Given the success of the Steam Deck, it wouldn't be too surprising for Valve to want to take the next step with a new iteration of the device or perhaps even a full follow-up. It's still early days, but a sequel would represent a move forward for mobile PC gaming, which would require more up-to-date technology. With AMD looking to launch RDNA 3 this year, there's word on the grapevine that, were Valve to make a new version of its portable system, it could utilize team red's upcoming hardware.
That's according to leaked sources over on the Moore's Law Is Dead YouTube channel. It seems as though AMD could be interested in supplying a potential new Steam Deck with a Ryzen APU. In this case, the chip could well feature Zen 4 and RDNA 3 architectures. The video goes on to say that this "Little Phoenix" APU will have four cores and eight threads. It could also provide 10-20% boost rates over the current RDNA 2 tech.
It should be mentioned that there's been no official word from Valve about a potential Steam Deck 2. The current model has only been out a few months and many people are still waiting for theirs to arrive, so it's unlikely that a new system is in development at this moment. However, as mentioned above, a follow-up could be in the cards, given the success of this current iteration. Since the Steam Deck is powered by AMD's RDNA 2 technology, a Deck sequel would likely continue that trend by utilizing team red's APUs, and it would make sense for Valve to want to put modern architectures in its newest devices.
As for the system itself, the Steam Deck currently has thousands of compatible games, and that number is going up all the time. While primarily a gaming console, one of its big selling points is that it's a fully functional portable PC, not too dissimilar to the desktops people have in their homes. It even allows users to factory reset the device to install an OS like Windows on it.
In fact, Steam Deck now supports Windows. While it was initially touted as a direct competitor to the Nintendo Switch, it has set itself apart from other portable consoles. And if the demand for the Steam Deck continues as it has been doing, a follow-up that's powered by new AMD architectures is something that many would likely be interested in seeing come to fruition.
Source: PCGamesN