If you’re one of the lucky gamers who owns Steam Deck (Opens in a new tab)It is advisable to pay attention to this warning from Valve. The company strongly suggests that users should not use handheld gaming PCs at temperatures above 35 Ā° C, as the device can reach temperature limits, slow down, or simply power off. doing.
A brief note about a steam deck at high temperatures for our friends in the midst of a heat wave. Steam Deck performs best at ambient temperatures from 0 Ā° to 35 Ā° C. At higher temperatures, Steam Deck may begin to curb performance to protect itself.July 19, 2022
The custom AMD APU in the Steam deck is designed to operate up to 100 Ā° C, no questions asked. It looks high enough to withstand any outdoor conditions, but it’s all about the ambient temperature. In our tests, the silicon of the deck reached about 60-70 Ā° C during the game, but it is known to reach about 80 Ā° C with a less aggressive fan profile. This means that large fluctuations in outdoor temperatures can cause headaches.
Above 100 Ā° C, Steam Deck begins to degrade performance and power, ensuring that its temperature does not exceed its maximum of 105 Ā° C. At that temperature, the system will automatically shut down to prevent damage to the APU.
Being safe against high temperatures is not necessarily dangerous as it prevents the CPU from reaching temperatures that are problematic for the silicon inside.
However, it is still not advisable to do it often while avoiding damage when the temperature limit is reached.
Exceeding the CPU’s TJ Max temperature (the point at which the CPU begins to force the temperature down by the necessary means) is not new to PC gamers. I’m sure some people were so unlucky that the overclocker had reached that point before or made the CPU cooler a bit unstable.
However, Steam Deck isn’t the average gaming PC and doesn’t have enough space inside to expel very hot air. In fact, if the CPU is overheated due to the all-in-one nature of Steam Deck’s AMD processor, it also means that the GPU is badly toasted. And your RAM. And your SSD. It’s a compact device with lots of heat-sensitive components inside that require as much fresh and cold air as possible to function at its best.
The heat affects the performance of the deck at some point. That’s a lot you can’t afford to lose on a Steam deck with a low power but optimized APU.
So if you’re still struggling with the heat outdoors, it’s probably best to keep your Steam Deck in your house this summer. Or keep it safe at least until you come to a shaded place or a place with AC.
The same applies to your phone, laptop, and all kinds of electronic devices. Most chips tend to switch off at the same temperature, so all chips depend on the cooling solution in terms of how well they work. Anyway, direct sunlight will be a killer for most people. Cooling fans and heatsinks cannot cool components below ambient temperature, and cooling below ambient temperature is almost unportable.
The sad truth is that we need to be more concerned about how we use electrical devices outdoors in the coming years and decades. Artificial climate change (Opens in a new tab) And heat waves become more common.
