Steam Deck 2: Price, specs, & benchmark speculation

A Steam Deck 2 seems to be in the works. We dish out everything you need to know, including speculation about pricing, release date, specs, and more on Valve’s rumored handheld gaming console.

The demand for powerful handheld consoles is at an all-time high. Brands like Valve, Nintendo, Asus, Ayaneo, and others have made sure that portable PCs become popular once again.

The Steam Deck is easily the best handheld console right now, thanks to its powerful hardware specification and a rich gaming library. While the original Steam Deck is still going strong, it has almost reached the end of its life cycle.

Various rumors hint that Valve has almost gotten the successor to the Steam Deck ready. Though we’re not sure about the potential release date of Steam Deck 2, the market is abuzz with rumors of when this console might launch.

Since Valve has remained tight-lipped about the Steam Deck 2, we’ve also compiled a feature list and scoured the internet for all the possible leaks and rumors around the upcoming handheld gaming console. 

Steam Deck 2: Is there a release date?

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Since Valve is just beginning to speak about Steam Deck 2, we speculate that a release date might be far off right now. In fact, in a recent interview with a couple of folks behind the Deck, it was mentioned that it’d be a ways off.

As we’ve previously speculated, the Steam Deck 2 can only come out if it has the backing of a breakthrough in terms of performance. The current Van Gogh APU, a combination of GPU and CPU, is pretty darn powerful in itself. In our testing, we’ve only hit a wall running Returnal and making minor compromises elsewhere.

To best a device like the Steam Deck, you have to consider what a breakthrough would need to bring to the table. It’d have to fix and sustain “older” games from the last few years, that the Steam Deck struggled to run.

Until then, we have little indication of when an updated model might release, with the main factor being the availability of a new chip to replace their current Zen 2 solution. With AMD only just setting up Zen 4 on laptops, we wouldn’t be surprised if Valve waits for a further boost in performance.

Steam Deck 2 price speculation

There’s no denying that the current Steam Deck is cheap for the power that you are getting, with a $399 MSRP that was allegedly difficult to attain, as Gabe Newell stated in an interview with IGN. However, Newell also mentioned how critical it was for Valve to achieve such competitive pricing.

For comparison’s sake, Ayaneo’s competing lineup costs over $1000 and isn’t quite as fast as the Steam Deck.

Therefore, we can assume that Valve is subsidizing some of the costs involved, with the hopes of making the money back over on the Steam platform.

We hope the Steam Deck 2 will follow suit, with a subsidized, accessible cost that is more in line with modern games consoles, rather than gaming PCs.

Steam Deck 2 specs speculation

The Steam Deck currently wields a combination SoC made by AMD, based on their Zen 2 processors, with RDNA2 graphics. An updated Steam Deck could see a Zen 3, or even Zen 4 processor, baked in with RDNA3 graphics.

We’ve only just seen the flagship models of the RDNA 3 GPUs from AMD, and we’re still a little ways off from seeing this type of tech being implemented onto a mobile chip that comes in cheap enough for Valve.

As mentioned above, a large part of the cost is presumably taken on the chin for Valve. A core point of the Steam Deck is a low-cost entry point into the Steam ecosystem.

If Valve were to pull a Ryzen 8000 chip once it releases to provide the most powerful system, they’d wind up in a situation where the Steam Deck 2 would cost thousands, rather than hundreds.

Additionally, we would like to see a larger battery, a better screen, and analog sticks to boot. But, we’d still want to see a healthy spec bump across the board. With flash storage getting cheaper, the Steam Deck 2 should also look to equip itself with larger internal storage.

It’s possible that the screen tech could also improve, and we’d love for there to be a screen with support for variable refresh rates.

Steam Deck 2 benchmarks speculation

While the Steam Deck wasn’t exactly earth-shattering in comparison to full-fat PC hardware, the Steam Deck 2 will follow suit. So, don’t expect 40-series-like speeds. However, you should expect a decent uplift in line with whatever spec bumps that the console might possess. However, if the Steam Deck 2 has a higher-resolution screen, that will impact the device’s performance.

Official benchmarks are inevitably going to be a long way off. But regardless, we’ve given it our best shot to predict what the Steam Deck 2 might offer.

Make sure to read our other guides:

Best Steam Deck Alternatives | Best Steam Deck Controllers | Best Steam Deck Skins | The Ultimate Steam Deck Starter Guide | Best Steam Deck games | Can you play Returnal on Steam Deck? | How to play Xbox and PC Game Pass games on Steam Deck | How to add non-Steam games on Steam Deck