I completely agree. I passed over the Steam Deck and went for the MSI Claw 8 instead. I was willing to pay the extra for a waaaay better CPU/GPU combo and - the killer feature IMHO - not one, but two Thunderbolt ports. Long term, this means I can expect a longer life out of my MSI than the Steam Deck is likely to get, but also means when the GPU does start to chug I can connect an eGPU to it’s dock.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean I don’t rate the Steam Deck - I really, really do - and it’s level of capability and price-point will act as a stabalising point for the wider industry, but I paid more for a better device and got my money’s worth.
You went for an Intel handheld? I salute you, sir, that’s a deep cut.
As one of the five people on the planet who own an Intel GPU I firmly believe we are in a very exclusive club that will one day do wonders for hardware archaeology.
We had a bunch of laptops at work with ARC GPUs in them. The vendor supplied one of them as test units saying they were ideal as portable 8K video editing machines, to which I replied - in exactly these words - “oh, fuck off”. But then we tested them and they’re honestly excellent and run a lot cooIer and longer than the AMD/Intel+Nvidia equivalents. I had to apologise. I got to test the Claw side-by-side with the Steam Deck playing RDR2 and Forza Horizon 5 and that sealed the deal. And when the ARC GPU does start groaning then, like I said, it’s eGPU time. The ARC is probably never going to bother the top-tier GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, but for portable and, I dare say, midrange desktop gaming it’s ideal.
I completely agree. I passed over the Steam Deck and went for the MSI Claw 8 instead. I was willing to pay the extra for a waaaay better CPU/GPU combo and - the killer feature IMHO - not one, but two Thunderbolt ports. Long term, this means I can expect a longer life out of my MSI than the Steam Deck is likely to get, but also means when the GPU does start to chug I can connect an eGPU to it’s dock.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean I don’t rate the Steam Deck - I really, really do - and it’s level of capability and price-point will act as a stabalising point for the wider industry, but I paid more for a better device and got my money’s worth.
You went for an Intel handheld? I salute you, sir, that’s a deep cut.
As one of the five people on the planet who own an Intel GPU I firmly believe we are in a very exclusive club that will one day do wonders for hardware archaeology.
We had a bunch of laptops at work with ARC GPUs in them. The vendor supplied one of them as test units saying they were ideal as portable 8K video editing machines, to which I replied - in exactly these words - “oh, fuck off”. But then we tested them and they’re honestly excellent and run a lot cooIer and longer than the AMD/Intel+Nvidia equivalents. I had to apologise. I got to test the Claw side-by-side with the Steam Deck playing RDR2 and Forza Horizon 5 and that sealed the deal. And when the ARC GPU does start groaning then, like I said, it’s eGPU time. The ARC is probably never going to bother the top-tier GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, but for portable and, I dare say, midrange desktop gaming it’s ideal.