{"id":789210,"date":"2026-10-02T03:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T03:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/789210\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T03:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T03:08:09","slug":"steam-deck-2-is-amd-gainsborough-the-chip-valves-been-waiting-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/789210\/","title":{"rendered":"Steam Deck 2: Is AMD Gainsborough the chip Valve\u2019s been waiting for?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Steam Deck is four and a half years old, and handheld gamers are eagerly awaiting a Steam Deck 2 \u2014 but Valve has consistently said it needs a new chip with a \u201cgenerational leap\u201d<\/a> in performance and efficiency before building the sequel.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some reason to believe that chip has now broken cover: AMD Gainsborough. But I\u2019m a tad skeptical.<\/p>\n

As leaker Moore\u2019s Law is Dead<\/a> and IT Home<\/a> report, the latest AMD drivers have leaked the codename for a previously unknown chip: an \u201cAMD Gainsborough.\u201d The first Steam Deck chip was named \u201cAerith\u201d after Final Fantasy VII\u2019s 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\u2019s relatively recent N3P process.<\/p>\n

IT Home checked import\/export records and found that AMD\u2019s already been shipping test equipment for the Gainsborough chip for validation, suggesting that a potential customer might already be testing to see if it\u2019s suitable for their device.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> that AMD\u2019s 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:<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t quite enough to tie Gainsborough specifically to a Steam Deck 2, though.<\/p>\n

First, a semi-custom chip doesn\u2019t always wind up in its originally intended gadget. It\u2019s long been rumored that the Steam Deck\u2019s own semi-custom chip wasn\u2019t 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<\/a>, the story goes) before Valve took advantage. There are portions of the original Steam Deck\u2019s chip<\/a> that went entirely unused.<\/p>\n

Second, you should know that \u201cAerith\u201d (Steam Deck), \u201cSephiroth\u201d (Steam Deck OLED) and \u201cGainsborough\u201d are not Valve\u2019s codenames. When I visited Valve\u2019s headquarters in late 2023, I commented on this Aerith wafer hanging on the wall \u2014 and Valve designers told me they didn\u2019t really want the Final Fantasy codenames. AMD was the one that chose them.<\/p>\n

Third, 25mm by 25mm might be small, but it\u2019s actually large for a Steam Deck! The original Steam Deck\u2019s \u201cAerith\u201d chip, before it shrunk to remove the unused components in its \u201cSephiroth\u201d revision, reportedly measured 19mm by 19mm<\/a>. But perhaps Gainsborough is efficient, and perhaps it\u2019s more affordable if this apple doesn\u2019t fall too far from AMD\u2019s 25mm x 25mm Ryzen Z3 tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steam Deck is four and a half years old, and handheld gamers are eagerly awaiting a Steam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10560,205,59,50,16332,227,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-789210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-amd","tag-gaming","tag-gb","tag-news","tag-pc-gaming","tag-tech","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}