Upgraded Hardware?

[Gûts]

When's the next version of the SteamDeck coming out?

I love the current one, but it feels like there's been major hardware upgrades on the market since the current one has been released.

I'd been keen to buy one that also supports DLSS or whatever the AMD variant is.

Regardless... even with the issues I had (and I had a few)
I find this to be an amazing piece of hardware, and it's my goto handheld console now.

Heck, I even use the Linux mode for working when travelling. :)))
But to get back to my initial question.

When's SteamDeck 2 coming out?

[Prezidentas]

amd hasn't released a Z2 chip yet.

[WarnerCK]

Originally posted by Gûts:

When's the next version of the SteamDeck coming out?

2026 or 2027, I expect.

[Haruspex]

Valve won't be satisfied with a mere performance boost. They're going to want a significant enough performance boost at low wattage for a true Steam Deck 2.0 kind of experience.

My guess is we'll see another custom chip based on Zen 4, and it will be one of the first with RDNA 4 graphics onboard. It will once again run at a 15 watt TDP, and a major selling point will be the efficiency and the raytracing chops finally good enough to actually use in a handheld form factor.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by Haruspex:

Valve won't be satisfied with a mere performance boost. They're going to want a significant enough performance boost at low wattage for a true Steam Deck 2.0 kind of experience.

My guess is we'll see another custom chip based on Zen 4, and it will be one of the first with RDNA 4 graphics onboard. It will once again run at a 15 watt TDP, and a major selling point will be the efficiency and the raytracing chops finally good enough to actually use in a handheld form factor.

Their (valve shares the APU with AR sunglasses, so idk how much of it is "theirs") custom Zen2 cores have better/similar efficiency than Z1 chips with Zen4. However their Zen2 cores are quite slow due to that.

[Broseph Joseph]

The oled refresh APU seems to be custom just for valve this time and has the unused magic leap logic in it removed amongst other things. It was pretty smart costcutting maneouver to share a custom soc with another product for the first run since ordering a run of custom silicon is ruinously expensive.

[Jcee]

I wouldnt expect significant raytracing performance on the next steam deck 2, maybe steam deck 3.
2 will certainly be focused on playing catch up because 1080p 90hz gaming with high settings is much more important than reflections in puddles. though it might be in-line with a 2060 if were lucky. AI performance and post-processing/upscaling will likely be a strong focus, and would likely use a significant chunk of the available rtx cores.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by Jcee:

I wouldnt expect significant raytracing performance on the next steam deck 2, maybe steam deck 3.
2 will certainly be focused on playing catch up because 1080p 90hz gaming with high settings is much more important than reflections in puddles. though it might be in-line with a 2060 if were lucky. AI performance and post-processing/upscaling will likely be a strong focus, and would likely use a significant chunk of the available rtx cores.

I don't really understand why do you think that.
Steam Deck 800p display has PPI of 200-210, which is already very good.

Likewise AMD GPUs do not use raytracing hardware for upscaling anyways, and there are no dedicated raytracing cores, the raytracing is part of regular compute units.

Steam deck 2 will not reach 2060 levels. Steam deck 1 doesn't reach my old 2015 R9 380 video card performance, so such leap is impossible.

[nicoper]

Originally posted by Gûts:

When's the next version of the SteamDeck coming out?

Place your bets between next quarter, within five years, in a decade, and sometime after the heat death of the universe.
There is no telling when or crucially if a new model could potentially come out.
This isn't Apple where you can expect a "new and improved, faster than ever" iPhone every year like clockwork.

Valve has historically done hardware very differently from most other companies, with none of their previous products apart from the SteamVR Base Stations having received a proper second version. And I guess we could be generous and say that the OLED Deck is an upgrade of sorts, but more of a hardware revision and sidegrade than a new product.

What I'm trying to say is, temper your expectations.

[Gûts]

Cheers for all the responses!


After decades of gaming, low gfx doesn't bother me. 30min in, I'm more focused on the mechanics of the game than the reflections in the puddles.

It can't handle TW:Warhammer 1 at this point, that's for sure. Least not late-game.
Thing is, I got the SteamDeck in hopes of replacing my high-end Gaming PC with a low-end portable one.

When I asked for DLSS, it was with more concern about it improving performance and reducing hardware demands, than the cooler graphics part.

Raytracing and graphics are probably out of reach, before we get new cooling tech.
Maybe there's a way to use Proton to reduce the hardware demand?
That'd be pretty awesome.