Immovable Steam Deck? Enthusiast Enables AMD RX 6900 XT Graphics Card “eGPU”

A Steam Deck enthusiast has done what Steam would not (at least not in the first rendition of its popular Steam Deck handheld console): he went and added an external GPU to the mix. The owner of the ETA Prime YouTube channel managed to increase the Steam Deck’s APU-powered graphical oomph with a much more powerful AMD RX 6900 XT graphics card. To do so required sacrifices however: since the SteamDeck doesn’t feature a proper Thunderbolt 3/4 connector, ETA Prime had to remove the Steam Deck’s SSD from its M.2 port, instead mounting a special M.2 to PCIe adapter in the SSD slot itself.

This, of course, required that installed games be run off memory cards, which generally offer lower speeds (a less than stellar experience) than the onboard SSD. It also required butchering the Steam Deck’s OS by replacing it with Windows 11. But it did allow the Steam Deck’s APU to tap onto power otherwise unavailable to it, unlocking playable framerates with maxed out detail settings on games such as God of War, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, and others.

Some of the games were run at 1080p, while others were run at 4K, but all of them showcased improved graphical performance compared to the Steam Deck’s comparably puny APU graphics. For now, this solution remains a novelty. At the same time, the 3D Mark Time Spy score increased by almost 8000 points. Should Valve introduce a Thunderbolt port in future revisions of the Steam Deck, and one can imagine having an extremely powerful Switch-like experience for a hybrid gaming environment. Valve?