The AMD Steam Deck CPU (OLED) is a mobile processor with 4 cores, launched in November 2023. It is part of the Ryzen Custom lineup, using the Zen 2 (Van Gogh) architecture with BGA ST1. Thanks to AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) the core-count is effectively doubled, to 8 threads. Steam Deck CPU (OLED) has 4 MB of L3 cache and operates at 2.4 GHz by default, but can boost up to 3.5 GHz, depending on the workload. AMD is making the Steam Deck CPU (OLED) on a 6 nm production node using 2,400 million transistors. The silicon die of the chip is not fabricated at AMD, but at the foundry of TSMC. The multiplier is locked on Steam Deck CPU (OLED), which limits its overclocking potential.
With a TDP of 15 W, the Steam Deck CPU (OLED) consumes very little energy. AMD's processor supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel interface. For communication with other components in the machine, Steam Deck CPU (OLED) uses a PCI-Express Gen 3 connection. This processor features the Radeon Navi II 8CU integrated graphics solution.
Hardware virtualization is available on the Steam Deck CPU (OLED), which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, AMD is including the newer AVX2 standard, too, but not AVX-512.