Valve revolutionized the handheld gaming market with the release of its Steam Deck in 2022.
It is currently considered the industry leader compared to competitors Nintendo, Asus and Ayaneo and their gaming handhelds.
So it’s no wonder that there’s more and more talk about Steam Deck 2, which Valve has confirmed is in the works, although without providing any information about the features and expected release.
For now, we only have to rely on rumors, leaks, and comments from Valve when it comes to speculating how Steam Deck 2 will perform compared to Valve’s current products and its competitors.
Here’s what we know so far…
Steam Deck 2: What we know so far and rumors
It’s worth noting that Valve has hinted that Steam Deck 2 is based on a breakthrough in capabilities that will take handheld gaming to the next level. On the occasion of Steam Deck OLED’s release in November 2023, Valve designer Lawrence Yang told Bloomberg that “we’re thinking about Steam Deck 2 at any time,” but that a “big leap in technology” would be required first.
This suggests that Valve is waiting for a more powerful and advanced chip to be announced before they think it’s worth upgrading. Currently, the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go use newer and faster chips than the Steam Deck, so it certainly makes sense for Valve to wait for something bigger and better before launch rather than coming out with something similar in performance to that Competition.
While we don’t yet know exactly what a new, improved and more powerful chip will look like, there are some Steam Deck 2 rumors and hints from Valve that should keep us interested in the meantime.
However, keep in mind that it is still very early. Therefore, not everything we want to know is currently available.
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The Steam Deck OLED’s display has a 90Hz refresh rate, which is currently dwarfed by Asus’ ROG Ally and MSI Claw A1M, which both come at 120Hz. This means that Valve may want to make significant improvements in this area, although 90Hz is still very good.
As for the resolution, a user on the Chiphell forum claims that Steam Deck is ready for a serious upgrade to 900p with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 1440 x 900 dimensions.
Hardware and performance
The above Chiphell user also claims that the APU will be based on AMD’s Zen 4 Hawk Point processors with a 16CU GPU. That’s twice as many 8CU as can currently be found in the existing Steam Deck.
Dexerto suspects AMD’s RDNA-4 architecture powers the chip. If so, it could give Steam Deck 2 a similar competitive advantage if it received early access to RDNA 2 upon its release.
Transfer speeds are also included in the leak, claiming that Steam Deck 2 will use 8533 MT/s LPDDR5X RAM.
design
Valve’s official comments on Steam Deck 2 so far suggest that they are more concerned about what’s under the hood and improving overall performance and performance.
That doesn’t mean that a minor change to the overall design is completely out of the question, but given that the original Steam Deck’s design impressed a number of critics, there’s clearly far less need or urgency to make serious improvements in this regard.
What is the Steam Deck 2 release date?
There is no confirmed release date for Steam Deck 2 yet and based on what Valve has already said about it, we shouldn’t expect anything this year. We may not be able to experience it up close until 2026.
Lang told Rock Paper Shotgun last year that “a true next-gen deck with significantly more horsepower won’t be available for a few years,” while another Valve employee, Pierre-Loup Griffais, previously told The Verge, that Steam Deck 2 won. This won’t happen until performance can be improved without “significant costs in energy efficiency and battery life”, before admitting that he doesn’t expect this to happen “in the next few years”.
This increases the credibility of a possible release in 2026 at the earliest.
How much will the Steam Deck 2 cost?
The Steam Deck OLED launched at a starting price of $549. Therefore, we should expect a much more powerful and improved successor to be more expensive, especially when you take into account the rising cost of PC components and materials.
However, Valve President Gabe Newell previously confirmed to Edge Magazine that the most expensive version of Steam Deck is also the most popular. He admitted that this reveals to Valve that gaming fans are looking for a more expensive version with more power and features.
With that in mind, we could see a premium version of Steam Deck 2 approaching the $700 mark or above.
Images: Steam Deck