The Steam Deck is fairly dang rad as it’s, however one proprietor dared to dream bigger by connecting it as much as a full-size desktop GPU for some actually highly effective gaming. And look, as superior as that sounds, this clearly isn’t one thing that carries any degree of practicality. The Steam Deck was and at all times can be meant for transportable PC gaming. In a approach that, as Valve CEO Gabe Newell has described it, is how we wished it was attainable ten or twenty years in the past.
Hooking up the little handheld gaming PC to a desktop GPU not solely defeats this function, however fully takes away its potential to essentially go wherever. All that being stated, it’s nonetheless fairly unimaginable to see somebody digging into the Deck in methods like this. To not point out when you consider it, this isn’t all that totally different from gaming laptops that may hook as much as exterior GPU docks. Which might be at its most simple, one of the best ways to explain what YouTube channel ETA Prime has completed for the Deck.
A Steam Deck with a desktop GPU connection does work, however it’s not optimum
You could be seeing this sort of undertaking and scratching your head questioning, “why?” The apparent reply there’s, as a result of you possibly can. However ETA Prime’s efforts serve extra of a function than that. What the Steam Deck could be like if it did have assist for eGPU hookups. Which might flip it into a way more versatile machine. Permitting it to be transportable in its regular state and a extra highly effective rig when linked at dwelling.
The actually stunning factor is that ETA Prime was not solely capable of get the GPU linked, however it labored an allowed them to play video games through the Steam Deck with higher graphics. For the GPU ETA Prime use an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Some video games booted and labored completely fantastic. Even permit for 4K graphics and better body charges than what the Steam Deck usually permits. However, a complete host of video games ended up slowing approach down. And this apparently wouldn’t work NVIDIA playing cards both.
Nonetheless, it’s a neat experiment. One which hopefully will get Valve to consider including this sort of characteristic to a future unit.
