Tuesday, June 23rd 2026
Steam Deck 2 "Getting There" But Efficiency Remains an Issue
So far, every time Valve has spoken about the possibility of a Steam Deck 2, it has said that it is waiting for a true generational leap in performance, and that that has not yet happened. Following the launch of the Steam Machine, Valve engineer, Pierre Loup-Griffais, commented on the Steam Deck 2 in an interview with IGN, revealing, seemingly for the first time, that things are moving in the right direction for the Steam Deck 2, even if they're not quite there yet. According to the developer, the current crop of mobile CPUs are beginning to show promise in terms of performance, but efficiency is now becoming a bigger problem.
"I'd say we're closer than we were the last time we talked. We're definitely getting there," said Griffais, going on to explain that "I would say that the new chips that are coming out are still in power envelopes that are not quite the right segment that you'd want for a true handheld experience." Going a little deeper into it, he said that "I think a lot of them are more low-end laptop chips or playing in that sort of form factor that are then repurposed for handhelds and maybe not leading to, I guess the trade-off that we would've chosen in terms of power and better life and that and all that."
As revealed in previous rumors, it seems as though Valve will opt for off-the-shelf silicon for the Steam Deck 2, instead of putting in tons of engineering work to develop another semi-custom chip with AMD. This suggests that Valve will be looking for mainstream CPUs to have the correct combination of performance and efficiency, which CPUs like Intel's recent Arc G3 platform are starting to achieve, but haven't yet realized. Griffais did assure readers that "we're working towards our next gen for sure," and that Valve would be talking about the next-gen Steam Deck in the coming years, suggesting that it is still a way out—Valve will also likely not want to step in the same pricing trap as was the case with the Steam Machine, where launching in the midst of a DRAM crisis got the hardware labelled "dead on arrival" by many gamers. Given the ongoing crisis, it would not be surprising to see Valve drag its feet on a Steam Deck 2 until the supply and pricing issues have subsided.
Source:
Valve via IGN
"I'd say we're closer than we were the last time we talked. We're definitely getting there," said Griffais, going on to explain that "I would say that the new chips that are coming out are still in power envelopes that are not quite the right segment that you'd want for a true handheld experience." Going a little deeper into it, he said that "I think a lot of them are more low-end laptop chips or playing in that sort of form factor that are then repurposed for handhelds and maybe not leading to, I guess the trade-off that we would've chosen in terms of power and better life and that and all that."
6 Comments on Steam Deck 2 "Getting There" But Efficiency Remains an Issue
It makes me wonder what they're even going to put in there then.
Though unfortunately a Steam Deck 2 won't make sense for quite a while with memory prices, with prices expected to keep rising through the rest of 2026.
Woah... a true handheld experience? Wonder what's your definition of 'true handheld experience', Pierre. People are apparently fine with the Switch 1 IPS and OLED's abysmal battery life, as if they forgot what the DS Lite's battery life was like.
They have always been low-end CPUs or SoCs. I don't know much about AMD since Bobcat but Intel stopped caring about handhelds the moment they sold off their XScale division, which is why the low-end CPUs and SoCs you see are repurposed laptop stuff. That hasn't changed since the release of the Atom Z5xx and the Z6xx series, otherwise you'd see the Ocosmos OCS1 with a custom x86 CPU. I'd say you were stuck in the same difficult spot that Ocosmos occupied several years ago, quite unfortunate.Interesting choice, but the best you'll get is either 4 to 8 Skymont/Darkmont cores with 8 Battlemage Xe2 cores or 4 to 8 Zen 5c cores with 16 RDNA3.5 CUs if you're lucky and want something that isn't expensive. Will certainly hit the efficiency requirement, but not the performance requirement.