Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) vs Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) CPU1 vs CPU2 Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)

CPU comparison

In this CPU comparison, we compare the Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) and the Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) and use benchmarks to check which processor is faster.

We compare the Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) 4 core processor released in Q4/2023 with the Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) which has 10 CPU cores and was introduced in Q3/2021.
AMD Ryzen 5 (85) Family Apple M series (25)
AMD Sephiroth (Steam Deck Refresh 2023) (1) CPU group Apple M1 (9)
4 Generation 1
Sephiroth (Zen 2) Architecture M1
Mobile Segment Mobile
Valve Steam Deck (AMD Custom APU 0405) Predecessor --
-- Successor Apple M2 Pro (10-CPU 16-GPU)

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) is a 4 core processor with a clock frequency of 2.40 GHz (3.50 GHz). The processor can compute 8 threads at the same time. The Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) clocks with 0.60 GHz (3.20 GHz), has 10 CPU cores and can calculate 10 threads in parallel.

Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
4 Cores 10
8 Threads 10
normal Core architecture hybrid (big.LITTLE)
Yes Hyperthreading No
No Overclocking ? No
2.40 GHz (3.50 GHz) A-Core 0.60 GHz (3.20 GHz)
8x Firestorm
-- B-Core 0.60 GHz (2.06 GHz)
2x Icestorm

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. Algorithms for ML improve their performance the more data they have collected via software. ML tasks can be processed up to 10,000 times faster than with a classic processor.

Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
-- AI hardware Apple Neural Engine
-- AI specifications 16 Neural cores @ 11 TOPS

Internal Graphics

Graphics (iGPU) integrated into the processor not only enable image output without having to rely on a dedicated graphics solution, but can also efficiently accelerate video playback.

AMD Custom Radeon Graphics (Steam Deck) GPU Apple M1 Pro (14 Core)
1.00 GHz GPU frequency 0.39 GHz
1.60 GHz GPU (Turbo) 1.30 GHz
-- GPU Generation 1
7 nm Technology 5 nm
2 Max. displays 3
8 Compute units 224
512 Shader 1792
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
8 GB Max. GPU Memory 32 GB
12 DirectX Version --

Hardware codec support

A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.

AMD Custom Radeon Graphics (Steam Deck) GPU Apple M1 Pro (14 Core)
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit) Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit) Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec h264 Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec VP9 Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec VP8 Decode
No Codec AV1 No
Decode / Encode Codec AVC Decode
Decode Codec VC-1 Decode
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

Up to 16 GB of memory in a maximum of 4 memory channels is supported by the Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh), while the Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) supports a maximum of 32 GB of memory with a maximum memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s enabled.

Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
LPDDR5-6400 Memory LPDDR5-6400
16 GB Max. Memory 32 GB
4 (Quad Channel) Memory channels 2 (Dual Channel)
102.4 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 102.4 GB/s
No ECC No
2.00 MB L2 Cache 28.00 MB
4.00 MB L3 Cache --
3.0 PCIe version 4.0
8 PCIe lanes --
7.9 GB/s PCIe Bandwidth --

Thermal Management

The Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) has a TDP of 15 W. The TDP of the Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) is 45 W. System integrators use the TDP of the processor as a guide when dimensioning the cooling solution.

Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
15 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 45 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
4 W TDP down --
100 °C Tjunction max. --

Technical details

The Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) has 6.00 MB cache and is manufactured in 6 nm. The cache of Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) is at 28.00 MB. The processor is manufactured in 5 nm.

Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
6 nm Technology 5 nm
Monolithic Chip design Chiplet
x86-64 (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) Armv8.5-A (64 bit)
SSE4a, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, FMA3 ISA extensions Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
FF3 Socket --
AMD-V, SVM Virtualization Apple Virtualization Framework
Yes AES-NI Yes
SteamOS (Arch Linux) Operating systems macOS
Q4/2023 Release date Q3/2021
-- Release price --
show more data show more data


Rate these processors

Here you can rate the Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 3.3 stars (3 ratings). Rate now:
Here you can rate the Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 5.0 stars (26 ratings). Rate now:


Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) (56%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) (100%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) (35%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) (100%)

Cinebench 2024 (Single-Core)

The Cinebench 2024 benchmark is based on the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxon's 3D program Cinema 4D. The benchmark runs are each 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
57 (50%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
113 (100%)

Cinebench 2024 (Multi-Core)

The Multi-Core test of the Cinebench 2024 benchmark uses all cpu cores to render using the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxons Cinema 4D. The benchmark run is 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
275 (34%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
802 (100%)

Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
975 (64%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
1534 (100%)

Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 2.80 GHz
4359 (35%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
12390 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
1296 (54%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
2397 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 2.80 GHz
4510 (36%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
12407 (100%)

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
AMD Custom Radeon Graphics (Steam Deck) @ 1.60 GHz
1638 (36%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
Apple M1 Pro (14 Core) @ 1.30 GHz
4580 (100%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
1768 (100%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 2.80 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
12574 (100%)

Blender 3.1 Benchmark

In the Blender Benchmark 3.1, the scenes "monster", "junkshop" and "classroom" are rendered and the time required by the system is measured. In our benchmark we test the CPU and not the graphics card. Blender 3.1 was presented as a standalone version in March 2022.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 2.80 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 3.20 GHz
192 (100%)

CPU performance per watt (efficiency)

Efficiency of the processor under full load in the Cinebench R23 (multi-core) benchmark. The benchmark result is divided by the average energy required (CPU package power in watts). The higher the value, the more efficient the CPU is under full load.
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
2.40 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
12,390 CB R23 MC @ 45 W
275 (100%)

Performance for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. The performance is given in the number (trillions) of arithmetic operations per second (TOPS).
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh)
4C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
10C 10T @ 0.60 GHz
11 (100%)

Devices using this processor

Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)
Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021)
Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2021)

News and articles for the Valve Steam Deck (2023 Refresh) and the Apple M1 Pro (10-CPU 14-GPU)


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