Source is KeplerL2, who is generally considered a reliable source for insider hardware info, particularly on AMD GPU hardware and AMD SoC for consoles.
Previously I would have personally estimated Steam Deck 2 to release mid 2026-early 2027, but the recent info about an upcoming Steam Machine made me think that maybe I should push back that estimate.
Of course even if we assume this is reliable insider info, a lot can change in couple years, so things can definitely change.
Didn’t Valve say it was gonna be quite a while until they release a Steam Deck 2?
That’s what I thought too. Add the fact that Valve time != normal time.
They said they would wait until there was a meaningful increase in the power or efficiency they could get out of the form-factor.
The OG deck launched 3.5 years ago, and since then not much has changed. The steam deck GPU has 1.6 TFlop of FP32 compute at 15W. AMD’s newest low-power APUs have 2.3 TFlop of FP32 at 28W - nearly double the power for a <50% theoretical performance gain.
A semi-custom APU (that removes the useless AI engine) would compare more favorably, but we are still talking about maybe 20% more performance, not exactly game changing for the cost.
I think the zoomers dont really know what “quite a while” is.
Yes, but that was awhile ago that they said it as well.
It will release with half life 3 😂
I don’t want a new steam deck. I want a new steam controller and for valve to announce steam machines 2.0
Then we can finally watch windows die a (probably fairly slow, but steady) death.
New steam controller was leaked earlier this year, and leaks for the new steam machine came out a few days ago. So you’ll get your wish pretty soon probably.
What’s really cool is that in a lot of cases you can just load up the game on steam in linux and it just downloads and uses the same proton layers that the deck does. I run arch and in my testing so far it works, hampered by the fact that my test box is a very old a10 amd apu
The steam deck does benefit from common hardware. Valve will distribute prerendered shaders for the Deck’s GPU over steam game updates, so most of the time deck users don’t have to deal with shader stutter or wait for the game the render them itself during first startup.
Steam may share shaders between linux users with the same GPU, but I’m not sure. A new steam machine will definitely benefit from this though.
That’s fucking awesome, so as long as the proton layers exist for the steam deck, they’ll exist for (at least the distro your describing) Linux? Fuck I need to actually sit down and learn Linux one of these millennia.
Honestly, for me I don’t really need a new steam deck. The OLED deck is almost perfect already. I don’t know that a ton more processing power is necessary for me. Whenever I’ve wanted to play a more demanding game on my deck I stream it from either my desktop gaming rig, my ps5, or from Geforce Now. (Though i know obviously not everyone is going to have those luxuries) The only thing I think I would REALLY want would be a WiFi chip that doesn’t shit the bed if it doesn’t like the router your using.
I see plenty space to upgrade on battery relates masters, more deficiente processors would certainly allow that, whilst also enabling the deck to be used in 4K screens whilst docked with an actual decent performance and graphics.
Battery doesn’t have as much of an upgrade path as people think - you add more cells / energy in the same space, and you get the cause of those Samsung phone fires. It more commonly comes from processor efficiency improvements, which is hard when that’s mostly the domain of whoever coded the Windows-based video game you’re playing.
If it helps: Look up TDP customizations for your favorite games to play on Deck.
I have an aging gaming computer (6700k, 2080ti) and as i get older the need for a massive desktop is financial shitty now and starting to feel unnecessary for me. Desktop mode in a dock feels great and most of my hardware/all of my storage is out in the garage in a rack. It’s a thin client I can game on.
I already have a beefy gaming PC and would much rather get an updated steam deck, that sucks
Yeah despite being an enthusiast for years my appetite for PC gaming hardware BS is running out and I’d love a really good dockable handheld to daily drive as my main PC.
Oh… I kinda hope so… I just ordered a steam deck yesterday.
I meant to check this specifically before i ordered and i completely forgot
You’re gonna love it
I got the OLED when it came out and it was the best purchase I made when it came to ‘consoles’
I don’t think I have turned my PS5 on more than a half dozen times since I got my Deck and that was just to play games like Beatsaber with the family.
The deck just offers way too much flexibility for games not to mention you can take it anywhere.
As the kids like to say … Let em cook.
It’ll come out when it’s meaningful and a big leap. They’ve said as much before.
Yup, they’ve straight up said that they’re not interested in iterative upgrades. They said they’d only consider a Deck 2 when the hardware was actually in a place that it would be a meaningful upgrade.
In the meantime, they’re focused on getting devs to actually optimize their games for the SD’s (admittedly aging) hardware. Basically, forcing devs to actually plan for Steam Deck support, instead of just shipping an unoptimized piece of junk out the door and blaming hardware limitations when nothing except the newest cards can play it. There are plenty of games that look gorgeous on the Deck, so we know it’s 100% possible to do so.
The main thing I want, besides higher performance, is higher resolution to increase readability. Do something like what Apple did when they introduced their ultra high resolution monitors - present it as a standard resolution monitor to software, but then let the OS handle stuff like font rendering at full resolution and overlay it.
That way you don’t cause a performance hit from games rendering more pixels than what’s necessary for a small screen in 3D scenes, but the detail you do need is there to see. They should work with game engine developers and get the OS side support of it upstreamed to the Linux graphics stack (presumably the game mode window manager Gamescope would be the first place to build it into). It would work in parallel to the upscaling algorithm for the rest of the frame buffer.
Stuff like puzzle games and platformers, etc, could even have game engine support for tagging certain assets and object edges and symbols for higher resolution rendering, not just for fonts, so it’s easier to see the important things. You could even do stuff like render faces specifically at higher resolution and do the rest at low res with upscaling.
Fucking seriously. They pushed out a handheld that can play AAA games on low settings. It came out ~3 years ago, so they’re on track as any other major hardware developer.
Good, there is nothing wrong with the current gen. I want major leaps every few years not marginal improvents every year.
It is like you don’t even care about profits and value the consumer.
I mean, Valve is wildly profitable. On a profit-per-employee basis, they beat out virtually every other company in existence, at a staggering $3.5M in profit earned per employee. The Steam Store is a money-printing machine, and takes very little in upkeep/support staff to stay profitable.
The Steam Deck was never a massive profit-seeking venture for them; It was a way to divest from Microsoft, (who had been rumbling about going the way of Google/Apple and forcing everyone to use their proprietary store, then skimming a portion of all sales made on said store), and to be able to bring the Steam storefront to people who otherwise wouldn’t be using Steam.
The only reason Microsoft backed off of their Microsoft Store idea was because Apple and Google got slapped in the EU, and forced to allow third-party app stores. And by that point, the Steam Deck was already in production, so there wasn’t much point in canceling it. Especially since, as I mentioned earlier, it expands the Steam Store’s reach, which is their real end goal.
I don’t know why people are so eager for it, the deck is great, it’s a great purchase. I wish I had gotten the OLED, but I’m very very happy with it. I don’t see that it needs to be replaced annually or even every 2-3 years. It’s like the switch, why not go 4+ years before hardware drives that a new one is possible
I want to get a steamdeck but I feel (felt?) I’m too late in so I figured I’d just wait for the second one…
That’s a fair reason IMO. However, knowing that it might be a few years out, then it becomes “is it worth the wait”
When I first got the steam deck, I thought it was so great and used it all the time; I still do.
I told my wife that I liked it so much that I would buy the next one as soon as it released.
After having it for some time, I realized that all the games I play run on it easily and there is no real need to upgrade.
So, I plan to use this steamdeck until it it stops working. I imagine that will be a while as I’m going to repair it when/if something breaks.
Because the capitalist system has trained the consumer to always want new, shiny things.
There you go, that’s the answer. Can’t just be happy with what we have, not even for a couple of years. Time to throw it away, get the new one!
PC gamers are very excited that there’s a handheld PC on the market thats made by Valve, but they don’t understand its meant to be a low-power gaming device. its not meant to be a 500+fps massive rig with all the trimmings and fixins.
They are trying to apply their upgrade logic/obsessive consumerism to a device that neither wants nor needs that in its own market.
I wouldn’t even call it “low power”. More like mid
This machine is incredible, it easily plays the backlog of 5000+ games I haven’t played before but of which a lot are way cooler than a lot of AAA being published today because it predates many current bad game development practices. DOS, NES, SNES, Wii, GB, GBA, GAMECUBE, PSP, PS1, PS2, SEGACD, … The list goes on. Steamdeck with Emudeck is a truly amazing experience. I don’t need a steamdeck 2 anytime soon.
same! i have recently been playing wow with friends on it and we are talking about doing a BG3 multiplayer game soon. and i use the steam deck as my daily gaming device!
its also my emulation setup as well. its just so good.
This has been a major annoyance I’ve had too with gamers. It was never meant to play games at 240fps with ultra graphics. It’s meant as a way to make “most” games playable on the road. A great low cost entry point, or something to compliment your big gaming rig. I don’t need an upgrade because it does what it does great, plays most games on decent settings well enough for the duration of a flight or trip. If you want ultra graphics, you will have to pay ultra prices and probably do a big desktop. Even “Steam Deck 2” will still probably only do 30-45fps games on medium, just newer games will be a bit more playable.
I want a higher resolution screen to make specific games more playable, by rendering text and stuff like that at higher resolution (while the rest of the game could keep targeting lower resolutions and get upscaled)
As described in more detail here; https://infosec.pub/comment/17743689
There is a zoom function. Haven’t tried it myself yet as I haven’t had the need yet. But there is on the deck.
I have good eyes, the zoom won’t help me because it doesn’t add pixels to the frame (maybe unless you’re downsampling?). I want more physical pixels, and then higher resolution text to make use of it!
I would like a smaller deck though, the current one is hard to hold if you don’t have big man hands
That’s a fair ask IMO. Not wanting a newer shinier one, just one that fits you better.
100% agree. My only gripe is I wish I got the OLED.
Oh, and input lag in Rocket League.
I havent played it on steam Deck, usually on PC, but on console you can vastly improve the input lag with a few settings, mainly turning the vertical synchronisation off. Maybe it helps with the Deck too.
Yea I’ve done all the usuals, and it’s “OK” for casual play. Playing competitive on it is a no-go. It’s also much better with a wired Xbox controller on the right dock (some increase the lag, some actually make it better).
I want a second one because I know it’ll blow the first one out of the water, with the first one they had to figure out all the r&d from scratch, with the two they should be able to refine the hell out of it, I think there’s a good chance the 2 will be basically perfect. Shame they’ll never make a 3 though.
Ha!
Maybe they’re saving the conclusions to all their trilogies for the steam deck 3.
…too bad we’ll never get it though.
I’m not really sure what’s not perfect with the OLED already, lol. Maybe a second USB-C port would be nice, so we could charge it while using a non-hub device, or use a cheap hub to add even more controllers? That’s a minor, incremental improvement, though.
It could always be smaller/thinner/quieter, I guess, but I can’t think of anything I’d really want to change with my Deck. I have lots of minor pain points with other tech, but I literally can’t think of anything with the Deck, so I’m curious if you have any specifics, or if you’re just trusting that Valve has put some real thought and research into this and will surprise us with design changes for the better that aren’t obvious.
quieter
I mean, could it? Maybe it’s because my laptop fans sound like a goddamn Harley Davidson, but I feel like my SD is nearly silent.
Higher resolution. Not for higher resolution games, because at that screen size you won’t pick up everything anyway, but rather higher resolution for text and other visually smaller but important details. I want games to be able to tag a subset of extra important visual details for full resolution rendering, then everything else can keep getting upscaled
Hall effect everything, adaptive triggers, higher screen to body ratio, reduced weight, usb-c on top and bottom, enough performance to play spiderman 2 in particular on nice settings, 1080p, detachable siderail controllers, better haptics, better speakers. There’s honestly a lot wrong with the steam deck these things were all off the top of my head, if they fix everything on that list I won’t want any other gaming machine ever, though.
Adaptive triggers are fucking awesome
Hall effect joysticks would be great. The rest I don’t really count; obviously, better performance/bigger screen would be an incremental improvement, but I don’t need it. The OLED screen is plenty big enough.
I (personally) would never use detachable controllers and wouldn’t want more moving parts that could break. Haptics and adaptive triggers I don’t care about improving. For sound, I prefer headphones for when I want “good” sound, too, so that wouldn’t make a difference for me.
Even hall effect joysticks are only going to matter to me if my current joysticks break or develop play.
I really do think the current OLED is amazing.
You said you aren’t sure what isn’t perfect, I made a big list and you went “yeah but I’m fine with those imperfections” which is fine so stay with the original, but these are valid areas of improvement.
i’m not, especially the haptics and speakers suck, imo.
They aren’t going for detachable controllers, most likely. Theoretically they might make a future screen + SoC modular so you can swap a frame (it would kinda make sense from an engineering perspective to build the center similar to a tablet IF you can hit all required specs that way), but even for Valve that’s unlikely. They may prototype it but likely won’t release it.
Would OTOH be nice with a Steam Controller 2 which can fold flat to fit in the same case as the Steam Deck. Also not likely to happen 🤷
Cuz there are a lot of games that it can not run due to performance? I mean there are a lot of games on my wishlist that are waiting for a steam deck 2 so I can actually play them if i buy them… On top of that I have the OG LCD version and it’s not worth for me to upgrade to the OLED, a steam deck 2 on the other hand
Your question depends on your definition of “can it run”. To me, as a portable device I get 45 fps on the witcher on medium settings and that’s very playable. If you want to use it as a desktop and expect that the next version will rival a 5000 series GPU, that’s unrealistic.
In bg3 even with lowest settings I had 20 fps, in the last arc I had 2 fps even with 240p… I tired cyberpunk recently and it ran with 30 fps diped some times, which is playable I guess but my battery lasts 30-45 min… And the same issue I have the same issue with all AAA games, I can lower the settings to make them playable at 40 fps, but my battery life is so short that it’s not even worth playing.
In the first place with this it’s best to just compare price to performance with the competitors and even now the steam deck has lost its lead, and it will only get worse if Asus releases a better performing device every year.
The same thing happened with the valve index.
I don’t think you can take a device like this and compare AAA titles on it, but even if we do then I think you can only compare it to other handhelds. Right now, checking the competitors they’re mostly on par right now for AAA performance. I stand by my other comments, if you’re looking for good graphics and good performance, a handheld is not the right device for you - you need to be looking at a desktop with an actual GPU and real power.
Those are real tradeoffs we make by going portable, we expect lower performance so we can get a longer battery life. We cannot have a long battery and great performance in a portable, they go against each other. If others are able to pull it off then yeah go with them, but every bit of performance they add means consuming more battery life.
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Underpowered?! I can play fucking Elden Ring!
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How is that the standard for a thing that costs less than just my graphics card and is fully portable?? I don’t even need my gaming pc to do that shit.
For what it is, the steam deck performs exceedingly well.
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You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.
Look, I see what you’re getting at, high end GPU improvements have slowed to a trickle and they just keep charging more. You’re not wrong that the business has changed and NVIDIA and AMD are squeezing.
However that is NOT what is happening with the Steam Deck. This is a simple engineering limitation. You cannot have a super powerful GPU in the form factor of the SD due to size, cooling, and power constraints. They can’t just magic these limitations away or throw money at it. To get what you want would not only cost more, but the SD would be twice the size if not more, sound like a jet engine, and have a 15 minute battery life.
Why would you need 1440p on a small screen like that? I think 720p on the original switch was fine and see no need for anything with a small screen to have so hig resolution. Especially since that means less battery time, just waste of power.
Nobody under 16 should be on Lemmy
90 FPS @1440p
On a handheld? What even for?
60 FPS is already a meme on computer, even more now that certain companies hallucinate frames for their games with AI.
Yeah what an absurd comment lol… That said, the OLED model does do 90fps
Ultra Graphics at 1440p
Good Battery Life
Good PricePick 2.
Add these;
Cool to touch
Lightweight
What handheld, wait no, console period can?
Most people don’t care that much to play at 90 fps on 1440p on a mobile device.
I suspect part of the issue is you’re a kbm player primarily?
Even on desktop PCs, you need a relatively recent gpu to play at that level, one of those gpus is almost the entire size of the deck lmfao
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I think you misunderstand what the Deck is. It’s a handheld laptop with a built-in controller with the express purpose of playing games. It’s not a GPU with a screen.
I feel you about GPU pricing, but the Deck is one of the few things I’ve bought in recent years where I didn’t feel buyer’s remorse, even slightly. How it’s priced is fair for what you get: an ultra-portable Linux gaming laptop. Plus, you get the added benefit of knowing that you’re further supporting gaming on Linux; Proton literally changed the gaming landscape, and Valve has directly partnered with Arch Linux.
I still frequently play my Desktop, but there are times when I just want to chill in bed, sit on the couch, play on vacation, and there’s simply no way I can take my desktop computer with me to those places.
See other comments, this was on purpose to make it more portable. The deck doesn’t need to be a powerhouse, it needs to be portable. We already have powerhouse desktops
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By definition it cannot exist. You can have a powerhouse or portable. The fact that they made the deck as powerful as they did is frankly amazing.
The ROG Xbox Ally X is rumored to target 1080p at $899.99, ONEXPLAYER has models using the latest and greatest AMD AI 9 HX and 144hz at $900~$1K-ish, Aya Neo and GPD Win have some too.
There’s plenty options for “Powerhouse portables”, you just gotta be willing to pay for 'em.
Good choice. As easy to forget as it is, that’ll be the 8th year of the PS5. Probably will benefit from similar supply chains as the rumored PS6/PS5 handheld and whatever MS does. Main shame to me is for people buying a Steam Deck and being stuck with regular sdxc microSD. microSD express or that Biwin mini SSD would be real nice
As easy to forget as it is, that’ll be the 8th year of the PS5
Holy shit, what??
The most culturally mute console generation in my lifetime that will probably be surpassed cultural midness by the PS6. Games take too long to make now
You can upgrade the SSD in a Steam Deck instead of using an SD card. It is pricey though.
I upgraded my 512gb to 2tb for $144.
Nothing has indicated that a new Steam Deck is anywhere near a release or announcement. They said themselves time and time again that they would want a new Steam Deck to be a significant upgrade on the first one.
As long as a really big performance improvement is not possible there won’t be a new Steam Deck. And I don’t think running Cyberpunk 1080p instead of 800p counts. My bet is that as long as raytracing is as abysmal as it is now on APUs we can’t even dream of getting a new Deck.
Think console generations and not smartphone releases.
Not only that, but raw horsepower and battery life are always in a delicate balance in any portable device.
There are practical limitations when it comes to current battery technology. Not to mention heat generation and dissipation that comes with more powerful hardware.
I don’t know who those “we” people are but benchmarks have repeatedly shown that in low wattage situations the performance difference between Deck and the newer handhelds is negligible, so this prediction is hardly a surprise IMO.
Why is everyone in a hurry? What’s wrong with the one we have? I have the 64GB LCD one (OG one) and it’s fucking flawless still. Yeah, the storage is annoying, but all of my games play no problem. So, what’s the issue? Also, do y’all realize how fucking insane the ergonomics on this one? It genuinely made me not look at any other device. Please let them take their time so we can get an even nicer device.
There are two kinds of people who would like a refreshed Steam Deck, in my experience:
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People who seem to think it needs to be faster. Since it appears to be crafted to provide suitable performance for the 720p display it has (which I don’t personally think needs to be changed, considering the whole “portable” use case), this seems to just be a “bigger number better” argument and those people should probably go out and buy a Lenovo Legion / ROG Ally / whatever.
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People who are otherwise happy, but think it should have a newer, more efficient processor to get longer battery life, and make less heat/noise in the process. There’s a measurable gulf between the current Zen2/RDNA2 CPU and a theoretical modern Zen5/RDNA3.5 (or even RDNA4) model in that regard; it could be tuned to deliver roughly the same performance as the original (or a little more, for the handful of games that tend to miss their performance target slightly) but deliver longer battery life.
We got a hint at 2) with the OLED model’s CPU using a newer manufacturing process improving thermals and battery life (of course it did also have a bigger battery). I think the number of people willing to pay a bit extra for what could be an even larger improvement in that area is probably more than some would like to admit.
(I personally fit in that latter category. Considering a full work day including a public transport commute and lunch break, not a whole lot of extra battery could well be the difference between having to carry a charger and not)
I want a higher resolution screen, for readability. Games don’t need to use a higher resolution in general and can keep targeting something like 720p, but I want text and more to be crisper, etc
Fair point. Games clearly need to start decoupling the UI scale/resolution from the general screen resolution.
In a somewhat parallel issue, I’ve found that playing games on the couch (usually with Steam in-home streaming, from a PC elsewhere in the house) I have to reduce the resolution because the game’s UI is far too small at TV-watching differences.
Certainly understandable. I really don’t want them to increase the resolution. For that screen size, it’s perfect. If they made better hardware and kept the same screen res, imagine the battery life you’ll get out of this thing. Also, I want them to keep how it looks like right now. It’s hands down the most comfortable handheld I’ve ever tried, and I’ve tried several of them.
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I guess it’s consumerism and people always wanting more.
I’d be happy if the Steam Deck 2 wasn’t released until 2028 as I’ve just got my used LCD in 2025.
I have a friend who is like that. He doesn’t leave anything behind. He basically has every gaming console out there, two PCs, 3 handhelds… Etc. He has over 1800 games in his team library. I couldn’t do that even if I had the money for it. Man, we don’t even have enough hours in the day to play all of that shit. Lmao
Some of us grew up with limited access to consoles, maybe one per generation if we were lucky (and you better hope it’s not the Sega Saturn if you want something that’ll still have new games in a couple years), so when we grew up and started working, we compensate by trying to catch them all, Pokemon style.
I can only speak for myself though.
Understandable. I grew up in a 3rd world country. I didn’t have power in my house until 2007. Owned my first laptop in 2010 when I came to the US. Owned my first ever gaming console in 2011, I was 30 back then. Lol. I completely understand where you are coming from. I have zero judgement in (on?) this matter.
Take your time Valve.
I can wait for 2028, but how about giving us a Steam Controller 2? Take the screen out of a steam deck and call it a day.
Take the screen out of a steam deck and call it a day.
Almost. Also put the dual stage triggers back in.
Yeah. I have a Steam controller that I’d use if it had 2 thumbsticks. The touchpad is okay for controlling the cursor but otherwise it’s annoying.
I love the thumbpads
It’s coming, expected to launch alongside the upcoming Steam Machine.
This one I’m excited for. A Steam Machine would be great, and my biggest gripe with controller play on my desktop is the missing trackpads mean Steam Input didn’t work. There are games that I choose to stream to/play on my Deck over using my 1440p 32" screen on my gaming rig because I don’t have Steam Input on my desktop.
What do you mean? steam input works as long as you have steam, your controller doesn’t matter unless it’s a really really rare unsupported controller
I mean using the Track Pads, often for things like radial menus. A lot of PC games need more inputs than exist on a controller.
You know there’s a funny workaround here - stream the game from your PC to the Deck over Steam Remote Play while keeping that PC monitor on, and then use the Steam Deck only as a controller while looking at the big screen. It will add a bit of latency to controls, but it’s surprisingly not bad
This would be great, I recently used a regular xbox controller for the first time since I got my deck and it felt so small and all the buttons were in the wrong place and it made me mad.
