Wow. I’ve been playing with Steam Deck regularly since I’m reviewed it in February, and every update Valve has released over the last two months has done something about Deck a little bit better. But the latest update, which is currently in beta testing, is far from the most significant, and it dramatically improves Steam Deck’s most obvious flaw: its noisy fan.
We wrote a separate article on launch day about Steam Deck’s fan notices how high it is when trying to keep the powerful AMD hardware cool. Volume is not the only problem with the Deck fan: due to its size or the design of the fan, it produces a particularly whining sound when turned up to full speed. Steam Deck fans have started talking about the fan lottery because of two different fan models available in various Steam tires. I do not have two decks to test side by side, but I can say that I notice the fan every time I use Steam Deck. It’s a nuisance I’m been willing to put myself in, but the latest update brings Deck in line with the quiet Nintendo Switch, at least when playing less demanding games.
As Katie explained covers the patch yesterday, the new fan curve allows the tire to get warmer before the fan ramps up to full power, meaning the system can run hotter as a result. I did not find that it was noticeably hot in the hand, even playing the Elden Ring and watching the CPU temperature reach 80 ° C. And the exciting thing was even at that temperature, and with the fan running, it was not as loud as it sometimes was before the update under much less demanding conditions.
Here is the change as described by Valve:
“Added an OS-controlled fan curve to enhance the experience in low-consumption scenarios and adjust how the fan responds to different scenarios and temperatures.”
After some testing, I found out that both of these were true. I first ran Elden Ring before and after the beta update; this demanding game definitely makes the tab spin in both cases, but it’s noticeably quieter after the beta patch.
The Fire Call before: notice how it strikes again when I enter the mansion again at the 45 second mark. And it was already loud. (Remember to turn on the gif).
And the Fire Call. Note the temperature difference: it runs in the high 70s now, a difference of up to 10 ° C, but I think it will be a worthy trade-off.
Meanwhile, with Death’s Door, a moderately demanding 3D indie game and Final Fantasy 3 Pixel Remaster, which is not demanding at. all, the fan was much quieter. After the update, the fan did not even turn on in Final Fantasy 3. I also took some quick videos of these tests, but the ambient wind noise outside my apartment (thank you, San Francisco!) Makes it hard to really pick up on the difference.
My main takeaway is that this is a noticeable improvement for demanding games like Elden Ring and one huge improvement for playing less demanding games on Steam Deck. Before this update, you should at least hear the tab when playing a game like Death’s Door or Final Fantasy 3, even if it did not run at an annoying volume. Now the deck’s fan is less likely to screw up, period, so you can play some games in silence. After comparing these three games, I started Yakuza 0 up and was amazed at how quiet the fan was: I have the game configured to run at 60 fps, and it always runs wonderfully on deck, but with the fan constantly buzzing in the background. This time, it did not come across a hiss of low revs.
The SteamOS 3.2 update is still in beta, so Valve may be able to make more changes to the fan curve before hitting the stable channel. And this update will probably not be the last change of the fan during Steam Deck’s lifetime, but I can not imagine that they make any single improvement that makes me happier than this one.