The Steam Deck marked a significant shift in the gaming landscape, allowing players to dive into AAA games from the comfort of their beds with a handheld device. Many gamers and tech enthusiasts have been buzzing with anticipation about the possibility of a Steam Deck 2, especially considering the leaps in APU technology over the past few years. However, Valve has set the record straight, indicating that a Steam Deck 2 won’t surface until there’s a “generational leap in compute,” as discussed in a chat with Reviews.org.
AMD’s RDNA technology significantly surpassed its previous Vega models in terms of performance and driver support. This leap forward enabled Valve and AMD to collaborate on a unique chip for the Steam Deck, named Van Gogh, thanks to the second iteration of RDNA, known as RDNA 2.
The heart of the Steam Deck is powered by an APU featuring four Zen 2 cores accompanied by an eight Compute Unit-based RDNA 2 integrated GPU, with both architectures at least as old as 2020. Even after introducing an OLED model last year, no substantial performance upgrades were evident.
In the visual development pipeline, AMD’s innovative Strix Point APUs (Ryzen AI 300 series) are built on Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5. When asked about the next version of the Steam Deck, design lead Lawrence Yang mentioned, “It’s critical for us, and we’ve been up-front: we do not adhere to a yearly upgrade schedule.”
Valve’s strategy aligns with the likes of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Even the latest PS5 Pro is sticking with the older Zen 2 framework. Though the handheld market has seen progress, with Intel entering the fray with its Lunar Lake (Core Ultra 200V) CPUs, none of these developments seem substantial enough to call for a Steam Deck 2 anytime soon. As Yang put it, “We are genuinely waiting for a major leap in computing power without compromising battery life before we roll out the true second generation of the Steam Deck.”
On a more technical front, current APUs don’t show significant speed improvements below 15W compared to the Rembrandt (Ryzen 6000 Mobile) days. While Intel’s Lunar Lake indicates progress with its design choices, Valve remains unfazed. They seem to be waiting for a profound jump in both performance and battery efficiency. In keeping with industry trends, Valve is also exploring an ARM64 version of Proton, which could hint at the use of Arm cores alongside GPU solutions from Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA, much like what’s seen in the Nintendo Switch.
