Steam Deck 2: Price, specs, & benchmark speculation

Wondering if Valve will release a Steam Deck 2? As the original device is now over a year old, we dig deep to get all the details you need to know about a potential Steam Deck 2, including speculative price, specs and release details.

With Valve gradually revealing more about the inevitable Steam Deck 2, we’ve scoured the internet for any news about a potential successor to Valve’s very own handheld gaming console.

The current Steam Deck is a mega-hit, and has been consistently securing a spot on Steam’s top-seller list. The device’s availability has now stabilized, as Valve increases the volume of shipments. This has let more gamers experience Valve’s game-changing handheld console, which is essentially a compact portable PC.

While we have scant information on Valve’s Steam Deck 2, we are optimistic about seeing numerous enhancements across the board, which we’ve outlined in our features wishlist.

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