> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://averagetechnerds.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A Possible Steam Deck 2 Chip Has Shown Up in a Benchmark - URL: https://averagetechnerds.com/steam-deck-2-specs-leak/ - Published: 2026-10-21T01:38:14.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-21T02:18:02.000Z - Description: An AMD test chip with 6 cores and 24 GB of LPDDR5-9600 points to Steam Deck 2. Here’s what it would mean, and what Valve has actually said. - Author: Victor - Tags: News, Handheld Gaming, Handheld PCs A chip that might be the Steam Deck 2’s just turned up in a public benchmark, and on the spec sheet it’s a big step up from today’s Deck. The AMD test chip has six cores, 12 threads and 24 GB of LPDDR5-9600 memory, according to its [OpenBenchmarking result](https://openbenchmarking.org/result/2608077-NE-0807GPUFU83?ref=averagetechnerds.com). The board it ran on carries a name that points to “Gainsborough,” a codename leakers tie to Valve’s next handheld. Now, before anybody gets too excited: neither AMD nor Valve has confirmed any link. Bottom line up front ## So what does this mean for the *Average TechNerd*? It means a possible Steam Deck 2 chip finally has real numbers behind it. The catch? The only link to Valve is a codename. A result for the early AMD test chip was uploaded to a benchmark database on August 7, and its test board is labelled GBR, read as Gainsborough, a name leakers have attached to Steam Deck 2. If this chip does end up in a Deck, you’re looking at 50% more cores and threads, likely a much newer Zen 6 design, and memory that’s 50% bigger and up to 75% faster. The graphics, the power draw and how games actually run? All unknown. Valve still has no release date, and it says a Steam Deck 2 waits on a big performance jump that doesn’t cost battery life. At a glance What it is An AMD test chip in a public benchmark result, possibly for Steam Deck 2 Status Rumour. AMD and Valve haven’t confirmed a link CPU 6 cores / 12 threads at 2.4 GHz, likely Zen 6 (Deck: 4 / 8, Zen 2) Memory 24 GB LPDDR5-9600 (Deck: 16 GB at 5,500 MT/s on the LCD, 6,400 MT/s on the OLED) Graphics Not identified in the listing Release date and price None announced Valve’s bar A generational leap without sacrificing battery life ## What showed up in the benchmark? An AMD engineering sample, which is an early test version of a chip, running on one of AMD’s own test boards. The [listing](https://openbenchmarking.org/result/2608077-NE-0807GPUFU83?ref=averagetechnerds.com) gives part number 100-000001930-12\_Y at 2.4 GHz, with 6 cores and 12 threads. The memory is four 6 GB SK Hynix LPDDR5 chips running at 9,600 MT/s, 24 GB in total. The graphics? Listed only as “AMD Eng Sample.” This isn’t a fresh result, by the way. It was uploaded on August 7, 2026, and the reports only came out in October. The test ran Ubuntu 24.04 with development graphics drivers, and every test in it comes from GpuTest, a set of OpenGL graphics tests, run in a window at 1024x768\. It scored 3,871 in GiMark, 3,508 in FurMark and 9,319 in TessMark. ## Is this the Steam Deck 2 chip? Nobody official has said so. The whole case rests on a name. The test board is called GBR-FF6-SKT, and “GBR” shows up again in the graphics firmware name and the test account’s username. Leakers read it as Gainsborough, the surname of Final Fantasy VII’s Aerith, and here’s why that matters: the Steam Deck LCD’s chip was widely reported as codenamed Aerith and the OLED’s as Sephiroth. So the pattern fits. Gainsborough first surfaced as a name in AMD’s Adrenalin 26.9.2 graphics driver, [PC Games Hardware reports](https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Steam-Deck-Hardware-277668/News/Steam-Deck-2-AMD-Gainsborough-Custom-APU-1555555/?ref=averagetechnerds.com), and leakers tied it to Valve from there. Keep in mind, nothing in the listing mentions Valve, SteamOS or a handheld. Nothing. ## Is it a Zen 6 chip? Probably. The part number above doesn’t say, but Notebookcheck decodes a CPU model number from the microcode version in the listing, and Linux kernel changes AMD engineers made in [May](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/b5f53e6d3d32f2884d71500bb6d773c7bfe21f2e?ref=averagetechnerds.com) and [July](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/52075128273ace53e6254e37899a47d40d4baf45?ref=averagetechnerds.com) file that model under Zen 6\. What the listing can’t tell you is whether it uses full Zen 6 cores or the compact Zen 6c variant. ## How does it compare with the current Steam Deck? On the CPU and memory, it’s a clear step up. On graphics, there’s nothing to compare yet. Here it is next to Valve’s specs for the [Steam Deck LCD](https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech/deck?ref=averagetechnerds.com) and [Steam Deck OLED](https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech?ref=averagetechnerds.com). | | Steam Deck LCD | Steam Deck OLED | Leaked AMD test chip | | ------------ | --------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------- | | CPU | 4 cores / 8 threads, Zen 2, 2.4-3.5 GHz | Same | 6 cores / 12 threads, likely Zen 6, 2.4 GHz listed | | Graphics | 8 RDNA 2 compute units, 1.6 GHz | Same | Not identified | | Memory | 16 GB LPDDR5, 5,500 MT/s | 16 GB LPDDR5, 6,400 MT/s | 24 GB LPDDR5, 9,600 MT/s | | Chip made on | 7 nm | 6 nm | Unknown | | Chip power | 4-15 W | 4-15 W | Unknown | Six cores and 12 threads is 50% more than the Deck’s four and eight. And if it really is Zen 6, it’s four core generations newer than the Deck’s Zen 2, so each of those cores should get more done per clock. The listed 2.4 GHz matches the Deck’s base clock, but don’t read much into it. An engineering sample’s clocks may not be final anyway. The memory jump is just as big, and on a handheld it matters more than you’d think. The Deck’s graphics share its memory with the CPU, so faster memory feeds the GPU too. At 9,600 MT/s, this memory is 75% faster than the LCD Deck’s 5,500 and 50% faster than the OLED’s 6,400, and 24 GB is 50% more room than 16. The graphics are the big unknown. The Deck has 8 RDNA 2 compute units at 1.6 GHz, rated at 1.6 TFLOPS, while the listing gives no architecture or compute unit count for the test chip. There’s no power figure either, and the Deck’s chip runs at 4 to 15 W. So can you line up these scores against a Deck? Not fairly. They’re windowed OpenGL tests at 1024x768 on a test board with development drivers, the Deck’s screen is 1280x800, and no Deck ran in the same result. None of it says how games will run. For a sense of where a successor starts from, the LCD Deck averaged 30 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 and 41 FPS in Black Myth: Wukong at Medium and 15 W in this site’s [four-handheld benchmark](https://averagetechnerds.com/steam-deck-rog-ally-legion-go-2-x2-mini-pro-benchmarks/). Going by Valve’s own words below, it wants its next Deck to beat that by a wide margin. ## What has Valve said about Steam Deck 2? That it’s coming, with no date, and only once a chip gives it a real leap without costing battery life. Valve has been saying some version of that since 2023, so this is nothing new. Here’s the trail. In 2023, Pierre-Loup Griffais told [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/games/995256/valve-steam-deck-2-how-and-when?ref=averagetechnerds.com) that Valve doesn’t want “more performance to come at a significant cost to power efficiency and battery life.” In October 2024, designer Lawrence Yang [told Reviews.org](https://www.reviews.org/au/games/valve-steam-deck-australia-interview/?ref=averagetechnerds.com) that Valve won’t do a yearly bump and will “wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life.” In November 2025, Griffais [told IGN](https://www.ign.com/articles/valve-says-it-has-a-pretty-good-idea-of-what-steam-deck-2-is-going-to-be-explains-why-its-holding-off-for-now?ref=averagetechnerds.com) that Valve isn’t interested in “20 or 30 or even 50% more performance at the same battery life,” and that no chip on the market yet would make a true next-gen Deck. Funny enough, 50% is exactly the core-count jump in this leak. Don’t get too clever with that, though. More cores don’t turn straight into more performance, and Valve’s bar is about performance at the same battery life. ![A grid of Steam Deck prototypes in different shapes and colours, from Valve’s press kit](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b3/23/b323103c-90c0-46a8-9230-7d317a5ebaf3/content/images/2026/10/steam-deck-prototypes.jpg) Prototypes Valve built on the way to the first Steam Deck. Image: Valve This year, though, the tone has warmed up. In April, Griffais said Valve is [“hard at work on it.”](https://www.ign.com/articles/valve-says-its-hard-at-work-on-steam-deck-2-but-theres-still-no-release-window?ref=averagetechnerds.com) In June, he [told IGN](https://www.ign.com/articles/valve-says-steam-deck-2-is-getting-closer-but-still-not-ready-yet?ref=averagetechnerds.com) “we’re closer than we were the last time we talked,” while noting that new handheld chips still run in power ranges Valve doesn’t want. In September, asked whether the memory shortage changed Valve’s thinking, he [answered](https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-frame-the-valve-interview?ref=averagetechnerds.com) “Not really,” and said it’s “a matter of looking at the current conditions and seeing how and when we can deliver something like that.” ## When is the Steam Deck 2 release date? There isn’t one. Valve said in June that it would be “talking about that in the coming years,” and in September it was still working out “how and when.” The only year going around is 2028, from a NeoGAF post by the leaker Kepler\_L2, [as reported by Insider Gaming](https://insider-gaming.com/rumor-claims-steam-deck-2-may-not-arrive-until-2028/?ref=averagetechnerds.com), and that’s a rumour, plain and simple. Even if this chip is Gainsborough and Gainsborough is Valve’s, an engineering sample in August tells you very little about when a finished handheld ships. ## How much will it cost? Valve hasn’t said. What it has done is raise the Deck OLED’s price on May 27, to $789 for 512 GB and $949 for 1 TB, up from $549 and $649, citing “rising memory and storage costs” in [its announcement](https://steamcommunity.com/games/1675200/announcements/detail/672869045073085560?ref=averagetechnerds.com). Now think about that: this test chip carries 50% more memory than the Deck, and faster memory at that. Price is a fair question, then. ## Should you wait for Steam Deck 2? If you want a handheld soon, waiting means waiting on a device with no date, no price and no confirmed chip. That’s a lot of nothing to wait on. The Deck OLED is still on sale, and this site’s four-handheld benchmark shows how today’s Deck stacks up against the ROG Ally, Legion Go 2 and X2 Mini Pro. And if you already own a Deck, this leak changes nothing about it today. ## Is this one worth getting excited about? Honestly, this one’s exciting. The Steam Deck is coming up on five years old, and even with tricks like FSR upscaling and Lossless Scaling’s frame generation, its APU just can’t keep up with newer games the way it used to. Valve wasn’t first to PC handhelds, but the Deck is what brought them to the mainstream, and Valve has a good track record with gamers. Six cores and 12 threads doesn’t sound like a lot on paper, but it’s 50% more than today’s Deck, and the GPU is what’ll really decide it. The much faster memory is a clear step up, so yeah, I’m looking forward to this one. What would a Steam Deck 2 need for you to upgrade? Based on the OpenBenchmarking result for the AMD engineering sample (uploaded August 7, 2026), AMD engineers’ Linux kernel commits, Valve’s Steam Deck specifications, price announcement and press kit, and Valve interviews with The Verge, Reviews.org and IGN from 2023 to 2026, as of October 20, 2026\. Neither AMD nor Valve has confirmed this chip as Steam Deck 2 hardware.