Valve revolutionized the portable gaming market with the launch of the Steam Deck in 2022.
It is currently considered an industry leader compared to competitors Nintendo, Asus and Ayaneo and their gaming devices.
So it’s no surprise that Steam Deck 2 has been confirmed by Valve as being in development, albeit with nothing in terms of features or when we can expect it to hit stores.
For now, all we have are rumors, leaks, and comments from Valve when it comes to how the Steam Deck 2 compares to Valve’s current product 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 will continue to advance what’s possible when it comes to taking portable gaming to the next level. At the launch of the Steam Deck OLED in November 2023, Valve designer Lawrence Young told Bloomberg that “we’re always thinking about Steam Deck 2,” but that a “huge leap” in technology is needed first.
This indicates that Valve is waiting for this more powerful and advanced chip to be announced before they feel it’s worth upgrading. Currently, the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go use newer, faster chips than the Steam Deck, so it obviously makes sense for Valve to wait for something bigger and better before launching rather than rushing into the market with something performance-oriented. similar. competition
While we still don’t know exactly what the new, more advanced and more powerful chip looks like, there are some rumors and hints from Valve about the Steam Deck 2 to keep us entertained for now.
Remember, it’s still early. Therefore, not everything we know is available at the moment.
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The Steam Deck’s OLED screen has a 90Hz refresh rate, currently eclipsed by Asus’s ROG Ally and the MSI Claw A1M, which top out at 120Hz. This means Valve could make significant improvements in this area, although 90Hz is still very good.
From a solution perspective, the user on Chippel forums states that the Steam Deck is set to major upscaling to 900p with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 1440 x 900 dimensions.
Hardware and performance
The user above, Chiphell, also claims that the APU is based on AMD’s Zen 4 Hawk Point processor with a 16CU GPU. This is the dual 8CU currently available on Steam.
Dexerto suspects that it could be AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture that powers the chip. If so, it could give Steam Deck 2 a similar competitive advantage when it receives early access to RDNA 2 at launch.
Transfer speeds are also included in the leak, which claims the Steam Deck 2 will use LPDDR5X memory at 8,533 MT/s.
Project
Valve’s official commentary on Steam Deck 2 so far shows that they are more concerned with what’s under the hood and delivering improvements in overall power and performance.
That’s not to say that minor changes to the overall design aren’t entirely out of the question, but considering that the Steam Deck’s original design impressed a number of critics, there’s clearly little need or urgency for major improvements in this area.
What is the Steam Deck 2 release date?
The Steam Deck 2 release date has not yet been confirmed, and based on what Valve has said about it, we shouldn’t expect anything this year. Maybe in 2026 we will see this in the flesh.
Lang told Stone Paper Gun last year that “a true next-gen Dex with a significant power boost won’t exist for a few years,” while another Valve employee, Pierre-Loup Griffiths, previously told The Verge that Steam Deck 2 would not will be able to improve performance without “significant energy efficiency and battery life costs” before moving forward, which will happen “over the next two years,” he said.
This gives more confidence for a possible launch in 2026 at the earliest.
How much does Steam Deck 2 cost?
The Steam Deck OLED launched with a starting price of $549, so we should expect the much more powerful and improved tracker to be more expensive, especially when you factor in the rising costs of computer components and supplies.
However, Valve president Gabe Newell previously confirmed to Edge Magazine that the most expensive version of the Steam Deck is also the most popular. He admitted that this tells Valve that fans of the game are looking for a more expensive version with more power and capabilities.
With that in mind, we could see a premium version of Steam Deck 2 for $700 or more.
Photos: Steam Deck
