Steam Deck 2: Is AMD Gainsborough the chip Valve’s been waiting for?

The Steam Deck is four and a half years old, and handheld gamers are eagerly awaiting a Steam Deck 2 — but Valve has consistently said it needs a new chip with a “generational leap” in performance and efficiency before building the sequel.

There’s some reason to believe that chip has now broken cover: AMD Gainsborough. But I’m a tad skeptical.

As leaker Moore’s Law is Dead and IT Home report, the latest AMD drivers have leaked the codename for a previously unknown chip: an “AMD Gainsborough.” The first Steam Deck chip was named “Aerith” after Final Fantasy VII’s heartbreaking love interest, and Gainsborough is her last name. Plus, the chip appears to be a semi-custom one (read: designed for a specific customer) on TSMC’s relatively recent N3P process.

IT Home checked import/export records and found that AMD’s already been shipping test equipment for the Gainsborough chip for validation, suggesting that a potential customer might already be testing to see if it’s suitable for their device.

Those import records also show the Gainsborough chip will be fairly small, with an FF6 package measuring 25mm by 25mm. Today, leaker Gotou_3rd seemingly revealed that AMD’s next handheld chips, the Ryzen Z3 and Z3 Extreme, will also be 25mm by 25mm chips. Gotou also published a possible fragment of an AMD slide deck that suggests the Z3 is targeting 15 watts, the same power envelope as the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED.

This isn’t quite enough to tie Gainsborough specifically to a Steam Deck 2, though.

First, a semi-custom chip doesn’t always wind up in its originally intended gadget. It’s long been rumored that the Steam Deck’s own semi-custom chip wasn’t originally designed for the Steam Deck, but rather a Magic Leap headset, and that it was shopped around for tablets (including this canceled Microsoft tablet, the story goes) before Valve took advantage. There are portions of the original Steam Deck’s chip that went entirely unused.

Second, you should know that “Aerith” (Steam Deck), “Sephiroth” (Steam Deck OLED) and “Gainsborough” are not Valve’s codenames. When I visited Valve’s headquarters in late 2023, I commented on this Aerith wafer hanging on the wall — and Valve designers told me they didn’t really want the Final Fantasy codenames. AMD was the one that chose them.

Third, 25mm by 25mm might be small, but it’s actually large for a Steam Deck! The original Steam Deck’s “Aerith” chip, before it shrunk to remove the unused components in its “Sephiroth” revision, reportedly measured 19mm by 19mm. But perhaps it’s efficient, and perhaps it’s more affordable if this apple doesn’t fall too far from AMD’s 25mm x 25mm Ryzen Z3 tree.