Steam Deck 2 will reportedly use an off-the-shelf AMD APU, not custom like the original

Valve has previously expressed its desire to build and release a follow-up to its popular Steam Deck PC gaming handheld, and on more than one occasion has said that it would only release a follow-up if it could deliver a significant increase in performance at the same or similar power as the current Steam Deck's semi-custom AMD SoC.

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Earlier this month, industry insider and known leaker of GPU-related information, KeplerL2, said that Valve was targeting a 2028 launch window for the Steam Deck 2 and that it could arrive without a semi-custom SoC. This would mean that, like the ROG Xbox Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go 2, it would arrive with an existing AMD SoC, such as the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. However, if Valve is looking for an SoC with notably more performance than this, there's currently nothing on the market that fits the bill.

Looking ahead, however, the 2028 release window could align with AMD's rumored "Medusa Point" and "Medusa Halo" SoCs, which will feature RDNA 4 (called RDNA 4n) and RDNA 5 architectures. These chips will most likely support AMD's AI-powered FSR 4 Super Resolution and Frame Generation technologies, which could be the secret ingredient in delivering a notably more powerful Steam Deck 2.

These new chips will leverage next-gen Zen 6 technology and increase memory bandwidth by 50% by adopting new LPDDR6 memory. With more advanced hardware and FSR 4's upscaling technology delivering a 30% or so increase in performance without impacting visual fidelity, it's easy to see how a Steam Deck 2 with this hardware would be twice as powerful as the current model.

Of course, the big roadblock is pricing and availability. Even without the current memory crisis and AI boom driving up prices, a next-gen AMD SoC using a more advanced process technology would be a lot more expensive than the semi-custom AMD SoC that Valve chose for the original Steam Deck.