SUMMARY
- Steam Deck is Valve's own handheld gaming device that made strides in the handheld market for being the best handheld device in the market.
- Steam Deck OLED was a great upgrade over the original for having a better screen and a higher refresh rate.
Undoubtedly, Steam Deck is one of the revolutionary hardware from Valve. It transformed the way players played their games, opening new avenues of gaming. With Steam Deck being a huge success and the market blooming with other advanced and upgraded handled devices following Deck’s suite, a successor of Steam Deck was expected.
However, it seemed to be a long way off. A recent leak has revealed that Steam Deck successor or Steam Deck 2 may be close at hand. A user on the Chinese online forum Chiphell forum recently posted a thread claiming that they have details about Valve’s next-gen handheld. Besides, the leaker also spilled the specs of the upcoming Steam Deck handheld console.
Steam Deck 2 leaked specs
The current Steam Deck features a combination SoC powered by AMD, based on the Zen 2 processors, and RDNA2 graphics. The updated version of Steam Deck could possibly have a Zen 3, or even Zen 4 processor, along with RDNA3 graphics. The new leak reveals that the future handheld console could use AMD’s Zen 4 Hawk Point processor powered by AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture.
Steam Deck 2 spec leak surfaces online, showing a massive GPU upgrade pic.twitter.com/gV6NajD3dF
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) January 17, 2024
The leaker also claimed that the display would receive a hefty update too touching 900p. Most likely this would mean a resolution of 1440 x 900, along with a 16:10 aspect ratio. However, notably, the leak only states that the Steam Deck 2 features an OLED display, like the current OLED model, with an updated 90Hz refresh rate.
- APU: AMD Zen 4 Hawk Point
- GPU: RDNA 4 (Rumored), 16 Compute Units, 8 Work Group Processors
- RAM: Capacity unknown
- RAM speed: LPDDR5X @ 8533 MT/s
- Display resolution: 1440 x 900
- Display technology: OLED
- Refresh rate: 90Hz
The specs speak a lot about the device as the upgrades seem far above the current Steam Deck.
Steam Deck 2 release date
Considering that the company has recently launched Steam Deck OLED, it would be fair for Valve to release a new handheld sometime later. Besides, given the leaked specifications, Steam Deck 2 would likely arrive late in 2025 minimum or 2026.
The leaker reveals that the Steam Deck 2 is slated for a Q3-Q4 2026 launch. Besides, it will also come with a significant price increase, and the company plans to carry forward its existing strategy and later sell the older Steam Deck variants at a discount after the launch of the new model.
Portable gaming handheld consoles are arguably the talk of the town. The market has notable players like Valve, Nintendo, Asus, Ayaneo, and more in this competitive segment.
Additionally, MSI is also set to enter the segment with its brand-new handheld MSI Claw. Not to forget, Nintendo 2 was also recently leaked by some sources. Keeping in mind all these leaks and news, the coming future looks bright and promising for handheld gaming consoles.
