Details of a potential APU for the unannounced Steam Deck 2 have emerged in leaked benchmarks, suggesting that Valve is moving forward with development of its next-generation handheld.
The benchmark, discovered on OpenBenchmarking, lists an AMD APU codenamed 'Gainsborough.' This chip reportedly features 6 cores and 12 threads, paired with 24GB of LPDDR5 memory. While the CPU specifications show a notable increase over the original Steam Deck's processor, information regarding the GPU and its architecture remains undisclosed.
This is not the first appearance of the Gainsborough chip; it was previously spotted in import documents under the abbreviation 'GBR.' The codename follows a pattern established by Valve and AMD, with the original Steam Deck utilizing an APU codenamed 'Aerith' and the Steam Deck OLED featuring the 'Sephiroth' chip. It remains possible that 'Gainsborough' will not be the final chip selected for the Steam Deck 2.
Initial performance figures for the leaked chip show a FurMark score of 3,508, a slight increase over the original Steam Deck's 3,323. However, the benchmark was conducted at a lower 768p resolution compared to the Steam Deck's 800p, and the chip is an engineering sample likely running on early drivers. These factors suggest significant room for improvement before any potential release.
The existence of these benchmarks indicates that Valve's next handheld is progressing, although the exact performance capabilities of the Steam Deck 2 are not yet clear. Given the typical development cycles, a release within the next one to two years is plausible.
The gaming hardware market has evolved considerably since the Steam Deck's 2022 debut. Valve has previously stated that industry-wide RAM shortages have not impacted its plans for the Steam Deck 2. The company's history with hardware, including the Steam Machine and Steam Frame, has seen pricing strategies that were met with consumer resistance, and the original Steam Deck has seen price increases that have made it a more challenging recommendation against newer portable gaming PCs.