Steam Deck 2: When Can Valve Deliver A True Generational Leap?

[sushant]

I don't think a steam deck 2 is coming until 2027, I feel the power and battery balance that Valve has to achieve is just not there out yet. And even looking at future 3nm or 2nm nodes the expected power efficiency boost isn't that much. Valve would just not upgrade until they really feel a groundbreaking hardware has emerged.

[WinterGK]

The Switch 2 will be a generational leap from the original because its been 8 years

If you want a generational leap after 3 years and keep the pricing, then your dreaming

[Ethernyfis]

Steam Deck 2 in not necessary, for now. Steam had a wise strategy to wait for a more powerfull efficient chips rather than rushing it.

[AleksandrPapeko]

I have a feeling it's going to be a couple years. Maybe 2026 the earliest.

[MrRoundthetwist]

Knowing Valve it’ll be something like 2030 and I’m fine with that

[dr.sivavignesh]

It's not in valve's hands anymore. What this last decade has shown is that generational leaps are more in the hands of passionate developers and not with hardware alone. That's why games from around 2015 look and play so good. Games like Arkham knight, wolfenstein 2, mgs 5 ( even when it's an incomplete game ), rdr 2, etc could easily be taken for recent releases. Just turning on ray tracing without caring about system requirements is not a generational leap.

[PixelisedPaul]

Truthfully, the number of Steam Deck owners that also want to play current AAA games is very small compared to those that mostly play indie games where performance is still adequate. You don't need a 120hz VRR display to play Balatro, for example.

[ChristopherToro]

It just came out 3 years ago, let's perfect this one first than take the next step.

[chavita]

new battery tech to scale up is definitely something they might be waiting for, among other things like node

[richardgordon]

I believe we as a gaming community are missing what is really needed. Battery technology needs to evolve. Not just increase of mah, but total capacitance and draw with thermal cycling being cut. Heat kills batteries. Every time you thermal cycle it at a high amperage draw the heat goes through the roof. Now low power APUs are great but we need the overall TDP increased with low draw APUs second dedicated ram.

[Prinz_Kasper]

My Steam Deck is an indie and retro machine, so I'll be fine without an upgrade for years to come. That said, two features I really want to see in a successor are VRR in the integrated display, and adaptive triggers like the PS5 controller.

[Fumblaps]

Battery life will be the biggest limiting factor in how far Valve will push on the power front.

[jessekoepp]

I got my Steamdeck (OLED) about a month ago and I freaking LOVE it! My plan is whenever the SD2 comes out, I'll get that as the daily driver for more modern pc gaming, and then the SD1 will be used as my "every game system (practically) ever made from the 80s to the 00s" portable retro/arcade machine.

[BeanieKing]

Now that SteamOS is officially releasing onto third party handhelds, I don't think the Steam Deck matters as much, anymore. The selling point wasn't its hardware, its size, or battery life, but its suite of curated software upgrades. Hell, Valve released an update to fix Elden Ring's subpar PC optimization before FromSoft did!

But I'm only speaking for myself, I guess. The SDeck 2 doesn't excite me as much as where SteamOS will land after its next big leap.

[keevacarroll]

I hope they wait at least a couple years. Maybe a steamdeck mini. I would like something thats about 20-30% lighter

[CottoInTokyo]

I'm more interested in the rumored steam console. I hope it's true

[flukenukeem]

The current Steam Deck already runs literally 99% of games that are worth a damn. So good for clearing your backlog or repeating older favorites. No one wants to pay $1200 for a handheld that can play Forspoken or Star Wars Outlaws.

[dustarma]

Honestly right now i would say the steam deck's biggest bottleneck is its CPU, it was fine for last gen titles and some lighter cross-gen ones, but true current gen titles are just too much for those 4 Zen 2 cores to handle, it's getting to the point where the Deck struggles to maintain 30FPS even when it has enough GPU headroom to do so.

In my opinion a true "next gen" deck would need at least 6 Zen 4c cores

[matthewcherrington]

Lpddr6 will be the biggest generational leap for apus

[qlum]

I would say 2027-2028 seems like a decent time frame. Probably a custom udna based apu. Probably coupled with a mix of zen6 and zen6c cpu cores or zen5 could also be a thing.

The screen will probably also be a higher resolution upscaling is good enough for it not to be much of a negative, and without upscaling visual novels and the likes really could use the crispness of a higher resolution screen.