Steam Deck

The iFixit team tore down the Steam Deck ahead of its February 25th release date. Check out the video and blog post here!

The Steam Deck is a handheld, portable gaming console made by Valve. It’s very reminiscent of the Nintendo Switch Lite, AYA Neo, or OneXPlayer, with its 7-inch display bookended by two non-removable controllers that feature thumbsticks and haptic trackpads on both sides, with a full suite of triggers, bumpers, back buttons, and menu buttons—plus the standard ABXY and D-pad.

The Steam Deck runs a custom AMD APU on the 64-bit x86 CPU architecture and is designed to play your entire Steam library of games. The console runs SteamOS v3.0, which is a modified version of Arch Linux that supports Proton, allowing most Windows games to be played on SteamOS. The console also supports multi-boot with a user-accessible BIOS menu.

Valve revealed the Steam Deck gaming console in July 2021 after several months of rumors and announced that the device would begin shipping in December 2021. The Steam Deck succumbed to chip shortage delays, however, with the release date pushed to late February 2022.

And for all the tinkerers out there, you can find 3D files (STO, STL) if you want to print your own case or just want to experiment with the geometry/surface topology.

The most often replaced Steam Deck parts include the fan, thumbsticks, bumper button assemblies, and back plate.

Release Date: February 25, 2022

Dimensions and Weight: 298 × 117 × 49 mm (11.7 × 4.6 × 1.9 in), 669 g (23.6 oz)

Display: 7-inch multi-touch IPS LCD (1280 × 800 px, 60 Hz)

Operating System: Steam OS 3.0 (based off Arch Linux)

Processor: Custom AMD APU: 4-core, 8-thread Zen 2

Graphics: 8 AMD RDNA 2 CUs

RAM: 16 GB LPDDR5 RAM

Storage: 64 GB eMMC (configurable to a 256 or 512 GB NVMe) M.2 2230 SSD

Battery: 5200 mAh (40 Wh)

Sensors: Gyro, Ambient light sensor, Capacitive finger detection (thumbsticks)

Controls and Input

• A B X Y buttons, D-pad, L/R analog triggers, L/R bumpers, 4 assignable rear grip buttons
• 2 analog sticks with capacitive touch
• Two 32.5 mm square trackpads with haptic feedback
• 6-axis gyro

Audio:

• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Left and right speakers
• Dual microphone array

Expansion: microSD: UHS-I supports SD, SDXC, and SDHC

Connectivity:

• 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 5.0 (support for controllers, accessories, and audio)
• USB-C port with USB 3.2 (supporting DisplayPort 1.4)

• Official Site: Steam Deck
• CAD files for the external shell (surface topology)
• Wikipedia: Steam Deck