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Steam Deck 2 is already being planned out by Valve, and it will be even more powerful

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Valve is making plans for Steam Deck 2, and it sounds like it will aim to offer owners an even more powerful portable PC gaming experience with new features you won't find on a desktop.

Co-founder Gabe Newell was up front about Valve's plans for a Steam Deck followup in an interview for the latest issue of Edge Magazine. He said some of Valve's thinking is being guided by how the most expensive version of Steam Deck was by far the most popular, but Valve is also looking ahead to how it can make further use of the portable form factor.

"The first step is to let you play the great games that exist today. The second iterations are going to be more about: what are the capabilities that mobile gives us, above and beyond what you would get in a traditional desktop or laptop gaming environment?"

Newell added that Valve is excited to see what other companies do with the software it's created to power Steam Deck's portable PC gaming experience. But it's also considering its own ways to push the medium forward in ways that can't be done on a desktop, with one example being the computer vision used for VR.

"One of the things [Steam Deck] represents is battery-capable, high-performance horsepower that eventually you could use in VR applications as well," Newell says. "You can take the PC and build something that is much more transportable. We're not really there yet, but this is a stepping stone."
 

SeraphJan

Member
VR requires insanely high fps, I kind of having doubt on that one, but nonetheless, its good to know they are going to continue to support the future iteration of the device, and not just abandoning it like they did to Steam Box. I'm super hyped for the Steam Deck.
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NoviDon

Member
With Rdna3 + Ryzen 4 apu with 3d stacked cache it should have the power to push the high framerates necessary for AAA VR experiences. Wonder if they will go for some really exotic cooling solution in order to dissipate the increased heat this beast would output?
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
I took a pass on the Steam deck because while intresting I haven't started travelling as often as I thought I would due to the lingering effect of the pandemic.

But perhaps by the time the Mk.2 rolls around I might be looking.
 

Midn1ght

Member
When can we realistically expect the Deck Two™ to come out?

3-4 years or 6-7 years like consoles?

I want to get one but I'd be pissed if they release a better version by the end of 2023. Every 5 years would be nice.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Steam deck has a cool vibe but it feels too early, remember the PSP? It was kinda incredible but tough to break through the face of handheld gaming. I think Steam Deck 2 can be a thing, but if you follow handheld stories that aren't Nintendo, it's not good (PSVita 2).
 

Raploz

Member
People forget the Steam Deck is just a portable PC. I'm sure they'll release a new model, or even multiple models every year.
 

Boglin

Member
People forget the Steam Deck is just a portable PC. I'm sure they'll release a new model, or even multiple models every year.
Yeah, I don't think there will be a release cycle similar to consoles. I don't see any reason for them to not release updates when new apus become available
 

ToTTenTranz

Banned
AMD's 15W Rembrandt is a really low-hanging fruit for Valve, and I'm guessing most OEMs will also launch their first SteamOS devices with that hardware.

It has:
- 8 Zen3 cores instead of 4 Zen2 cores
- 12 CUs @ 2.2GHz (3.4 TFLOPs) instead of 8 CUs @ 1.6GHz (1.6TFLOPs)
- Twice the GPU L2 cache
- Support for LPDDR5 6400Mbps instead of LPDDR5 5500Mbps


Of course, the lowest it can go is 15W so they'll need a significantly larger battery too. Though it's not like the Deck is using a very large battery anyways. This will probably come in a more expensive SKU, with larger battery, larger screen, better cooling, etc.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

AMD is allegedly preparing an upgraded quad-core APU with Zen 4 and RDNA3 architectures for a next-generation Steam Deck device according to Moore's Law is Dead. The report claims that the chip is referred to as a "Van Gogh Successor" internally with a die size between 110 mm² and 150 mm² resulting in an increased production cost. The chip should feature 4 Zen 4 cores and 8 threads offering 25% - 35% higher performance per clock (PPC) with a maximum boost of 4 GHz. The RDNA3 graphics will include 8 Compute Units with significantly higher PPC compared to their RDNA2 counterparts which combined with the updated CPU could see a performance improvement up to 50%. These rumors have not been confirmed with any potential Steam Deck processor far from being announced or released anytime soon.
 

Romulus

Member
Is there any real disadvantage to continually making hardware upgrades to the steam deck every couple of years?
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Imo not really but I also think consoles could do/deal with a slightly shorter console cycle.
How? Customer are not going to stomach prices rising more and more and consoles getting bigger and bigger (beyond XSX and PS5). Technology improvements rate is slowing down: it takes longer and longer to deliver meaningful performance jumps, it costs more and more to design with advanced manufacturing processes, and it takes longer and longer from one manufacturing node jump to the next (determining factor for transistor density and clock rate improvements).

All of the above with diminishing returns in graphics where it takes a higher than linear improvement in performance to get perceivable graphical benefits (i.e.: to improve visuals further it takes a bigger and bigger leap in performance each time).

What would a shorter console cycle deliver?
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Is there any real disadvantage to continually making hardware upgrades to the steam deck every couple of years?
It depends, there is still more growth possible in portables due to cooling and batteries dominating / being the pacing items more than SoC performance. At some point they will face the same issue as consoles do: size of the unit, power consumption (even worse as you hold it in your hands), and cost.
 

reksveks

Member
How? Customer are not going to stomach prices rising more and more and consoles getting bigger and bigger (beyond XSX and PS5). Technology improvements rate is slowing down: it takes longer and longer to deliver meaningful performance jumps, it costs more and more to design with advanced manufacturing processes, and it takes longer and longer from one manufacturing node jump to the next (determining factor for transistor density and clock rate improvements).

All of the above with diminishing returns in graphics where it takes a higher than linear improvement in performance to get perceivable graphical benefits (i.e.: to improve visuals further it takes a bigger and bigger leap in performance each time).

What would a shorter console cycle deliver?
Fundamentally options.

I would also replace customers with some customers in that comment.

I think there are a group of users who want a pc like model in terms of HW cycles (multi 'gen' software support) alongside the largely UX/UI model of consoles.

Again this is dependent on software support running across multiple generations.
 

Holammer

Member
This isn't going to be like Apple and the iphone right....? right???
As in frequent hardware releases? Why not? a 2-3 year cycle would be ideal. Just like smartphones it would boost Steam install numbers with hand-me-down and second hand units.
No need to wait five years for a "pro" console, just wait till the next cycle.
 
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reksveks

Member
As in frequent hardware releases? Why not? a 2-3 year cycle would be ideal. Just like smartphones it would boost Steam install numbers with hand-me-down and second hand units.
No need to wait five years for a "pro" console, just wait till the next cycle.
It's just like PC.

There will be a range of different user upgrade cycles from the people who upgrade on a yearly basis (by selling last years GPU's to get the new one) to the ones that upgrade every 3/4 years.

I think people misunderstand the key USP's of consoles personally but could be wrong.
 
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Fredrik

Member
I’ll buy the next one too. Hopefully it’ll have longer battery life, that’s my only complaint for the current one.
 
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ToTTenTranz

Banned
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AMD is allegedly preparing an upgraded quad-core APU with Zen 4 and RDNA3 architectures for a next-generation Steam Deck device according to Moore's Law is Dead. The report claims that the chip is referred to as a "Van Gogh Successor" internally with a die size between 110 mm² and 150 mm² resulting in an increased production cost. The chip should feature 4 Zen 4 cores and 8 threads offering 25% - 35% higher performance per clock (PPC) with a maximum boost of 4 GHz. The RDNA3 graphics will include 8 Compute Units with significantly higher PPC compared to their RDNA2 counterparts which combined with the updated CPU could see a performance improvement up to 50%. These rumors have not been confirmed with any potential Steam Deck processor far from being announced or released anytime soon.

Launching another quad-core would be a shot in the foot. All the new consoles have 8x Zen2 cores so all the games will be optimized for 14 threads + 1 core reserved for O.S.
What would make sense is to make an APU with 8-core Zen 4c cores which are optimized for power efficiency and density. Otherwise they're better off with an underclocked/undervolted Rembrandt Ryzen 7 6800U. We're already getting a bunch of games running terribly on the Steam Deck because of its 4-core CPU, like Serious Sam 4.

8 CUs / 4 WGPs of RDNA3 could make sense because apparently they're doubling the number of ALUs per WGP.


Every 3yrs seems like a good release cycle.
They should launch a new handheld for every new fab node that allows a significantly more powerful APU for the same power envelope.
The thing about the Deck's Van Gogh APU is that it's made on N7P which has been available since 2019. The Deck could have released in 2020 as there's nothing that couldn't have been available at that time.
Van Gogh was even originally planned for H2 2020 according to the first roadmap leak where it appeared. It was supposed to appear half a year before the Ryzen 5000 series on some mobile product from Microsoft.



AMD Ryzen 2021-2022 roadmap with codenames leak - Van Gogh and Warhol

With N5 being made widely available for AMD this year, they can indeed launch a N5 Van Gogh successor for next year already.
 
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