TechGamingMad Steam Deck upgrade makes it over 10x more powerful than Nintendo SwitchBut it’s lost a lot of portability in the processWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

TechGamingMad Steam Deck upgrade makes it over 10x more powerful than Nintendo SwitchBut it’s lost a lot of portability in the processWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

But it’s lost a lot of portability in the process

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Future)

Steam Deck handheld console running The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

(Image credit: Future)

There’s no doubting that, right now, theSteam Deckis the world’s most powerful handheld gaming console, beating off the likes of theNintendo Switchcomfortably.

And, while there are rumors of aNintendo Switch Proconsole incoming, right now the Steam Deck is completely unchecked as the king of the gaming handhelds in terms of pixel-pushing power.

Which is why it’s hilarious that a talented modder has just gone and upgraded a Steam Deck so it’s even more powerful, modding in a full-blown desktop GPU that means the handheld delivers up to 10 times better gaming performance.

10 times the gaming performance is truly mad, too, and especially when you consider the Steam Deck wasalreadymore powerful than Nintendo Switch with its stock Aerith APU.

You can watch the modded Steam Deck get made in the video below:

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Regardless, though, the upgraded Steam Deck does still deliver massive performance improvements over stock, with the console’s 3DMark Time Spy score leaping from 1,722 to 10,395 with the GPU upgrade. Games like The Witcher 3 are shown running at over 100 frames per second at 4K ultra settings.

Of course, the trade-off to all this extra power is the handheld nature of the Steam Deck console gets completely obliterated. But at the end of the day, as the modder himself says, this is just a fun experiment that he completed because he could.

And, well, it’s still mouth-watering to see whatcouldbe possible in the future for handheld consoles. If Steam Deck is a big success, maybe we will see an upgraded Steam Deck 2 being offered, although we imagine if that ever happens it will be a ways off as Valve is still struggling just to make original Steam Decks, withmany pre-orders still not delivered.

The far more likely next-gen handheld console we’ll see is the Switch Pro, footage from which mightalready be out in the openaccording to experts.

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