Support NeoGAF

[cormack12]

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-...ional-leap-in-compute-performance-takes-place

However, Valve has clarified that the Steam Deck 2 will likely not be hitting shelves anytime soon until a "generational leap in compute" takes place, as reported in an interview with Reviews.org.

The RDNA architecture from AMD was leagues ahead of its Vega offerings in terms of performance and driver support. With just the second iteration, RDNA 2, Valve in partnership with AMD designed a custom chip for the Steam Deck codenamed Van Gogh.

The Steam Deck's APU featured four Zen 2 cores and an eight Compute Unit-based RDNA 2 iGPU, with both architectures dating back to at least 2020. Even with the OLED refresh last year, performance improvements were notable for their absence.

[....] when hit up with the question of a potential successor, Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang replied, "It is important to us, and we’ve tried to be really clear, we are not doing the yearly cadence.”

While improvements have been made in the handheld industry, with Intel also joining the battle with its Lunar Lake (Core Ultra 200V) CPUs, they are not significant enough to justify a Steam Deck 2, at least yet. "So we really do want to wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck," explained Yang.

On the more technical side, APUs nowadays are hardly faster at sub-15W levels than they were with Rembrandt (Ryzen 6000 Mobile). Lunar Lake is a step in the right direction due to its design choices but if even that is insignificant for Valve, then the Steam Deck 2 may be a large jump in performance and battery life.

 

[BlackTron]

Steam Deck 2 will make the first one look like a Nintendo Switch...when it finally exists.

 

[Esparadrapo]

That part about Intel's APUs is a total fabrication by Tom's Hardware as the company isn't even mentioned in the original article. It reads as Intel propaganda to be honest.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Steam Deck 2 will make the first one look like a Nintendo Switch...when it finally exists.

So after 8 years I guess

 

[Comandr]

I mean- Valve has been pretty vocal about this before - not to expect rapid releases and have blatantly said they will wait for a generational leap. The Steam Deck is nearing its third birthday. The product it still quite young. I really don't expect anything until 2026 or 2027.

Though I do think the amount of people talking about a Steam Deck 2 infers the interest in a more powerful unit. I personally wouldn't mind a slightly thicker steam deck if it meant a significantly increased battery capacity.

 

[saintjules]

Annual Steam Deck releases would be odd.

 

[welshrat]

My money would be on next year. 26 the latest. It's in development now guaranteed, they just don't want to take sales away from current ones. I for one will get get one. Use it more and more these days and would love a bigger screen

 

[Klosshufvud]

I think Valve will be forced to up that TDP from 15W to 20W regardless. Modern multi-core, multi-CU APUs just don't fed enough at 15W, as proven by the huge performance gains the Ally gets going from 15W to 20W. It's generally a hard time to be a console manufacturer and be budget conscious. Cost of components are spiralling out of control, part due to the AI craze and also part due to diminishing returns. Valve will have to wait a good while until another low-cost option like Van Gogh makes itself available again. So while "generational leap" can absolutely be had from SD even today, Valve is not willing to up the device costs enough to make it feasible. And I think that's perfectly sound strategy, as the whole appeal appeal of SD is its insane value. If you don't care about cost and just want the absolute best, I recommend Rog Ally X.

 

[Holammer]

Tom's Hardware coming with old news. They already communicated the generational performance bit last year.

“For us to call something a Steam Deck 2, there has to be a generational increase in performance,” he said.

Valve Says a Steam Deck 2 Is Still 'Two or Three Years' Out

Don't expect a proper successor to the Steam Deck anytime soon.

gizmodo.com

 

[poppabk]

This is just year old sound bites remixed to create a new article for farming clicks.

'The next thing we're working on moving forward is Steam Deck 2,' but Valve has yet to see silicon offering the leap it's looking for

"That's not going to happen next year or the year after that. It's probably going to be more than that."

www.pcgamer.com

Edit: beaten

 

[Davevil]

Valve confirm Steam Deck wont have yearly releases, but you can buy today the version with a slightly better screen and a few more GB of SSD

 

[Codes 208]

This is old news.

So old that its accurate (since its been two years now and we still only have the basic and oled models)

 

[balls of snow]

Good make it last a gen. Really between streaming moonlight, gfn and ps5 remote play the steamdeck gonna transition super well into streaming device once its internals are too outdated. Add the fact indies are gonna be stuck on ps4 baseline until well into the ps6 gen.

 

[Esparadrapo]

There will always be some manufacturer willing to throw the battery life out of the window to claim the performance crown so what I think Valve should do is excel and promote battery life which is harder. Half the work is done with Steam OS and a bigger and lower frequency GPU should do the trick for the hardware efficiency part.

Anyway, Valve isn't competing with other manufacturers as everyone getting a PC handheld is going to use Steam anyway. The Steam Deck is more of a baseline and a showcase in my opinion.

 

[Killer8]

The proportion of games it struggles to run is so small in the grand scheme of the entire Steam library that it isn't worth pushing out an update this soon. Their concern is probably more about trying to get every game which the current hardware should be able to run to at least a playable status. That is more a software issue with things like Proton compatibility, installers, anti-cheat, online and figuring out suitable button inputs.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

All I care about is Steam OS getting a public release.

Bazzite on a Legion Go and AllyX is pretty damn awesome, but still I'd rather SteamOS be the norm.

I just wish we got an OLED model from Asus and Legion.

 

[DoubleClutch]

I will buy one as soon as they put in a screen that doesn’t have PWM that damages my eyes and gives me headaches.

 

[CuteFaceJay]

You could prolly stack some CS skins and by the time Steam Deck 2 comes around your skins might be worth a fair chunk to pay off or half of the device.

 

[Fake]

IMO Steam Deck 2 need to be only release when AMD use A.I to their FSR.

Steam Deck with AI will be a win to win for the portable space.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Deck is doing fine for the age. No need to rush it.

 

[diffusionx]

I think Valve will be forced to up that TDP from 15W to 20W regardless. Modern multi-core, multi-CU APUs just don't fed enough at 15W, as proven by the huge performance gains the Ally gets going from 15W to 20W. It's generally a hard time to be a console manufacturer and be budget conscious. Cost of components are spiralling out of control, part due to the AI craze and also part due to diminishing returns. Valve will have to wait a good while until another low-cost option like Van Gogh makes itself available again. So while "generational leap" can absolutely be had from SD even today, Valve is not willing to up the device costs enough to make it feasible. And I think that's perfectly sound strategy, as the whole appeal appeal of SD is its insane value. If you don't care about cost and just want the absolute best, I recommend Rog Ally X.

Isn't this the point? The Ally is not the generational leap hence there is no Steam Deck 2 using the same hardware. It's a half measure for people who just want power above everything.

 

[EverydayBeast]

How does anyone know when a new handheld will come out? The notion of yearly releases doesn’t apply to gaming handhelds.

 

[Sorcerer]

How does anyone know when a new handheld will come out? The notion of yearly releases doesn’t apply to gaming handhelds.

Didn't at least one the handheld companies release an update to their handheld within 6-8 months? Valve has Steam, they can wait to release at the right time. Also, all of the competition to Valve, is actually making money for Valve. The tricky part of the handheld situation for Valve's competitors is that they are only making money at the point of sale. They have to release more often.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I think Valve will be forced to up that TDP from 15W to 20W regardless.

Modern games are pulling 22-23W easily on an OLED. This has been the case for a while now.

 

[Parazels]

Can they wait for a worthwhile ARM-chip?

 

[mrcroket]

And that's the best they can do, Steam Deck is not a console designed to play the latest AAA games (although it can play a respectable amount of them), so it's absurd to have a yearly model that will suffer from the latest releases anyway. Because AAA games are not meant to be played on a handheld chip.

Also, having a fixed spec for a few years allows developers to make graphical profiles optimised for those specs.

 

[HogIsland]

I'm regretting not trading in my og Deck for the OLED upgrade at this point. Deck has become my primary game system.

 

[Bloobs]

It will launch alongside HL3

 

[Loomy]

As it should be.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Moore’s law is pretty much dead.
Replaced with Gabe’s Law.

 

[Esparadrapo]

Modern games are pulling 22-23W easily on an OLED. This has been the case for a while now.

That's total system power.

 

[Ammogeddon]

They lit the fire with the PC handheld market, all they need to do for now it sit back and let the other manufacturers churn out annual releases. A majority of those new customers will be buying games from their store anyway.

 

[HogIsland]

They lit the fire with the PC handheld market, all they need to do for now it sit back and let the other manufacturers churn out annual releases. A majority of those new customers will be buying games from their store anyway.

True but they should still hurry up getting SteamOS officially supported on Ally and Legion Go.

 

[Ammogeddon]

True but they should still hurry up getting SteamOS officially supported on Ally and Legion Go.

Yeah it would be nice, I don’t really want to put Bazzite on my Ally X, lack of confidence more than anything.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

They said this two years ago. That they would wait until they could make a true leap before they would release another Steam Deck. That’s why the OLED is more akin to the Switch OLED. Mostly just some minor cosmetic changes

 

[Cyberpunkd]

That's total system power.

No, it's what you see in all the benchmarks for the newest games:

(23W)

(24W at max)

(22W)

 

[Mibu no ookami]

IMO Steam Deck 2 need to be only release when AMD use A.I to their FSR.

Steam Deck with AI will be a win to win for the portable space.

Clearly what they're waiting for. Sony would have had to wait for the PS6 if they didn't create PSSR by themselves... But Valve isn't about to do that.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

 

[SidViscous]

They literally said this exact thing, like what, 18 months ago? then they released the OLED edition shortly afterwards, so what they say and what they do are two different things.

 

[HogIsland]

They literally said this exact thing, like what, 18 months ago? then they released the OLED edition shortly afterwards, so what they say and what they do are two different things.

Valve answers our burning Steam Deck questions — including a possible Steam Controller 2

“We want to make it happen.”

www.theverge.com

 

[diffusionx]

They literally said this exact thing, like what, 18 months ago? then they released the OLED edition shortly afterwards, so what they say and what they do are two different things.

The OLED has the same CPU though, it’s not a new system.

 

[Moses85]

 

[Lucifers Beard]

As expected. Please only release models with OLED displays moving forward though, the technology is just so much better than LCD.

 

[Calverz]

Went in thinking there was an update to this.

 

[BennyBlanco]

I’m dying to see how the z2 extreme chips perform.

On the other hand, I don’t really care to play graphically intensive games on a handheld. Steam Deck as it exists right now is amazing and I use it every day.

 

[Crayon]

Let's see a steam deck slim. Seems like the same problem may be stopping that, though.

 

[onnextflix5]

I mean- Valve has been pretty vocal about this before - not to expect rapid releases and have blatantly said they will wait for a generational leap. The Steam Deck is nearing its third birthday. The product it still quite young. I really don't expect anything until 2026 or 2027.

Though I do think the amount of people talking about a Steam Deck 2 infers the interest in a more powerful unit. I personally wouldn't mind a slightly thicker steam deck if it meant a significantly increased battery capacity.

Nah ur clearly not flowing the tech scene, 4nm and 3nm chips are available, but simply cost way too much right now.
We could see a 4nm chip next year, at a reasonable price, but I don’t know if valve will use it. Would still cost $100 more than the current 6nm. What we need are more players like Microsoft to jump in to provide some competition.

 

[alucard0712_rus]

IMO Steam Deck 2 need to be only release when AMD use A.I to their FSR.

Steam Deck with AI will be a win to win for the portable space.

I agree. Some kind of A.I. upscaling will do wonders on a handheld.

 

[Esparadrapo]

No, it's what you see in all the benchmarks for the newest games:

Again, that's total system power. SoC, fans, screen, memory, comms, input, etc. That's the power being drained from the battery.

In fact if you turn on the highest level of detail in the HUD you'll see the power that the CPU and GPU use individually and then the total system power close the battery percentage.

If you wanna dig deeper, you can check Mangohud's documentation and you'll realize that the parameter displayed is battery and there is no reference to the SoC or the package. You should also know that the SoC in the Steam Deck has a 15W TDP limit and unless you modify that limit with a custom BIOS it's near impossible to get past it.

GitHub - flightlessmango/MangoHud: A Vulkan and OpenGL overlay for monitoring FPS, temperatures, CPU/GPU load and more. Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/Gj5YmBb

A Vulkan and OpenGL overlay for monitoring FPS, temperatures, CPU/GPU load and more. Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/Gj5YmBb - flightlessmango/MangoHud

github.com

 

[KXVXII9X]

This is how it should be. This is what. Nintendo usually does. Meta also seems to do this with the Quest headsets too.

I am hoping for next gen handheld, OLED is a must. I am also hoping for better battery life than 2 hours. 4 hours would be okay for me for how much power they would need.

I hope the next gen handheld are at least PS4 Pro levels, but I would personally hold off until they are close to Xbox Series S kind of power.

I also think having a less bogged down, handheld friendly Windows OS in place would be smart before launching more of these handheld.