Steam Deck 2: Is AMD Gainsborough the chip Valve’s been waiting for?
The Steam Deck is four and a half years old, and handheld gamers are eagerly awaiting a Steam Deck 2 - but Valve has consistently said it needs a new chip with a "generational leap" in performance and efficiency before building the sequel. There's some reason to believe that chip has now broken cover: AMD […]
The Steam Deck, Valve's popular handheld gaming device, has been on the market for approximately four and a half years since its initial release. There hasn't been any confirmed information regarding a second-generation handheld device from Valve, but a new video from YouTube channel Moore's Law is Dead suggests that a rumoured AMD APU called Gainsborough may power the upcoming Steam Deck 2.
The origin of the name Gainsborough is tied to the first Deck's APU, named Aerith, similar to a character from Final Fantasy 7. The key aspect of Gainsborough is that it will be manufactured using TSMC's N3P node, a state-of-the-art chip production process that aids in delivering better efficiency, which is essential for a handheld gaming device with extended battery life.
Valve has expressed their desire for the Steam Deck 2 to exhibit a significant leap in performance, indicating that any TSMC N3 node used in Gainsborough should be advanced enough to meet these expectations. The channel predicts that the Gainsborough chip should be ready for the Steam Deck 2 late next year or early 2028, assuming that Valve isn't in a rush to launch the device due to recent setbacks in the computer chip and memory markets.
Written by urgent.news from PC Gamer's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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