by In this quick guide, we will explore the minimum and maximum charger wattage for the Steam Deck.
The Steam Deck is one of the best portable gaming devices you can buy; it’s well-maintained by Valve and has a very strong community surrounding it.
While the Deck is shipped with a fairly decent charger, you may want a spare or even be in a country where you had to import your Deck, so the included charger has the wrong power adapter.
Thanks to the Steam Deck using USB-C, finding a charger that works with the device is simple. Especially as more and more devices have moved over to USB-C charging, you may already have a charger sitting around that will more than satisfy the power needs of the Deck.
Over the next section, we will quickly explore the maximum amount of watts your Steam Deck will consume while charging. We will also discuss the minimum wattage you should aim for a good charging experience.
For quick reference, the charger shipped with the LCD and OLED Steam Deck’s is a 45W USB-C PD charger. If your charger is working fine, and you are wondering whether to get a higher wattage one, the simple answer is no. Your Deck will never pull more than 45W of power when charging, regardless of the charger used.
If you want to save money on a charger, any USB-PD charger with a wattage of 30W should be more than enough to charge your Deck and allow you to continue to game.
Maximum Steam Deck Charger Wattage
The Steam Deck is one of the better devices to support the USB-C device because it correctly supports the USB-PD specification. This spec allows the Steam Deck to negotiate with chargers to get the required amount of power.
The maximum power your Steam Deck will take from a charger is 45W. This is due to how the charging hardware has been designed within the Deck itself and is not a limitation of your USB-C PD charger.
A 45W USB-C charger can charge your Steam Deck from completely empty to full within 2 to 3 hours. It also gives you enough power to both play and charge at the same time.
For example, if you connect a 120W USB-C PD charger, the Steam Deck will negotiate with the device to only pull the 45W required.
If you attempt to use a charger with your Steam Deck that does not support PD 3.0, the maximum charging wattage will be significantly reduced. The Deck will only pull a maximum of 10W if the charger does not support PD 3.0 or newer.
An example of a great USB-C PD 3.0 charger is the UGREEN Nexode 64W USB-C charger (Amazon Affiliate). This charger fully supports the PD 3.0 protocol, so the Steam Deck can properly talk with it. It also has three ports, so you can use it to charge multiple devices at once. If you use the top port, it should deliver the maximum wattage the Steam Deck supports.
Best of all, it is a relatively affordable charger from a reputable company. One thing we recommend avoiding is any charger not from a reputable brand. There is a high chance these chargers might not deliver the right amount of wattage to the Steam Deck.
Lowest Steam Deck Charger Wattage You Can Get Away With
While the maximum amount of power the Steam Deck can accept while charging is 45W, you are probably also interested in knowing how small of a charger you can get away with while gaming.
The power draw of your Steam Deck obviously differs depending on what you are doing and how intensive your game is on the device’s hardware.
If you want to keep your Deck fully charged while gaming on it, you will want a charger that can deliver 25W. Less than this then your Deck might start losing charge even when plugged in.
While the APU that drives everything in your Deck has a maximum power consumption of 15W, the other components, including the screen, increase that power draw to about 25W.
Conclusion
If you have read this far, you should know the maximum amount of wattage your Steam Deck will use from a charger.
To get the best charging experience with your Steam Deck, you will want to use a 45W charger. This will give you the fastest charging experience and allow you to continue charging your device while gaming on it.
Please feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions about charging your Steam Deck and what a decent charger for the device is.
If you liked this quick guide, we recommend checking out our many other Steam Deck tutorials.
