Is The Steam Deck More Powerful Than The PlayStation 4?

The Steam Deck is one of the most popular handheld gaming PCs on the market, and it can handle AAA and indie games alike. While most of the top-played Steam Deck games are cozy farming sims and addicting roguelikes, you can still play through cinematic single-player titles like Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Baldur's Gate 3 on the go with this handy little device.

The Steam Deck is definitely not as powerful as current-generation consoles (although the comparison with Nintendo Switch 2 is closer than you might think), but it can easily hold its own against the PlayStation 4. In fact, plenty of PS4 games run just fine on the Steam Deck, especially if you're willing to tweak the graphical settings.

In truth, neither the Steam Deck nor the Switch 2 is necessarily more powerful than the other. Both perform similarly when testing the same games, but the Steam Deck comes out on top in a few scenarios thanks to its lower screen resolution and PC-specific technologies like frame generation that help the device squeeze as many frames out of a game as possible.

The Steam Deck and PS4 are basically neck-and-neck when it comes to real-world performance. Even the biggest PS4 games, like The Last of Us Part 2,  can maintain a stable 30 Frames Per Second (FPS) on Steam Deck. If a game runs on PS4, it'll probably run just fine on Steam Deck — although some popular games are exceptions.

Looking at Cyberpunk 2077, both the PS4 and Steam Deck maintain a locked 30 FPS at default settings. The Steam Deck actually beats the PS4 in this specific game, as some settings tweaks can bump the game up to a smoother 40 FPS (according to testing by Gaming on Steam) thanks to the Steam Deck's built-in Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) functionality. It's not a strict one-to-one comparison, though, since PS4 games largely run at 1080p, while the Steam Deck's screen only has a 1280-by-800-pixel resolution that's a bit easier to drive.

The Steam Deck does have one big advantage over the PlayStation 4, however. Games like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth aren't available on PS4 at all, but that title runs well enough on Steam Deck to earn Steam's verified badge. The same goes for Marvel's Spider-Man 2, although this one struggles a bit more on Steam Deck with uneven framerates in busy scenes. It's an aging device, but the Steam Deck is still worth it in 2026 for many gamers.

Things start to lean in Sony's favor once you begin comparing the Steam Deck to the more powerful PlayStation 4 Pro. The PS4 Pro isn't anywhere near a PS5, but it runs PS4 games at higher resolutions and higher framerates than the base model.

Marvel's Spider-Man runs at a locked 30 FPS on both PS4 and PS4 Pro, for example, but the Pro increases the resolution to an upscaled 4K. Shadow of the Tomb Raider features an upscaled 4K/30 FPS quality mode and a 1080p/60 FPS performance mode on PS4 Pro, as well. Both of these games run on the Steam Deck, but they won't get anywhere near those resolutions and framerates.

However, the Steam Deck still has some unique advantages, even when compared to Sony's souped-up PS4 Pro. Cyberpunk 2077 runs great on PS4 Pro, for example, but last-generation consoles can't play the Phantom Liberty expansion. Since the Steam Deck just runs the normal PC version of the game, Phantom Liberty is totally playable.