AMD indicates that a review of the Steam Deck may be coming soon

Steam surface! It sure is stylish, isn’t it? But what about a potential Steam Deck 2? If you haven’t yet splurged on an upgraded OLED model, a hot announcement coming from VideoCardz suggests a new Steam Deck review could be coming soon. Heck, maybe even Steam Deck 2.

More specifically, VideoCardz has just published a series of articles announcing and/or discussing AMD’s latest technology and hardware, citing the company itself as its primary source. This follows the established track record of VideoCardz, where it is often the oldest source for announcements of devices and similar items. Amidst news about Radeon RX 9070 And its exclusivity FSR4 upscaling technology,VideoCardz also has it Announced the AMD Ryzen Z2 triple chipwhich is supposed to be available on Valve Steam Deck.

Is Steam Deck 2 really coming?

This announcement could mean a few different things for the Z2 Extreme APU, in a practical sense:

• Steam Deck 2 is coming
• A Steam Deck review (of sorts) with the Z2 Extreme is coming
• Valve is about to announce some new deck-adjacent hardware (home box, VR headset, etc.)

Obviously, we have no way of knowing which of these options the Z2 might suggest, but the device’s performance envelope might help. According to the announcement, there will be three variants of the new APU: Z2 Extreme, Z2, and Z2 Go. The Z2 Go, for example, will be a Lenovo Legion Go S exclusive, serving as the budget option of the lineup. That leaves the Z2 Extreme and Z2 as potential options for the new Steam Deck, and I’m not convinced we’re actually looking at Steam Deck 2 yet.

According to the VideoCardz article, the Z2 is supposed to be roughly equivalent to the current Ryzen 7 8840U APU, which features the Radeon 780M graphics processor. The fully-powered 780M is only slightly faster than the Nvidia GTX 1650, which doesn’t seem like the kind of generational performance jump Valve has been waiting for.

The Steam Deck 2 is certainly in development, but the device’s designer, Lawrence Yang, was clear about what it needed: “We’re not going to make a bump every year,” Interview with Reviews.org Australia. “So we really want to wait for the generational leap in computing without sacrificing battery life before we ship a true second-generation Steam Deck. But that’s something we’re excited about and working on.”

Now, the Z2 Extreme will be faster than the regular Z2, but it’s not clear by how much. Considering that Yang’s interview was published in October of 2024, I find it hard to believe that he would make these claims if Valve was just months away from announcing Steam Deck 2. And that’s without getting into the nitty-gritty of the Z2 Extreme’s effectiveness at ultra-low wattage outperformance. It has the Deck’s current APU.

However, AMD’s new Z2 chipset is definitely making its way to the market some Type of valve devices. The Steam Deck Pro, which will be more focused on delivering quality AAA games at the expense of a higher power draw, seems like an obvious candidate. More information about the Z2 and Valve’s handling of it is expected to drop soon, so stay tuned.