptable and makes the other devices wholly unsuited to gaming that uses it.
Beyond the battery and other minor benefits, the one reason I'm absolutely buying a Steam Deck over these other devices is I hate asymmetrical controls, they make no sense to me. Since EVERY SINGLE device besides the Deck is using the ugly design, they simply don't get my money... well, that and just being generally sick of the BS MS pulls with Windows.
Yeh I ditched my steam deck for an Ally last year and haven’t looked back. I play plugged into the wall and never used it off battery so I’m happy with the Ally. The oled is a really good choice if you’re playing off battery.
Valve has done such an amazing job with the Deck. I'll stick with my LCD version but am super excited about a second gen Deck. I hope the community or even valve themselves are able to expand compatibility because i still play my Ally more since I can play games from other stores natively on it.
Man I seriously love the work you guys do to present real scientific data. This just made me feel so much more confident about my Deck OLED purchase yesterday. Can’t wait for my unit to arrive!
I've been rocking my Legion Go and I love it. When not mobile I have it setup with a 4070 Super and a 144hz 1440p monitor. Its pretty impressive what its able to do.
@likobeatshodge9800 The gpu has an enclosure. I'm using a razer core x. The ally can, but the deck can't. The device needs to support thunderbolt 3 or higher I believe. So, a thunderbolt cable goes from my legion go to the razer egpu enclosure. From there, a displayport cable connects to my monitor. The enclosure has a psu that powers the gpu and the go.
I own 2 steam decks and 2 ally's 1 is the extreme version. I can only really comment on VERY MODDED cyberpunk 2077 game play as that is what I play. But the build quality is WAY better on the steam decks and they come with a case and community with tons of support, I can not stress this enough steam decks are comfortable. The ally is the polar opposite. Build quality seems to be about half what the steam deck is. No support, no customer service, no warranty and the SD card slot is known bad and they sell it defective without a sticker on the box or discount. It's white with RGB so bought it for my wife. I bought the extreme and it goes like stink, 900p modded ray tracing modded dlss, my in game is about 40fps. stays about 40 dips to high 20s when loading for a few seconds here and there but 40 pretty much all day. I would say the extreme is about 3 times as fast as the steam deck when pushed to it's absolute limits on wall power. Yet off wall power it's just a very uncomfortable janky steam deck the makes your hands go numb.
Valve was smart to go with battery life and screen focus for the OLED. I have a PC to play cutting-edge games on. But there are literally thousands of games I'd like to play (at work during downtimes, on a plane, etc) and last-gen performance is definitely all I need for that. In those settings having a nice experience with ergo, display size and quality, and battery life is paramount. It was Nexus' teardown that convinced me to buy in and I've been chipping away at my backlog ever since.
I know that you guys did some of this for long term testing but I like the head canon that you all just started playing games on the Deck and forgot to do the followup for a few months.
This is such a small thing, but I really like the blue bars on each side of the video letting me know how long we'll be on this visual. I usually pause because they talk too fast or move on. Lol, it lowers my anxiety.
I am tempted. I have a gaming laptop i use as a workststion but the console experience is a huge turn on. Valve wanted to ease console gamers into pc gaming while also reaping the sales. Created a budget friendly console with software to make it truely yours (break even), but also increase steam sales. Very smart move 👌
While choosing between Steam OLED and Ally myself, I bought ROG Ally Extreme simply because I intended and do play only while plugged in to an external power source and in that scenario, the additional wattage you can use does provide better FPS than steam OLED while having a higher resolution at the same time which is great. Having Variable Refresh Rate is also a great feature to have! If my priority was to play without being plugged in, I'd choose steam deck without a second thought - much better battery life and better FPS at the same wattage than ROG Ally. I would also choose Steam OLED if it was running the same more powerful CPU/iGPU as ROG Ally due to it simply being a device completely dedicated to gaming while ROG Ally is more like a handheld PC and it not even having a windows optimized (all the irrelevant stuff deleted and gaming enhancing features enabled) which instills me with trust for its longevity if that makes sense. From what I heard, there won't be steam deck 2 this year because we don't have a powerful enough CPU/iGPU that would justify its release and I don't think there's anything above Z1 Extreme right now, is there? So ROG Ally 2 probably will just be a more refined version of the existing model (OLED, battery, card reader permanent fix) without really having any note worthy gaming performance improvements.
I run nobara on my rog ally and I love it dearly. It's pretty bug free, but I really want valve to drop steamos 3 so I can install a supported is. It is truly not even a competition vs windows. Steamos is amazing.
When comparing battery life, instead of having the screen brightness at the same percentage, you should have the actual brightness in nits or lumens be the same. Because a device with a higher max brightness would be at a disadvantage.
Steam deck oled is the better value, better overall performer at 15W, better battery life, better screen, better OS, better support, plus you support a platform that gets us away from Windows and onto a better platform. Only advantage the ally has is the docked performance, which defeats the point of a handheld imo, and a slightly smaller size, but then you lose touchpads. Valve makes killer hardware and software, even if their digital marketplace and games have been slightly lack luster as of late
How is Steam Deck OLED a better value at $50 less than the often on-sale $600 ROG Ally? For $50 less you lose out on a lot of performance for AAA games. Unless indies and lower level games are your thing on the battery, then I could see it being better value for this use case. Being a better screen is a subjective preference. Even GN mentioned near the end that him and his team preferred the Ally’s screen due to it having a higher resolution, fps and VRR. The Ally also has much better audio than the Deck and subjectively, a better control layout. Most Deck users consider the trackpads useless and they take up a lot of space. Because of that, you now have to have the d-pad and buttons on the edges of the device. Lastly, I don’t think “docked” play of the Ally is pointless. I’d reckon most who play on Steam Deck / ROG Ally play 95% of the time at home rather than on the go. There typically are plenty of outlets available to plug in your device to unlock the full turbo mode when you’re just lounging around the house.
The primary issue with my Steam Deck OLED was the unavailability of games due to Anti-Cheat. For this reason, I ended up selling it and getting the Ally.
I dont regret buying the LCD 512gb model day 1, 819$ canadian (plus 15% tax), but was totally worth it. It helped me through a tough period when my home got flooded and i lost my laptop. It meant i have only been playing games on my steam deck, and it does everything i want it to do. Running DRG perfectly, hollow knight as you showed, rocket league plays nicely as well. Its sad that its 60hz, and i can totally feel the difference between my 144hz laptop and the steam deck. I dont know what i would do without my steam deck, bus rides are much better, hell i can play from the comfort of my rocking chair, couldnt do that with my laptop while gaming. I miss my laptop but the steam deck has been a life saver for me and i dont regret it one bit, steam decks do go on sale from time to time too during spring and fall sales, so if anyone wants one, they'll very surely be below 450$ canadian for the LCD 256gb version. Highly recommend it for that price compared to a nearly 900$ device for the both steam deck and rog ally.
Ok, so this is the first content I've seen covering the ROG Ally - I preordered the original Deck back when preorders opened and haven't really looked back since. However, seeing the spec differences on paper between the Ally and the Deck in the initial part of the video, alongside the competitive-looking price, made me briefly feel like a chump... until y'all started getting into the performance numbers. It's so impressive to me that the Deck manages to be as insanely competitive as it is _while also running Linux_ and, therefore for many of these games, running through Proton. The consistent frametime pacing in RDR 2 vs. the Ally is what prompted me to make this comment--it's wild what Valve has managed. It's uniquely refreshing in a space where so many of the products feel like manipulative scams.
The Ally had its performance capped at 15W and they didn't even disable CPU Boost which also makes the games go slower, as it takes away power from the GPU.
@@valrond I’m talking more about the frametime consistency differences than raw performance numbers. As GN says several times, plugging it into the wall is going to unlock that potential performance of the Ally. But I don’t personally buy these sorts of devices to just use them while plugged in-they’re portable handhelds. In that configuration, frametime consistency is way more impressive to me. That’s especially true given the Proton and Linux-based nature of the Deck. One would assume a device running Windows games on Windows would have the more consistent performance, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. AFAIK that’s chalked up almost entirely to Valve’s work with AMD in optimizing the drivers and their own work optimizing Proton.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
Check out our Lenovo Legion Go review! th-cam.com/video/I37mxlDqLrk/w-d-xo.html
If you want data of the Deck vs. Ally at different power levels, you can find our original review at this link. It hasn't changed in the relative/comparative sense: th-cam.com/video/Na1y7DyDe2w/w-d-xo.html
Watch our Steam Deck OLED tear-down! th-cam.com/video/9jhRh11bTRA/w-d-xo.html
This testing is expensive to conduct and takes sometimes weeks of work just to complete testing, if not months at times. Help support our efforts to provide extremely detailed reviews by heading over to the store and buying something useful that helps us at the same time! Like on of our large PC building anti-static modmats! store.gamersnexus.net/products/large-modmat-gn15-anniversary
Consider also our 3D coaster packs with a unique PC part theme: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-drink-debug-coaster-pack-4-custom-3d-coasters-100x100mm-4x4
Or get a super comfortable heather T-shirt with a memory module diagram: store.gamersnexus.net/products/disappointment-pc-2023-heather
Or you can grab a soldering & project mat: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-project-soldering-mat
Watch our ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme review: th-cam.com/video/Na1y7DyDe2w/w-d-xo.html
And our ASUS ROG Ally Z1 non-Extreme review: th-cam.com/video/Lg624-NHqcw/w-d-xo.html
hey do you have testing with FreeSync on the ally? I mean wouldn't that be a reason you would even consider the rog ally that and the landscape display ?
Hey Steve, Got a question for you, Which would you Buy, The Be Quiet 360 AIO or the Liquid Freezer III? And What are the Temp Differences, The only thing that stuck out at me for the BeQuiets, Pure Loops are the Regular Fans and The Be Quiet Silent are the Silent Wing Fans??? Maybe you could do a Review and Comparison? Lastly, Can you get by with a Good Air Cool when Undervolting a 5800X or X#D when under volting to keep Pwr draw down? Cheers. R.M.
The OLED does clip the highlights in HDR mode when going above 75% on the brightness slider, so maybe there's some software oddities causing the crashes in the battery tests.
you say yourself that average fps aren't that important. maybe you start ranking everything now by the 1% fps
Please do a review on the Framework 16. Notebooks might not be your usual thing, but whom else shall we trust in judging if quality in notebooks is back with this?
"Competition." This was Valve's plan all along- They wanted a flashpoint where handheld PCs would become a thing. Why? Because now you can buy more STEAM games to play on the go. They played it smart, and they're reaping the rewards.
Agreed!
Exactly. Simple and effective, they did handheld RIGHT and marketed it better than anyone, because other similar devices have existed before the deck but none of them had the marketing or the price down, on top of having some annoying problems.
Steam came in with a better package, dedicated OS, and half the price of the competition.
Absolutely! Valve is selling products yes, but they're also making a market. Competition is good for everyone..especially the person who owns the main service those products use regardless of the platform.
Basically. Also giving Nintendo a massive, gigantic, colossal middle finger is a nice added bonus imo. Thank you Lord Gaben for this boon.
@@mortal465 As much as I think Valve got a massive W here, I don't think this affects Nintendo at all. These handheld PCs are still PCs. If I'm a regular dude who wants to play Nintendo games and doesn't know how or doesn't want to tinker to make stuff work, I'm not gonna buy a Deck or an ROG Ally instead of a Switch.
I like how you label this as a "mega review" as if you aren't always dropping 30 minute valuable info dumps on us every other day
Haha, we appreciate that you notice! This one was tough since it had so many different kinds of tests. Adding latency, thermals, and acoustics is a lot more work for us than more game charts!
@@GamersNexus it was a solid video! Looking forward to more handheld stuff!!
@@GamersNexus next long 35min+ you should cut in the old movie refreshments cartoon. With the candy, soda and popcorn "let's all go to the lobby. To get ourselves a treat!". -- officially known as Technicolor Refreshment Trailer No. 1--- There is an actual intermission specific cartoon, drive-ins played, but it's like 10min long 😜
Steam goes hard? Yeah that's called ice
Well played
Bars
Insane
lol
Snow
Oh, also, after the Legion Go, what handheld do you all want us to test next?
Super high end handheld
Seems like it is Ayaneo 2S?
MSI Claw...
odin 2?
The original 80's Gameboy!
The ally non extreme
For the work Valve is doing with proton and dxvk for linux gaming its the deck for me any day.
Yeah, I got the Deck OLED and think it's the best current option. It's so nice not having Windows.
I'm hoping the Deck 2 when it comes out has USB5 egpu support.
Yep, it's like a small donation to Linux development.
I tell people all the time that if they are wondering what Valve is actually doing, it's being an OS developer. Linux is now a viable OS for PC gaming and the Steam Deck is pretty much a perfect "demo" platform for Proton OS
@@trickm0nkey
I'd argue the Steam Deck is kinda (almost) a perfect entry now for anybody to PC gaming if you're already a console gamer.
All you need to do is sign into an account, buy the game and install. I know it's not (yet) as streamlined as a console, but for a PC it is by far the best point of entry.
@@Patrick-y4d1zEven emulation is ridiculously easy for the most part. Only gets (minorly) complicated with bios files for more modern consoles.
Yeah, I got myself a Steam Deck OLED a couple weeks back and I am absolutely LOVING it!
Just ordered one today can’t wait to start playing
@@Talon18136 lol me too, just bought one today and can't wait to get it 😊
I bought a legion go and I am loving it! 😊
I thought Steam Deck OLED was a bit of a BS money grab upgrade. Then I bought one and it’s fucking brilliant. I’ve had mine for about three weeks and still, every so often I look at it, smile to myself that it’s just so brilliant. It just goes to show that an intelligently, well made and use friendly product is better than just going “MAX POWER” regardless of anything else.
PC Gamer describes a console
I really cant see how you would think it was a money grab upgrade when they dropped LCD price and kept OLED at that price. It's not Valve's fault that gamers have hella FOMO...
Bro i've put aside some money for a hand held console and i can't come to a decision between rog and steam deck oled just because i can't play games outside the steam library without doing some over the top adjustments. Im not a hardcore gamer by any means but i would like to jump on COD every now and then , then switch to BG3 later on lol
I knew OLED was something special as far back as the Vita. Poor bastard Vita >.
yeah that's what people who never had OLED would say lol.
It just perfects it. My first reservation on the Deck, when it launched, was the obviously lame display. I could tell it was very lacking just by seeing it through videos. Cameras don't capture what the eyes can see, they say, but in this case it sure did.
Just look the more recent comparisons, one is brilliant through the lens, the other looks like a chinese toy screen.
At least for me there's one more big advantage of the Steam Deck compared to the Ally: The trackpads. I know many players more or less ignore them on the Deck, but I think they're a godsent and make so many more titles playable on the go, particularly strategy and simulation games through mouse input or custom menus to access extra key bindings.
They also make actually navigating a desktop 1000% more usable
@@Liquifiedpizzasand dual thumb pad typing is surprisingly intuitive.
Being left handed having 2 of them is even better, especially combind with 4 back buttons
Not just for desktop mode and strategy games. Set the right pad to "As Mouse", raise the horizontal sensitivity (lower the vertical scale) and in many people's experience (including mine) you get control far superior to stick, especially without aim assist.Trackpad + gyro on the Deck feels extremely mouselike once you get used to it.
Yeah, for certain games, I'd say they'd be unplayable without track pads on a handheld.
I hope you guys make content for many years to come. Thank you for everything that you do in the tech space!
Thank you! We will keep going!
It's actually crazy how Valve was just like "fuck it" and released a very good handheld PC that's still pretty competitive with newer competitors 2 years later, just with some minor upgrades
It's a very Valve thing to do, we're just lucky we're getting more than just the 1st steam deck, Typically they drop something amazing then disappear never to be seen in that market again
They legitimized this market. 2 years ago everyone was debating if it made sense. Now there's a ton of both less powerful and more powerful devices. I think the value proposition of the steam deck still makes it king for many. I think it has also propelled the market of handheld emulation. Products like the retroid pocket 4 pro are less powerful and smaller, but cross some of the same market segment while Ayaneo basically makes roided up handheld PCs for 2-3x the price of a deck.
For me the problem with the Ally and other "high-end" handhelds is that they don't really have anything you would want a handheld for, they're essentially bound to a charging port because of the extra power and that extra power isn't used for a majority of games on Steam... if anything to compete with the deck one of the less powerful options would make a better handheld imo. Like one of the gameboy knock-offs.
@@XrayTheMyth23 yeah u can really tell a lot of these competitors do not understand handheld gaming at all and they're just tryna cash in on big impressive looking numbers without understanding what makes handheld good, and if my handheld can barely last an hour on it's "full power" mode what's the point?
But on the other hand i can see something like the Asus one being a desktop replacement for relatively cheap that u hookup to some peripherals maybe, so who knows
Actually yes. The battery life should be the most important and highlighted test.
You have to consider that Valve is not only building an amazing device to play games on, but also has helped improving the software behind it so much, helping the entire Linux community. Even if Steam Deck had a much poorer performance, I'd still buy it just for that fact.
I bought one bc it seemed like the more polished device on the market as far as handheld computers and now that I have my hands on it that viewpoint was confirmed it’s easily the best bit of tech I’ve ever owned
Mostly unrelated to this video, but I really want a "bigger number better" shirt. It's become one of my favorite quips/sayings over the past few months.
YES, please!
Thirded by me,
First shirt I’d buy
Bigger better
I need that
Like an eye exam with the whole quote. Somehow make it not cheesy, idk.
Ive been waiting for this review so much, that i clicked immediately lol. Love your work Steve!!
Thanks for your patience on this one!
why? he mentioned nothing new and theres literally zero content thats worth watching that isnt already out there to make an informed decision
@@0nemanartis430 why? because we're supporting our friend Steve
@@soapstone420supporting suplicate irrelevant content? ok
@@0nemanartis430 And yet you post irrelevant comments, don't be a loser and go back to 4chan
8:19 This must be the flattest frame time graph in GN benchmarking history.
Steam Deck is the first gaming device I've ever had where you can run every game with no tearing and V-Sync off.
yeah, I would say that turning off VSync in the settings of the games will always give you a far better experience because it eliminates so much input latency. There are far better tools for syncing games to refresh rates on Linux. To a point that they make even 30fps somewhat tolerable
@@matthias6933 Woah woah woah I wouln't go as far as to run games at 30fps.
45fps though?
th-cam.com/video/LkrV6VlGPIE/w-d-xo.html
Steamdeck OLED actually gets less input lag at 45fps than at 50fps so that's my lowest acceptable framerate.
I haven't played Elden Ring on the Deck yet though so that game might break my standards, we'll see.
(Most performance reviews are very close to 40fps at lowest graphics, I might actually bump down the resolution for this one if it can lock to 45fps.)
Oddly, disabling vsync on my steam deck in the first descendant causes latency spikes when running in circles in Albion. Keeping it on keeps the frame rate consistent.
@@richardyao9012 On Steamdeck you're supposed to set the screen refresh rate per-game to something just below the average framerate, this way the system is almost never running fully saturated and you get the most consistent frametimes.
@@richardyao9012 It's important to specify, you don't want to use "vsync" which buffers frames and causes input lag.
Best performance is always with the system level framerate cap, which does not buffer frames and just paces the game engine rendering.
Ive used my (upgraded) 64gb lcd deck as a pc for months now and it is seriously one of the best values on the market
The fact that you can get the 256gb for that now is fucking insane.
Excellent breakdown, makes me very happy with my OLED. Also love the UI for your graphs having reverse loading bars along the side to indicate when the graph will change, -very- nice touch!
I knew I wouldn't end up using it much but for $400 I'm really happy to support the start of this arms race for an incredibly cool form factor of pc's. Never thought so many companies would make competitors so fast.
Try using the deck for emulation. It hits a perfect performance point where it can pretty much seamlessly emulate up to PS2 and GC. There are now many dedicated emulation devices like the retroid pocket 4 pro or the Ayn Odin 2, but the steamdeck is overbuilt for it performance wise.
@@dogboy0912the thing is i dont have much usecase. I have a gaming PC with a nice big screen and a comfy chair.
When im outside, i do other stuff than gaming.
I think this product is more for people who have limited access to their main rig because of work distance, family, etc..
@@dogboy0912 i didnt use mine till i discovered this, now my kids steal it to play firered. lol
@@dogboy0912 Though for some more serious emulation for example PS3 with RPCS3, the Steam Deck unfortunately lacks a lot of CPU potential compared to the Z1 Extreme handhelds, unfortunately.
We'll convert Steve to being a Linux gamer soon enough...
Wendell will do his best!
One of us.
One of us!
One of us 🐧
Soon there will be dozens of us replying to this comment.
Important to note the ability to put the steamdeck to “sleep” and ability to resume quickly, unlike most of the others
The better framerates from the OLED version can also be from the APU itself. Using a smaller manufacturing node makes is use less energy. Which, in some scenarios, means it can reach higher clock rates. That is, at, say 12W, the 7nm one in the LCD version might run at 2.8GHz, while the 6nm one in the OLED might, at the same 12W, go to 3.1GHz.
The other thing is the Steam Deck thermal throttles like absolute hell, (another factor to why undervolting is so good here) so the OLED running cooler means it can maintain higher clocks for longer
This has nothing to do with the Deck or the content of the video, but Valve's Chicony charger reminded me that the keyboard for the very first PC I ever built all the way back in 2003 was a Chicony membrane keyboard I paid like $10 USD for. It lasted fifteen years before keystrokes on some keys stopped registering and I had to replace it. I tried to replace it with another Chicony, assuming I'd get another fifteen years of service out of it, but by that time, they were selling for like $40 USD.
The Steam Deck OLED is an INCREDIBLE starting place for designing the Steam Deck 2... tbh, as long as Valve keeps making Steam Decks every 2-3 years, I don't think I will be bothering with literally any other gaming hardware... its replaced my Xbox, Playstation, Switch and gaming PC and I haven't been happier.
Had my steam deck oled for less than a week now and I love this thing I’ve got most of the games I play on a daily basis in one spot now and it’s fantastic it has indeed replaced my Xbox as well as my switch lite as my new daily driver
I like mine but it can NEVER replace PC for me
Replace my gaming pc?...HOLD UP.
@@zweihander7465idk man. There’s something nice about the “switch” like experience that make it worth the hit for people like me who aren’t as picky
@@Talon18136I would say it great but so many faults like fps and free will to play any game but you can’t play any game on the deck cause the dumbass anticheat shit which pisses me off cause I like to play rainbow siege or rust or just other popular games
As a long term Linux user, and owner of both an LCD and OLED steam deck, I will say...
I actually just use it like any handheld console and forget the device is even running Linux. It just works most of the time.
Especially great on my daily commute / lunch break, just put it to sleep and continue later or the next day. I really expected me to be tweaking with undervolts, different Linux distro's and so forth, but that is not how I use it at all.
Absolutely, it's been seamless since I got a deck v1 about a month ago from a friend, the only time I've dropped into desktop mode has been during initial setup to get emulators, chiaki4deck, and heroic launcher for gog games up and running
If you don't need those things then you will literally never have to use desktop mode or see a terminal window, which seems like an odd thing to praise it for, but that kind of thing makes the barrier to entry basically zero for newcomers to Linux and that's hugely important
After I got those set up I've spent the entirety of my time with the deck in game mode and it has been perfect, Valve has nailed the UX with the deck
I've absently left games like Fallout New Vegas on pause for days or weeks while doing other stuff on my main (Garuda Linux converted) desktop PC, and the game is still ready to go instantly, meanwhile on Windows I had games crash if it went into automatic sleep mode for even a moment
The battery improvements on the OLED Deck are no joke. I knew it was better, but I didn't realize just how much better until I got one and used it for a few days. If I set the frame cap to 30 fps, I can play Valheim for over four hours before I have to even think about plugging in the OLED Deck. The screen is great, but the battery improvements actually changed how I use it since I'm not worried about always being near the charger anymore.
What was the battery life on the lcd for that game? As an lcd owner who's obsessed with battery life I love any extra comparison.
Even the LCD got massive "upgrade" to battery life with all of the updates to driver, kernel and compatibility layer. Like all 2D games I play can be played for longer than I can play without hurting myself xD
The explosion of portable consoles has been fascinating to watch. It's interesting what you can get away with with integrated graphics these days. It's almost ridiculous that the old steam deck is something you can find for 200 bucks.
Well, both PS5 and Xbox Series also use AMD integrated graphics. AMD has done a great job with their chips for sure. One advantage for ROG Ally is that it also has better support for FSR 3 because of the RDNA 3 graphics, official drivers are not out from Asus yet, but people have been testing with the AMD drivers.
Where are you finding these for $200? I’m seeing 300 minimum used.
I picked up an ROG Ally open box from best buy for $500. No regrets! I'm just thrilled there are so many good PC handheld options and a bright looking future for them
Ally literally cooks microSD
@@lino100x100 Definitely not, my micro sd was hotter in the deck than it is in the ally with it literally burning me to have it touch any skin inside the deck. At any rate, the Ally supports a 2280 mod where the deck does not so getting double or triple the maximum storage capacity AND performance of the deck for less money is fully possible, to say nothing of how absurd the gaming performance gains are in a 25w profile on a case by case basis.
@@ALmaN11223344a 2280 ssd needs aprox. 3W more battery. The battery time will decrease again.
I am with you; I like that there is choice. Although all of these "gamer only" fans can't imagine why they'd dock other than to play more games on a big screen. I use my docked Ally to live, like it's my main PC now too, my wife uses the other. We play things like Age4 over the network. This Windows 11 PC does everything and has power to run games well on my touch monitor. If that rare time happens that I need to extend play for 3+ hours out of the house, I carry a battery pack. Linux on the desktop is less user friendly than the Armoury Crate or XBox App ever was. I'm tired of PC gamers complaining about launching a game on Windows only to lock themselves into Steam, meanwhile jumping through complicated hoops to play Gamepass and run Linux etc. For a person like me you get more options with a Windows based handheld.
@@lino100x100 If the unit does it, ASUS repairs it, or you can heat shield the slot yourself pretty easily with some insulating tape
Such a wonderful, exciting time to be a PC gamer. It's more accessible than it's ever been, and Valve is a big part of driving that push forward.
I have to give Valve kudos for their Steam platform, specifically opening up gaming to those of us who prefer Linux.
Most reviews of the Z1 are never done with Chimera OS, but that really is the secret sauce. It makes the Ally a nearly identical software experience to that of the deck with almost no missing features, right down to the ultra specific TDP sliders, the instant pause and resume, the CPU governors that valve likes to use giving the impression that Steam Decks have some sort of black magic, and the console-like OS. I run that on my Ally now because that was the thing I missed most from the steam deck, so now I quite literally have the best of both worlds with a high vitality device that has variable refresh rate and more performance than I could ever dream of getting from my measly deck (6GB of VRAM and 25w TDP really help with that). Windows was what held the Ally back.
The ally has specific tdp sliders. It was in a new update. That happened a few weeks ago.
Aside from what the above user said, the ally for some reason runs hotter on other systems and there are also bugs being ironed out by bazzite for example. You're essentially switching better ui for more temp.
Just use handheld companion on windows, while not quite the same it provides enough ease of use imo.
Best of both? Still has worse thermals, worse battery, worse screen display (despite higher resolution), worse ergonomics, and cooks sd cards. The Ally in its current form will never be a better all-around machine. It's just better in specific use cases or for pure power - which is fine. Just wish Ally fans wouldn't gloss over its significant flaws so easily.
@@Neil-qg9cwthe ally is the best handheld ever made so far. The steamdeck is 2nd to it. We all know that by now.
@g9cw It's quieter than the deck by a landslide (even the OLED), it has equal battery to the old deck and produces more frames per watt at 15w than the new deck still, VRR and LFC makes the display a toss up at best (but still likely in favor of the Ally given that neither hits 90hz+ across an entire game suite), ergonomics is the first fair point you've made but there are cases and grips to solve that, and the SD in my deck got FAR hotter where it would burn me whenever I accidentally touched it (the issue is only with the port), and the speakers blow the deck out of the water (0 contest, the decks speakers are dookie comparatively). I've owned both, the Ally is equal or better across every measurable metric excluding power constrained scenarios and ergonomics. The deck really just doesn't have a lot going for it other than its software, they needed to go all in on an SoC update if they were going to change it at all but they fumbled that.
I've been watching Gamer Nexus for a while, but I never subscribed until now. The reason I decided to subscribe was because of the mentioned acoustics. I've been a benefactor of this channel's diligent work for some time, and to know that they spent that much on a room just to measure sound, I feel like it's the least I can do (Jesus Christ). I'm also very happy that they're getting into the latency measurements.
What you guys do is appreciated🙏🙏
Thank you so much for the kind words!
Just bought a steam deck even though i own a top of the line gaming PC. I legit game more now. It's just so fun to play games on the thing i can't explain it.
I love my steam deck OLED. I haven’t used my PC in a month now. A few games I used to play that I haven’t been able to but broke out some of the older games I loved and haven’t played in a few years and they run amazing. Locked at 60 fps high graphics in MCC, only game that’s been annoying is BL2, something in its online connection is super slow and cuts out from time to time and crashes the game. BL1 and Pre-Sequel run flawlessly, haven’t booted BL3 yet. Other games have worked but games like timberborn and factorio that need a mouse get annoying fast trying to use the track pad. It’s good for short use but after half an hour my thumb starts to cramp
Got the Deck OLED immediately when it came out and couldn’t be more happy. Valve is doing great things for Linux gaming.
Steve: "No one's playing games for like a minute and then stopping"
Lol Steve doesn't have kids
Yeah, I do that all the time. One of the best parts of the steam deck. Only had one game that doesn’t pick right back up after going to sleep, but everything else has been great!
I don't have kids myself, but I remember as a teenager carrying my GameBoy Advance everywhere and doing exactly that. Many games were designed with that in mind.
@@sodvar5047 So is the PSP. Sony trying to get back into the game again with leaks of Vita 2 makes sense when looking at the cash cow of Switch has been.
Game boy advance and PSP ability to go around and play whenever was the reason why u buy them for kids.
Every fing time I sit down and start a game...... I have to immediately get up.
just got my SD oled, im so happy with its performance
What I love about Steam Deck is that it runs an opensource and lean and privacy respecting GNU/Linux OS, and none of that bloated spyware from Miicrosoft. And it is nice how it by default functions like a real console a la Playstation and then you can switch to a powerful proper desktop environment provided by KDE Plasma. Simply amazing and it is about time we see MS OS monopoly broken. Hopefully Steam Deck can help with that.
The mass market arent switching to Linux anytime soon outside of niche uses like SteamOS etc, and for good reason
@@liam2 Android is what?
I'm relatively new to GN, and man I'm blown away by the detail on this channel. Thanks, guys.
Steam deck wins every time for me simply because it’s Steam OS and the integration around it. Microsoft simply doesn’t have a competing OS.
Nah Windows 11 blows SteamOS out of the water, sure it is not as optimized nor offers a console-like simplicity but the FULL compatibility with everything is a huge selling point for the Ally.
I prefer no training wheels
The increased performance of the Steam Deck OLED vs the LCD version is impressive, but what really amazes me is the improved thermal performance while simultaniously increasing battery life and capacity.
Those changes they made really make it a much better device overall in spite of the fact most of the processing hardware remains identical.
Which vent smells the best? I've had my Steam Deck LCD for 5 months. At first the vent smelled excellent. Recently it doesn't smell great anymore. Just kind of bland hot air
My LCD had a notable decline in the quality of its exhaust after a few months, but after owning it for over a year it seems to have settled into a nice place. Don't despair yet
My OLED vent smells pretty basic whereas my LCD is bright and fruity.
I absolutely love and appreciate the work you guys put into these tests. This blows all other videos I've looked at out of the water.
this review makes me really happy with my LCD steamdeck! it's still competitive despite not being on "the latest hardware" and it's just all-around an awesome addition to my games-on-the-go options
Same here, it might not be the "best" handheld but it just works
I'm impressed by how comparable even the Deck LCD still is. Definitely excited for when true 2nd gen handhelds start coming out, but for now my Deck LCD is doing just fine!
I been saying this for awhile the steam deck holds its own against the newer chips, gives
Better battery, better experience with steam os, no reason to spend more when the deck oled performs as well as it does. Yes 25 watts on the z1 extreme will give you more, but the point of a handheld (for me) is to play away from the wall with decent battery life, steam deck the only one that provides this.
I love the controls on the steam deck and hate any other handheld because the controls are asymmetrical.
the people yearn for the wii u gamepad
This precise concern is what allows me only one option. Fortunately, it seems to default to the better one, especially considering the additional track pads. I'm glad I'm not alone.
I much prefer the asymmetrical buttons and sticks on a regular controller it feels natural but on a handheld it’s hurts the hands on the deck it’s so easy to reach all of the buttons with very little movement it just sits perfectly in the hand
@@Talon18136 i have used both a xbox and ps controller and the chunky asymmetrical design of the xbox controller was so unatural to me it gave me the impression it was a first time gamer.
The #1 tech review channel/outlet on the internet, par none.
The phrase is “bar none”.
Valve is a master of efficiency.
Higher raw power doesn't always mean better performance, a lot of other factors are always in play.
Well, the Ally does offer better performance if you crank it up a little bit. And there's some newer AAA games that don't really work on the Deck, while working pretty good on the Ally. Asus has luckily updated the software with a bunch of tweaking possibilites as well, options to turn off cpu overclock (battery savings), changing dedicated vram, adjusting the performance/wattage on the fly. 18w mode is pretty nice. And running it in 900p mode is a pretty good compromise between 720p and 1080p. That being said, I think the Deck is the "indie king" for sure. But for anyone also planning to sometimes use the device docked at home, I think the Ally is the better option. At least if you use Gamepass, Epic games and so on.
Something I haven't seen gaming sites do is directly compare the OS' effect on performance.
On my desktop system, I dual boot Win 11 and Holo OS.
Without raytracing, Holo OS is way faster compared to Windows w/o raytracing.
Raytracing flips the results in the other direction.
Valve really needs to make a current release of their Steam OS. With this info, im sure more people would try it.
I got a Z1 extreme for 450 brand new. It’s my daily driver with a dock. I watch benchmarks on the steam deck knowing I will do like 20% better if not more. But any of these handlehelds even legion go is worth it for sure.
I love your energy in this. You look so excited and it just makes me excited as well
One of us, one of us, one of us,... Good job as always, Steve! Such an incredible device.
Nearly all decisions Valve took for the OLED mid-gen refresh proved really clever. Even the 90Hz panel, because 45FPS at 90Hz is no joke.
Suggestion: input delay tests with fighting games.
Precise frame data for attacks are always available for games like Street Fighter and Guilty Gear, They're also games that are very commonly played in these handheld from my experience as LeagueOps. If a player doesn't have a gaming laptop, they definitely carry a Deck with them.
Would love to see comparisons between the handhelds so higher level fighting game players and tournament organisers looking to scale up their tournaments can have better insight!
Good idea. Will look into this.
I think one of the most overlooked aspects of the Ally is how it is actually closer to being a Surface than a Switch. It functions pretty well as a tablet along from giving you comprable gaming performance
I have the Ally and I love it. If I had chosen the Oled Deck I would have loved it. If I would have chosen the Legion Go I would have loved it. All these came around at the perfect time when my 4 year old jacked my Switch from me. It belongs to him now. My Steam library has since grown.
23:25 The joy in his eyes when he's talking about his aneothetic(?) chamber. :D
Anechoic, you can remember it because it's a room without echoes (an-echo-ic)
Anecdotic chamber*
Hemi-Anechoic Chamber.
@@mariokart6309 a no-coughing-chamber, got it! 🙂
Excited to see the fan acoustics on the OLED vs LCD.
Makes sense now why Valve would skip any chipset upgrade tthis gen. The perf/watt of the oled is definitely impressive
I'm lying in bed watching a video on Steam Deck OLED about Steam Deck OLED
My Deck OLED is my first and only OLED experience and it's crazy good
I disagree abour the weight reduction not being that meaningful, i took it out of the box and the weight loss was actually noticeable. I asked my boss to lift both and he also said it is noticeable.
So I'd say, albeit anecdotally, it is meaningful.
Yeah I was wondering that, I've seen countless reviews say that even thought the weight reduction is small, the difference is quite noticeable when holding it, and I suspect it's because of how Valve have rebalanced the components inside the unit so it gives a better balance and feels lighter when holding it.
But yeah, I agree with you, it feels lighter than the weight suggest.
The Deck may have less power on paper but it's clearly using the Gunpei Yokoi philosophy of using less power to maximize battery life. And much like the Yokoi's Game Boy, it's clearly working quite well for the Deck.
During battery testing, could you swich from capping screen brighness at 50 percent to something better comparable? E.g. setting it to 250nits since screens differ in brightness?
The Steam Deck has been my best purchase in years. Brought back the joy of gaming in my life again.
I noticed the latency right away when i first used my deck oled. It feels faster, more responsive, like you are getting more fps.
I researched practically all the handhelds for months, but for my non traveling, just around the house, handheld "need" I landed on the below setup. It weighs less, has longer battery life, cheap as chips excluding the host system, its silent, and doesn't require lowered settings.
$50 10" tablet
$20 BSP D8
Sunshine/Moonlight
I like the painters tape with the arrows on it pointing at the SD Card so you hopefully don't crack the thing in half.
hahaha, one of the few to notice!
@@GamersNexus I very nearly did the same on mine when replacing the backplate. It's so easy to forget even if you'd opened them before. I made it my first thing on the to-do list before touching a single screw.
Pc gaming on Linux better than on windows. What a time to be alive . ♥️ valve and all their hard work on proton and such
Yeah, and this is with emulation for windows binaries, Just imagine how much even better it could be ig gamedev companies made just as well optimised native GNU/Linux binaries.
"Linux is not for gaming" Linux with half the hardware:
I watched the teardown. Watched this. And will watch the legion go video. Really looking forward to that one
Having used both for a fair amount of time, I've found it just comes down to what OS you want to use.
I went with Ally so I can install different launchers, use game pass etc. Sure, you can do that with Deck but I'm not one to tinker.
This is such a good review! Excellent work, GN team, you've really knocked it out of the park and are continuing to show the review and benchmarking industry what good data driven reviews actually look like. Keep it up ❤❤❤
Everything else aside, the Steam Deck is the only one to put the Dpad in the correct spot. Having to reach for it in any game you want digital over analog controls is not acceptable and makes the other devices wholly unsuited to gaming that uses it.
Love my SD Oled, been a great way to spend lunch breaks.
Beyond the battery and other minor benefits, the one reason I'm absolutely buying a Steam Deck over these other devices is I hate asymmetrical controls, they make no sense to me. Since EVERY SINGLE device besides the Deck is using the ugly design, they simply don't get my money... well, that and just being generally sick of the BS MS pulls with Windows.
Yeh I ditched my steam deck for an Ally last year and haven’t looked back. I play plugged into the wall and never used it off battery so I’m happy with the Ally. The oled is a really good choice if you’re playing off battery.
less powerful, running windows games on linux better than the more powerful windows handheld. the steam deck is pure wizardry
More efficiently. Better I dunno.
Valve has done such an amazing job with the Deck. I'll stick with my LCD version but am super excited about a second gen Deck. I hope the community or even valve themselves are able to expand compatibility because i still play my Ally more since I can play games from other stores natively on it.
Man I seriously love the work you guys do to present real scientific data. This just made me feel so much more confident about my Deck OLED purchase yesterday. Can’t wait for my unit to arrive!
Hell yea, handhelds!! Can’t wait for the Legion Go video. Chunky boi just arrived last night!
I've been rocking my Legion Go and I love it. When not mobile I have it setup with a 4070 Super and a 144hz 1440p monitor. Its pretty impressive what its able to do.
You plug it to the dedicated graphic card and a monitor and you're good to go,how does that work? Can you do that with the Ally and Steam deck?
@likobeatshodge9800 The gpu has an enclosure. I'm using a razer core x. The ally can, but the deck can't. The device needs to support thunderbolt 3 or higher I believe. So, a thunderbolt cable goes from my legion go to the razer egpu enclosure. From there, a displayport cable connects to my monitor. The enclosure has a psu that powers the gpu and the go.
I own 2 steam decks and 2 ally's 1 is the extreme version. I can only really comment on VERY MODDED cyberpunk 2077 game play as that is what I play. But the build quality is WAY better on the steam decks and they come with a case and community with tons of support, I can not stress this enough steam decks are comfortable.
The ally is the polar opposite. Build quality seems to be about half what the steam deck is. No support, no customer service, no warranty and the SD card slot is known bad and they sell it defective without a sticker on the box or discount. It's white with RGB so bought it for my wife. I bought the extreme and it goes like stink, 900p modded ray tracing modded dlss, my in game is about 40fps. stays about 40 dips to high 20s when loading for a few seconds here and there but 40 pretty much all day. I would say the extreme is about 3 times as fast as the steam deck when pushed to it's absolute limits on wall power. Yet off wall power it's just a very uncomfortable janky steam deck the makes your hands go numb.
Valve was smart to go with battery life and screen focus for the OLED. I have a PC to play cutting-edge games on. But there are literally thousands of games I'd like to play (at work during downtimes, on a plane, etc) and last-gen performance is definitely all I need for that. In those settings having a nice experience with ergo, display size and quality, and battery life is paramount. It was Nexus' teardown that convinced me to buy in and I've been chipping away at my backlog ever since.
I know that you guys did some of this for long term testing but I like the head canon that you all just started playing games on the Deck and forgot to do the followup for a few months.
What a chad move from Valve, releasing a spec bump and claiming nothing had changed
I always think I've had enough of current gen gaming handheld content since I'm happy with my lcd, but if steve drops an in-depth video, watch we must
latency testing as always is massively appreciated
This is such a small thing, but I really like the blue bars on each side of the video letting me know how long we'll be on this visual. I usually pause because they talk too fast or move on. Lol, it lowers my anxiety.
I am tempted. I have a gaming laptop i use as a workststion but the console experience is a huge turn on.
Valve wanted to ease console gamers into pc gaming while also reaping the sales. Created a budget friendly console with software to make it truely yours (break even), but also increase steam sales. Very smart move 👌
I just ordered my deck oled today can’t wait to get my hands on it it’s definitely the best handheld pc on the market right now
"We don't need anecdotes here, we have a whole ass Hemi-Anechoic chamber just for testing that"
That casual flex tho . . .
Gaming on the LCD is amazing I definitely want the oled over the ally in the future
While choosing between Steam OLED and Ally myself, I bought ROG Ally Extreme simply because I intended and do play only while plugged in to an external power source and in that scenario, the additional wattage you can use does provide better FPS than steam OLED while having a higher resolution at the same time which is great. Having Variable Refresh Rate is also a great feature to have!
If my priority was to play without being plugged in, I'd choose steam deck without a second thought - much better battery life and better FPS at the same wattage than ROG Ally.
I would also choose Steam OLED if it was running the same more powerful CPU/iGPU as ROG Ally due to it simply being a device completely dedicated to gaming while ROG Ally is more like a handheld PC and it not even having a windows optimized (all the irrelevant stuff deleted and gaming enhancing features enabled) which instills me with trust for its longevity if that makes sense.
From what I heard, there won't be steam deck 2 this year because we don't have a powerful enough CPU/iGPU that would justify its release and I don't think there's anything above Z1 Extreme right now, is there? So ROG Ally 2 probably will just be a more refined version of the existing model (OLED, battery, card reader permanent fix) without really having any note worthy gaming performance improvements.
I run nobara on my rog ally and I love it dearly. It's pretty bug free, but I really want valve to drop steamos 3 so I can install a supported is. It is truly not even a competition vs windows. Steamos is amazing.
When comparing battery life, instead of having the screen brightness at the same percentage, you should have the actual brightness in nits or lumens be the same. Because a device with a higher max brightness would be at a disadvantage.
Steam deck oled is the better value, better overall performer at 15W, better battery life, better screen, better OS, better support, plus you support a platform that gets us away from Windows and onto a better platform. Only advantage the ally has is the docked performance, which defeats the point of a handheld imo, and a slightly smaller size, but then you lose touchpads.
Valve makes killer hardware and software, even if their digital marketplace and games have been slightly lack luster as of late
How is Steam Deck OLED a better value at $50 less than the often on-sale $600 ROG Ally? For $50 less you lose out on a lot of performance for AAA games. Unless indies and lower level games are your thing on the battery, then I could see it being better value for this use case. Being a better screen is a subjective preference. Even GN mentioned near the end that him and his team preferred the Ally’s screen due to it having a higher resolution, fps and VRR.
The Ally also has much better audio than the Deck and subjectively, a better control layout. Most Deck users consider the trackpads useless and they take up a lot of space. Because of that, you now have to have the d-pad and buttons on the edges of the device.
Lastly, I don’t think “docked” play of the Ally is pointless. I’d reckon most who play on Steam Deck / ROG Ally play 95% of the time at home rather than on the go. There typically are plenty of outlets available to plug in your device to unlock the full turbo mode when you’re just lounging around the house.
The primary issue with my Steam Deck OLED was the unavailability of games due to Anti-Cheat. For this reason, I ended up selling it and getting the Ally.
I dont regret buying the LCD 512gb model day 1, 819$ canadian (plus 15% tax), but was totally worth it. It helped me through a tough period when my home got flooded and i lost my laptop. It meant i have only been playing games on my steam deck, and it does everything i want it to do. Running DRG perfectly, hollow knight as you showed, rocket league plays nicely as well. Its sad that its 60hz, and i can totally feel the difference between my 144hz laptop and the steam deck. I dont know what i would do without my steam deck, bus rides are much better, hell i can play from the comfort of my rocking chair, couldnt do that with my laptop while gaming.
I miss my laptop but the steam deck has been a life saver for me and i dont regret it one bit, steam decks do go on sale from time to time too during spring and fall sales, so if anyone wants one, they'll very surely be below 450$ canadian for the LCD 256gb version. Highly recommend it for that price compared to a nearly 900$ device for the both steam deck and rog ally.
I had to do multiple takes before I realized you didn't spend $1819 on it...
@@mechanicalmonk2020 thank goodness i only payed half that! Haha! I payed about 940$ CAD after sales tax.
Ok, so this is the first content I've seen covering the ROG Ally - I preordered the original Deck back when preorders opened and haven't really looked back since. However, seeing the spec differences on paper between the Ally and the Deck in the initial part of the video, alongside the competitive-looking price, made me briefly feel like a chump... until y'all started getting into the performance numbers. It's so impressive to me that the Deck manages to be as insanely competitive as it is _while also running Linux_ and, therefore for many of these games, running through Proton. The consistent frametime pacing in RDR 2 vs. the Ally is what prompted me to make this comment--it's wild what Valve has managed. It's uniquely refreshing in a space where so many of the products feel like manipulative scams.
The Ally had its performance capped at 15W and they didn't even disable CPU Boost which also makes the games go slower, as it takes away power from the GPU.
@@valrond I’m talking more about the frametime consistency differences than raw performance numbers. As GN says several times, plugging it into the wall is going to unlock that potential performance of the Ally. But I don’t personally buy these sorts of devices to just use them while plugged in-they’re portable handhelds. In that configuration, frametime consistency is way more impressive to me. That’s especially true given the Proton and Linux-based nature of the Deck. One would assume a device running Windows games on Windows would have the more consistent performance, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. AFAIK that’s chalked up almost entirely to Valve’s work with AMD in optimizing the drivers and their own work optimizing Proton.
Been waiting for this one a while good job as always Steve and crew and don’t thing I didn’t catch the asrock broken ass bios for stapm chart.
I've stopped buying games unless they can be swapped easily between my Steam Deck and main PC. The freedom this provides is awesome.