// THE VERGE — HARDWARE & GADGET
Steam Deck 2: Is AMD Gainsborough the chip Valve’s been waiting for?
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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: