Steam Deck Downgrade: Vavle is secretly changing specifications of some models

Some 256GB and 512GB Steam deck models have received a small downgrade. The handheld PC in these versions was originally supposed to be equipped with a PCI Express 3.0 x4 SSD. However, as confirmed by Valve, there are now individual decks that only ship with a PCI Express 3.0 x2 SSD.

Less is not always more

through the Wayback Machine it can be understood that Valve published the technical data on the end of May site of the Steam Deck has changed. The changes can only be viewed on the English-language site.

There the company writes that they “could not find any effects on game performance between x2 and x4”. However, Valve does not write anything about possible changes in loading times or response times. From the looks of it, the small 64GB version shouldn’t be affected by this downgrade. An eMMC PCIe Gen 2 x1 SSD is still installed here.

More Steam Deck news:

The Steam Deck specs have been listed as follows since late May:

• 64GB eMMC (PCIe Gen 2 x1)
• 256GB NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3 x4 or PCIe Gen 3 x2*)
• 512GB high-speed NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3 x4 or PCIe Gen 3 x2*)

The asterisk states that “some 256GB or 512GB models ship with a PCIe Gen 3 x2 SSD.” While the downgrade shouldn’t have a major impact, it’s certainly not great news for pre-orderers that the device they’ve been waiting for for many weeks and months could suddenly ship with less hardware than previously promised. After all, Valve has decided to double the delivery of Steam Decks.