KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
Many companies have been looking to crack open the portable gaming market with handheld gaming PCs, but nobody has been quite as successful as Valve with the Steam Deck. The popularity of the Deck is partially due to Steam OS and all the work Valve has put in on the software side to create a well functioning platform. Now, the competition may benefit from Valve's work here, as it looks like SteamOS will be heading to rival portable gaming systems too.
Valve plans to optimise SteamOS for non-Deck systems too, according to GPD (via VideoCardz), a company that makes its own portable gaming device – the GPD Win Max 2. Currently, Valve is optimising SteamOS for the Ryzen 7 6800U processor, which is used in a number of portable devices.
For those not aware of the Win Max 2, it's the latest portable console announced by GPD. Featuring either the Intel Core i7-1260P (LPDDR5-5200) CPU or AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (LPDDR5-6400), the portable console runs on Windows 11 Home. Moreover, it packs a 10.1-inch display with 1600p resolution, two M.2 slots (one occupied with a 1/2TB SSD), up to 32GB of memory, a 4G LTE module, four speakers, support for Thunderbolt 4 and USB4, wireless module supporting Wi-Fi 6 and BT 5.2 and a 67Wh battery.
The GPD Win Max 2 pricing varies depending on its hardware. It starts at $899 for the first 50 units on Indiegogo with the Ryzen 7 6800U, 16GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and goes up to $1459 (retail price) for the Ryzen 7 6800U variant with 32GB RAM and a 2TB SSD.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru says: The first time around, Valve attempted to overtake Windows with ‘gaming PCs for the living room', but the Steam Machine concept and original vision for SteamOS was later abandoned. Now with the Steam Deck and the newly revamped version of Steam OS, Valve may finally be able to achieve its original dream, with many device makers creating hardware at different price points to give consumers options, but all running Valve software.
