Steam Deck 2: Is AMD Gainsborough the chip Valve’s been waiting for?

Steam Deck 2: Is AMD Gainsborough the chip Valve’s been waiting for?

There’s reason to be skeptical.

There’s reason to be skeptical.

by

Sean Hollister

Oct 1, 2026, 6:52 PM UTC

Photo by

Sean Hollister

is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

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 witha “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 leakerMoore’s Law is DeadandIT Homereport, the latest AMD drivers have leaked the codename for a previously unknown chip: an “AMD Gainsborough.” The first Steam Deck chip was named “Aerith” afterFinal Fantasy VII’s heartbreaking love interest, and Gainsborough is her last name. Plus, the chip appears to be asemi-customone (read: designed for a specific customer) on TSMC’srelativelyrecent N3P process.

IT Homechecked 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.

Image: NBD Data via IT Home

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 revealedthat 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:

Image via Gotou_3rd

This isn’t quite enough to tie Gainsborough specifically to a Steam Deck 2, though.

First, a semi-custom chip doesn’t always wind up in its originally intended gadget. It’s long been rumored thatthe Steam Deck’s own semi-custom chipwasn’t originally designed for the Steam Deck, but rather a Magic Leap headset, and that it was shopped around for tablets (includingthis canceled Microsoft tablet, the story goes) before Valve took advantage. There areportions of the original Steam Deck’s chipthat went entirely unused.

Second, you should know that “Aerith” (Steam Deck), “Sephiroth” (Steam Deck OLED) and “Gainsborough” arenotValve’s codenames. When I visited Valve’s headquarters in late 2023, I commented on this Aerith wafer hanging on the wall — and Valve designers told me they didn’t really want theFinal Fantasycodenames. AMD was the one that chose them.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Some extra evidence that Valve isn’t tied to those names: When Microsoft and Asus picked the “Ryzen Z2 A” chip for the vanilla $500 Xbox Ally,they were choosing an “Aerith Plus” chip.

Third, 25mm by 25mm might be small, but it’s actually large for a Steam Deck! The original Steam Deck’s “Aerith” chip,beforeit shrunk to remove the unused components in its “Sephiroth” revision, reportedlymeasured 19mm by 19mm. But perhaps it’s efficient, and perhaps it’s more affordable if this apple doesn’t fall too far from AMD’s 25mm x 25mm Ryzen Z3 tree.

Lastly, Valve wasstill figuring out “how and when”to do a Steam Deck 2 as of last month, after it would have theoretically received these Gainsborough chips. But I guess Valve might just be trying not to overpromise, afterthis year’s RAM-forced hardware delays.

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• Sean Hollister

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