The successor to Valve Corporation’s gaming handheld, the Steam Deck 2, may be powered by the AMD Gainsborough APU, it is claimed.
According to hardware insider and content creator Moore’s Law Is Dead (MLID), Gainsborough has appeared in AMD documents as a semi-custom APU designed for a specific customer. The chip is reportedly being developed by the GPU maker’s S3 team and is said to use TSMC’s N3P 3nm process, an efficiency-focused variant of the company’s 3nm technology.
MLID claims that some of the personnel working on Gainsborough have also worked on recent PlayStation APUs. The APU has also reportedly appeared in AMD graphics drivers, despite the insider’s contacts at major PC manufacturers apparently having no knowledge of it. He believes this further suggests that Gainsborough could be a custom chip rather than a conventional APU intended for mainstream laptops and desktops.
Based on the leaked specs, the insider expects a Steam Deck 2 powered by Gainsborough to feature between 4 and 8 Zen 6C or other low-power cores, alongside 12 to 24 RDNA 5 or other recent-generation RDNA compute units. He also expects higher clock speeds than the PlayStation 6 handheld due to the different requirements of a PC gaming handheld.
In terms of performance, MLID believes the Steam Deck 2 may bring a substantial generational leap over the original Steam Deck, potentially delivering performance comparable to the jump from the PS4 generation to somewhat beyond the PS5.
The insider also revealed new information about Sony Interactive Entertainment’s rumored PlayStation 6 handheld. Its APU, allegedly codenamed Kynis, is said to be using the same TSMC N3P process as AMD Gainsborough. Meanwhile, the PS6 console APUs are claimed to have been listed as using the less expensive N3C variant.
MLID expects that an AMD Gainsborough powered Steam Deck 2 may be launched in late 2027 or sometime during 2028. In April, fellow insider KeplerL2 claimed that while it is targeting a 2028 release window, the ongoing RAM/NAND shortage may lead to a delay.
