How powerful is Steamdeck's APU for CPU intensive Linux programs? Anyone have benchmarks? - eviltoast

I’m interested academically (please no “it’s enough”).

As in: if they release a steamdeck laptop with the same motherboard and chipset as the steamdeck, how would it stack up against other laptops for general computing. We already know the gaming part of it. I doubt they would release a laptop version for this iteration, but maybe for steamdeck 2 we’ll get a steamdeck 2 laptop version.

  • Xylia@artemis.camp
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    1 year ago

    Since what you seem to really be after is benchmark results. I ran Cinebench R23, the Windows version, using Proton GE in Desktop mode.

    I got a multi-core result of 4196, placing the multi-core CPU performance between the Intel Core i7-1165G7 which scored 4904, (1.17x faster than the Deck) and the Intel Core i7-4850HQ which scored 3891 (1.08x slower than the Deck).

    I got a single core result of 968, placing the single-core CPU performance between the Intel Xeon W-3265M which scored 1058 (1.09x faster than the Deck) and the AMD Ryzen 7 1700X which scored 959 (1.01x slower than the Deck.) Remember both of these comparisons are single core only. The Xeon is 5.78x faster with the multicore and the Ryzen is 2.12x faster with its multicore.

    Keep in mind, the GPU in the Deck will outpace many iGPUs in most laptops, but not a dedicated laptop GPU. And this can be relevant for some high load compute workloads tasks even though it’s not the CPU.

    Hopefully that helps.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Very interesting results, seems to be quite good. That’s the kind of info I was looking for, thanks for running the tests.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Steamdeck is a gaming computer. Games have much more resource requirements than office programs. If you can play PS4-level AAA games on the deck without much issue, then office programs will pose zero issue.

    Steamdeck is a unique form factor. There is no “Steamdeck laptop” because then it would not be a Steamdeck, it would be a laptop.

  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
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    1 year ago

    Why should Valve release a laptop? Plenty of others with more power available on the market. A laptop should have enough space to house a dedicated GPU.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I think they would do very well in the budget gaming laptop sector. Also running Linux gets you (should get you) even further on the same hardware. So my question is how powerful is it for non-gaming.

      • PeachMan@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        But there are already a hundred laptops with similar specs that will run Linux… There’s not much reason for Valve to release a laptop.

        • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          Pardon if I wasn’t clear, this would be with the same motherboard and chipset as the steamdeck (added that to the post). Economies of scale should get it cheaper than competitors, for the budget market. Steamdeck is now popular enough many games want to make sure it runs on it, it’s a strong development point and I expect future versions well get even stronger. And you also get long term support (I’m reading how nvidia drops Linux support long term).

          • PeachMan@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            Again, laptops with that chipset kind of already exist. Steam Deck uses a custom AMD APU, but it’s really not that special. The point of the customization is to make it work well in that handheld form factor. If you’re putting it in a laptop you might as well just use a more common (and more powerful) laptop chipset because you have more space.

  • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Performance is fine. I’ve used my Deck as a regular PC a bunch of times (basically whenever it’s closer than the bag with my notebook and I’m too lazy to get up). Don’t have Benchmarks of LibreOffice.

  • rotopenguin@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    Probably below average. AIUI, the Deck’s memory controller is designed first and foremost to feed the GPU. The CPU is reported to not handle great there, even if the GPU isn’t busy.

    On the other hand, it is the most stable Linux system that I’ve ever had.