Valve makes some Steam Decks worse than others

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com

Video transcript (auto-generated):
So valve has changed the specs of the steam deck they've basically made it a little bit worse specifically the ssd so the original ssd spec for the 256 and the 512 gigabyte version of the ssd the original spec has these ssds running at gen 3 on four lanes but now apparently they're going to be running on gen 3 but only on two lanes which basically means you're only going to be giving the drive half of the original spec band with only half of it is actually going to be available to the drive now i i don't have a pre-order for the steam deck valve has probably done this just to push more steam decks out there because there are still supply constraints uh now it doesn't feel good if you had a pre-order and they're just gonna send it to you without you know like i i think like if you have to make a difference with the specs because of supply constraints i think the way to do this would have been to like send out an email and be like hey uh we have to make this change there's not a big difference but if we make this change you can get your steam deck in a few weeks or months and if you still want the old spec it's gonna take us uh like a whole year or something or or you know you can't get it anymore and your order is gonna be canceled you know something like that because when they just change the product on you it kind of makes you feel powerless as a consumer and it just kind of sucks but apparently so basically the drives only have half of the available bandwidth now valve has said that in their internal testing this didn't make a difference in gaming performance now that really doesn't matter because you really need third-party testing for this you know this is they're just internal testing but the thing is the steam deck isn't a gaming console you know it is a full computer running linux and you can actually install windows on it if you want for instance so okay maybe you know the gaming performance isn't going to be affected that much you know maybe the other specs like the cpu just can't keep up with the original speed of the drive anyways so you don't you don't have those constraints but you know there's probably probably going to be games there's probably going to be software programs out there uh they're going to be running a little bit worse because of this you know uh it's not such a big deal you know but it kind of it kind of sucks you know ssd manufacturers for instance uh do this a lot or at least did this a lot you know they would basically release an ssd with specific specifications and you know all the reviews would come out and like oh yeah it's a great ssd and then a year two years three years later whatever they start changing some components maybe they swap out the controller maybe they swap out the nand chips you know why would they do that well again maybe there's supply issues or whatever but usually they're just trying to either uh cuss down the ssd the product so they can get a bigger profit or they're trying to cost it down so they can lower the actual price and be more competitive in the market you know and uh i personally really hate that behavior you know i think if you're gonna be changing uh the s's the ssd you should at least change the marketing the naming scheme a little bit you know you have this ssd and now you have like a little bit of a different one you know you add something to the name or something you know you don't just do it and like not tell anyone because you know some extreme cases you know i think there were some a data ssds that were just like top performing ssds and then a few years later when people started testing them again like the same model uh they were just like sort of mid-range ssds and everyone was like what and you know they checked and the controllers were different and the nand flash was different so uh steam valve did this you know it is what it is uh you know obviously uh there are supply constraints there are way more steam decks pre-ordered and ordered and stuff than uh they're actually are out there and available so you know maybe they needed to do this personally i you know would have just made the change and then sent out an email or like a confirmation or something like hey uh yeah we can't deliver the original thing anymore uh so this is the new spec and you can either just keep your order and you're just gonna get this device that is slightly worse uh or we're just gonna cancel your order because we're not doing that anymore so uh i don't know that that i think would have been the way to go you know so because you know apparently the only way for people to know if they have the good or the bad steam deck now is to just go into settings and actually check uh what your ssd is running at is it running at x4 or x2 lanes so you know pretty interesting uh kind of sucks you know personally don't like it but it is what it is