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CantBeMadifYouBad t1_j7zza8r wrote

For $299? Holy shit I haven't see any of the other 2TB ones get this close for new.

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jptiger0 t1_j80509a wrote

So now Valve responds by releasing a touchscreen for the Framework laptop, right?

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pastathehoagie t1_j8067r6 wrote

You can get them on AliExpress for ~250 but then it takes 6-12weeks to ship and it's AliExpress.

That's what I did and to me it feels like it also runs hotter than the stock 512gb drive

Edit: changed Alibaba to AliExpress. Also looks like they're $215 on AliExpress now.

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MrAcurite t1_j80bp20 wrote

It's nice to see Framework branching out into other areas involving repairing and upgrading devices. Just selling laptops and components to their own customers, however well they might be doing it, is definitely less stable as a business than diversifying.

I'd still like to see a dGPU option for the Framework chassis, and an AMD mainboard, but I'm happy with this.

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MrAcurite t1_j80f0vt wrote

I'm interested mostly in an internal dGPU, rather than an eGPU. I have a workstation/gaming desktop, and can offload the really computationally intensive tasks to it. So the dGPU is really if I want to do some light gaming, or more likely, make sure that some Torch code is talking to CUDA correctly before I bother getting out of bed to turn my workstation on.

I think, honestly, that eGPU enclosures are kind of inefficient, and only make sense for a very narrow range of budgets and usecases. The tech behind them is absolutely fucking cool as Hell, but given the choice between paying a few hundred bucks to hook up a graphics card to my laptop, or paying a few hundred bucks more than that to just have a second, separate computer that I can use for compute and Steam Play and such, I'd probably go with the latter option.

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perkail t1_j80ifal wrote

I use 1TB SD cards. I have two of them and combined they hold way more games then I ever take with me or play simultaneously

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drmirage809 t1_j80n9im wrote

This is a cool thing. Framework make a cool laptop that I'd have bought if it was available in my area while I was shopping for a new laptop.

The SSD in the Steam Deck is a bit of an uncommon form factor, so getting high capacity drives from a reputable seller is a good thing in my book. The price is hefty, but this isn't a large market. Honestly, the price just makes it more believable to me. If you see an SSD from a company you don't know with a capacity that sounds too good to be true for the money then it's usually a fake.

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Danjour t1_j80pcqd wrote

Ugh I want a Steam Deck so badly, really hoping for a price drop sooon.

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Russianranger47 t1_j80qfia wrote

You’ll be waiting for a hot minute for a price drop on a new one. Used? You may get lucky and find it 100 less than retail but condition may not be the best. Steam Deck, especially the 64gb version, it sold at cost/at a loss. It would be more likely they increase in price versus decrease.

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danielv123 t1_j80tl4d wrote

Hm, actually maybe not. Can get power from display, and people use Bluetooth mice etc. Some "laptops" come with Bluetooth keyboards.

Overall probably better than USB as long as you can fit the electronics.

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BloomEPU t1_j80vaos wrote

I really haven't noticed any issue with load times using an SD card either, I don't play a lot of massive games but I never feel like I have to sit around waiting for games to load.

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akeean t1_j815wb7 wrote

Once upon a time when an enclosure, m.2 to pcie adapter, used midrange GPU and semi-dodgy activation tool to play most games at high detail on the common resolution cost ~$200 together, it was a great option and the reduction in performance from the narrow bandwith & extra latency was surprisingly low.

A lot of the time you'd still be held back by affordable laptop CPUs being dual cores and the process being fiddly as hell provided you had the magic combination of good wiring, enough addressable memory to recognize the card, a card with a driver that would not forbit you this (I'm looking at you, NVIDIA) and no bios whitelisting on that m.2 port.

PCIe over thunderbolt made the process a lot easier, reliable and less likely to fry your laptops motherboard or set your dest on fire,, but $200+ just for the enclosure was just too much, esp since the fancy & slim laptops that'd you'd do this with still had very core and thermally limited CPUs most of the time.

Now it makes even less sense when a dedicated card makes up at least half of any decent builds cost & drivers are even more locked down, just people keep the buying the very lucrative, yet underperforming and misbadged mobile GPUs.

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Hey_look_new t1_j8167xg wrote

most lapdocks have a battery built in. they won't charge the steam deck very well tho

the nexpad tho (the screen at the top in the pic) doesn't have a battery at all, so does full pass thru power to the steam deck....

so deck charger into nexpad, usb-c to usb-c from nexpad to steam deck, and you're off to the races

what I've got pictured tho is nexpad + nexpad360 wireless

so I'm using a GaN charger (100w) with USB power to the nexpad (and onto the steam deck) and then another USB lead to the nexdock360w

then steam deck then connects to the nexdock360w wirelessly, with miracast for video, and bluetooth for the keyboard/trackpad/touchscreen

it's a really decent experience, tbh

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hellowiththepudding t1_j819f78 wrote

They are just selling a 2230 western digital drive. Why is this interesting?

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lolard t1_j81h7o7 wrote

Maybe Valve acquires Framework - making them the hardware division of a larger company - creating repairable portables, laptops and some kind of modular PC thing.

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jptiger0 t1_j81i2rv wrote

I think it's the single-sided form factor and that it's a source that can't just disappear into the ebay/amazon/aliexpress thicket if they ship a dud. 2TB 2230 (specifically the 30 part) isn't that common yet.

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pastathehoagie t1_j81p2g9 wrote

If I was in that situation I would buy the base model steam Deck and the largest SD card I could afford. After the SD card fills up I would do an upgrade like this.

I think upgrading the SSD and installing a new OS is pretty easy but I do remember as a beginner opening any clamshell being nerve-wracking. Approach it like you're developing a new skill and you'll do fine.

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T732 t1_j81rg6e wrote

Now only if I could get a steam deck at Winter Sale prices.

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NotMe01 t1_j81tz0t wrote

Make this foldable and it will explode.

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grasshacques t1_j81x5wr wrote

yeah the emmc is the same board shape and connector.

just go to ifixit for the ssd swap guide. don't peel the shield though slide it off instead. if it doesn't go in easily try from the other side. I put it in from the side with the cutout for the screw and used a plastic spudger to lift the cutout edges over the new ssd.

Before all that get the steamos installer ready which can be done from desktop mode. you need a usb drive which needs to be 8gb minimum to flash the image and if the drive doesn't have a usb-c plug, either an adapter or a C to A hub. I couldn't get balena etcher to run on my deck so I just used dd from the console. If you install new ssd first you will need another computer.

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Fenrisvitnir t1_j823424 wrote

Didn't they make a Steam Controller that also went the way of the dodo in a short time frame?

Fool me once!

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brettmagnetic t1_j82p7d8 wrote

That's awesome! I can put tons of games on there, and then just play like 3 of them.

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CommanderAGL t1_j82r55w wrote

Its just a standard m.2 drive in the smallest available form factor. They probably sell it for their laptops too, but jus labelled tat it works with a steamdeck so that there are no mixups. The people who buy frameworks are the sort of people to upgrade their steamdeck

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Doidy_Cakes t1_j82ruto wrote

Solid state cooling would be awesome for this.

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SciencePhysicist t1_j82xyps wrote

I imagine this form factor ssd is what they put in their thunderbolt storage expansion modules. They probably already have heaps of stock of these and makes sense to sell them

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barelyawhile t1_j83fe3s wrote

Not important, and in fact at this point in time I wouldn't do it at all. There are some differences between how the Gulikit hall effect sticks perform vs. the standard Deck sticks in that they reach their maximum outer bounds much earlier than the Deck sticks. For example when you push a normal stick to the outside edge of the shell enclosure it's in, that will be when it reaches its maximum value. When you do it with the hall effect sticks (at least the Gulkit model which is the only variety available at the time of this post), they're reaching the maximum value well before hitting that outer edge. So while the hall effect sticks are more accurate in comparison to the normal ones, for a lot of people it makes the Gulikit sticks feel overly jumpy. People who aren't used to sticks with short throws like that are going to struggle to adapt, and having used modular gamepads in the past to lower the point that stick max is reached it felt terrible and oversensitive to me. And in the case of the Gulikit sticks it can't be fixed using hardware changes or software calibration, so buyer beware.

Honestly if my stock sticks started going bad I'd just buy the official replacement ones from iFixit and skip the hall effect ones.

The iFixit replacements also come with brand new plastic sticks already attached to the boards and are drop-in replacements with no extra work beyond unscrewing the old sticks and plopping in the new ones. Gulikit requires you removing the old plastic stock sticks and attaching them to the Gulikit boards, then an extra step of soldering a wire if you want to retain capacitative touch. So that's something to keep in mind if you're averse to soldering and care about the feature, or if your plastic sticks are also worn because you'll be stuck with them. Maybe in the future Gulikit will make a v2 with an adjustment screw for the max outer threshold and offer an option for pre-soldered sticks. That would make me a lot more interested, but for now I'm staying away.

Personally I've played over 600 hours on my Deck in the last year and the sticks still feel just as great as when I bought them, and I do play plenty of twitchy FPSs and stuff like Hades where the sticks are seeing a lot of heavy movement. One thing that I do right away for games that use L3 (sprinting, mantling etc) or R3 (flashlights, grenades, dodges, firemode changes, zooms you get the idea) extensively is to bind 2 of my back buttons to those instead so I'm not putting constant downward pressure on the sticks, which helps with reducing wear over time and feels way better in actual gameplay because you don't risk knocking either stick's aim out of whack trying to press on them.

Edit: big edit to include even more detail on this topic.

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spazzardnope t1_j83g4dq wrote

Yeah, that was strange. They were practically giving them away at the end. Think they were £24.99 UK at launch just before Christmas and we’re selling for £60-100 on eBay at the time, then at the end they were like £5 on Steam with free postage. I ended up buying a few more of them because I really liked them.

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2tog t1_j83nv9t wrote

Valve should sell SSDs too

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EmmaHaarp t1_j84izwu wrote

For a moment I thought the upgrade was done at the cost of removing the cooling fan.

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shmedditor22 t1_j84o7w1 wrote

This is also great news for my Dell Inspiron 16 plus laptop, whose secondary SSD slot only fits 2230. Those were basically not available (or only at horrendous prices) for a long time, and the rise of aftermarket upgrades for the Steam Deck is slowly changing that.

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RSomnambulist t1_j84q6lw wrote

The efficiency loss can get as low as 8% on the last comparisons I saw. That may be even lower now. Also means you can have a much slimmer, cooler laptop. I nearly went this route last laptop I bought, but I ended up finding a steal when walmart refreshed their laptops to the 2000 series.

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MrAcurite t1_j84zae1 wrote

Interesting. I seem to recall losses as high as 40%, so 8% is an improvement. I'm still somewhat iffy about the usecases though, where laptop + eGPU beats both laptop with dGPU and laptop + desktop. I'm sure it's good for someone, though.

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