The Steam Deck console is capable of 4K gaming with an external GPU connected to the console via the M.2 slot, a new video has confirmed.
ETA PRIMA shared on their YouTube channel a new video that shows how it is possible to connect an external GPU to the console via the M.2 slot. No NVIDIA GPU seems to work as of now, however, so a Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU has been connected instead.
While the Steam Deck’s CPU obviously bottlenecked the powerful RX 6900 XT GPU, the results were still impressive in gaming, as the console is able to run games like The Witcher 3 and Grant Theft Auto V at 4K resolution and decent performance above 60 FPS. More recent games like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 run decently as well, but only at 1080p resolution, which is still quite impressive, considering not only the console’s CPU but the M.2 connection.
We attached an external GPU to the steam deck and it works! In this video, we see how the steam deck performs with an external M.2 Video card. The Radeon RX 6900 XT is overkill for the steam deck but I could not get any Nvidia Graphics card working yet so the 3080 and 3090 were out of the question for now. So can we game at 4K on the steam deck with an external Video card attached? Let’s find out. By the way we did have to use WIndows 11 on The Deck for this to work right now
The Steam Deck is Valve’s handheld console which has been released this year. More information on the system can be found on its official website.
