Valve’s Steam Deck has been one of the more intriguing gaming consoles to come out in recent years, even though it released just a year after the arrival of the next generation consoles from PlayStation and Xbox.
The new portable console allows players to access PC games on the go in a console that’s designed to play almost every game from the Steam library. While it doesn’t support many titles like Destiny 2, Fall Guys, Rainbow Six Seige and more, it still provides great performance on its 1200×800 LCD screen with 60 Hz refresh rate.
However, with games demanding higher tier parts in terms of graphic cards and processor, the Steam Deck runs a risk of becoming obsolete when it comes to playing new AAA games from popular publishers. Which is why YouTuber ETA Prime’s attempts to connect a GPU to the console is something that should spark hope for fans.
In his recent video, the YouTuber showcased how he connected his AMD Radeon RX 6900XT GPU to the console. As of right now, ETA Prime has been unsuccessful in connecting a NVIDIA graphic card. However, he has somehow managed to accomplish the feat of connecting an AMD GPU.
But, this was no easy feat because the Steam Deck doesn’t have the necessary ports to connect the GPU directly, as it only comes with USB Type-C port. Instead, the YouTuber used the console’s M.2 slot. Because of this, the Steam Deck doesn’t have a SSD to run the OS and the games. To overcome this, ETA Prime installed Windows 11 on the MicroSD card, which can be inserted on to the console.
With the new AMD GPU installed, the console performed much better on AAA titles like Grand Theft Auto V, Elden Ring and more at high settings. However, many might consider the GPU to be a bit of an overkill because of the Steam Deck’s average processor and the 1200×800 LCD display. However, maybe in the near future, we might see Valve increase the processor performance in the next Steam Deck console to run more games.
