Valve hints Steam Deck 2 will offer generational leap in performance without sacrificing battery life
Valve hasn't officially disclosed any specific details of Steam Deck 2, nor is there any word about the potential launch timeline. However, the company isn't in a rush. In an interview with Reviews.org, Valve's Lawrence Yang said the company wants to wait for a "generational leap in compute" that won't result in poor battery life.
Yang adds that the company doesn't want to do a spec bump every year, something that many gaming handheld manufacturers are doing. Valve opposes this practice, believing that yearly hardware upgrades offer only incremental improvements, which it considers to be unfair to the customers.
Take the Ryzen 7 7840U and Ryzen 7 8840U gaming handhelds, for example. The latter doesn't really offer any performance upgrade, as both of these AMD chips are identical. Of course, the Hawk Point APU offers an upgraded NPU, but it's not enough to warrant an upgrade from a Phoenix Point handheld.
Nonetheless, Yang's statements hint that Steam Deck 2 will be a proper upgrade over its predecessor. Regarding the launch, Yang confirmed in another interview with Press Start that the next-gen handheld is in development.
It's also worth noting that the AMD Ryzen Z2 series is around the corner, set to introduce new Zen 5 gaming handhelds with RDNA 3.5 iGPUs. Once that happens, Valve may finally reveal concrete details on when the Steam Deck 2 will arrive.
Source(s)
Reviews.org via: IT Home
