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I think I speak for a lot of people when I say how excited we are for the prospect of a next-generation Steam Deck. With newer, heavier games being released, it's a wish we have to stick with our Steam Decks to play these games instead of getting some beefier Windows handhelds that push power. While speculation is okay, it is also important to be wary of leaks and not make conclusions from them. Unfortunately, that seems to be what happened for a new leak for a custom APU from Valve.
A couple of days ago, Twitter/X user Olrak29_ spotted a mention of a new APU in shipping manifests that seemed to relate to the Steam Deck's APU. The new APU is named Aerith Plus, which is similar to the current Steam Deck APU's name, Aerith (based on the Final Fantasy 7 character). The new APU can be seen as having a 3.8GHz CPU speed and a 1.8GHz GPU speed on a 20W TDP. Wccftech speculated this new APU could use Zen 5 CPU cores, which would come with RDNA 3.5 GPU cores, similar to the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APUs that some newer handhelds are shipping with. However, even though there can be some similarities, this isn't going to be used for the Steam Deck.
Over on Bluesky, Valve employee Pierre-Loup Griffais debunked this claim and mentioned that this is "not happening," killing any speculation that this APU would be for a new Steam Deck model:
It's exciting to discuss and think about what the next Steam Deck could look like and the power it could have, so I totally understand why there's interest in a new APU that has a very similar name. However, this new APU is not going to be used for the Steam Deck, which makes sense. I think the next Steam Deck will most likely use RDNA 4 cores to utilize FSR 4's AI upscaling. If we are looking for a generational leap, this would most likely be it since it could solve the Deck's biggest problem of playing the newest games.
Hopefully, Valve will let us know about the next Steam Deck soon, but they most likely won't confirm or release anything until it is closer to release and they have finalized the plan to release it. It will be interesting to see what they do with the Verified system as well since it is geared toward the Steam Deck, and the next one will most likely be more powerful. Regardless, I am looking forward to seeing what comes next, and I can't wait for the next generation!
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When Valve says they are waiting for a generational leap, I don't think they are talking just about the CPU. The steam deck has 3 common complaints from users. Battery capacity and speed of drain are the first thing, CPU/GPU performance is the second thing, storage problems being the third. I don't think Valve will make steam deck 2 until a viable upgrade to all three of those problems exist at a reasonable cost.
Since the released of the OLED Deck, I haven't seen many complaints about battery life anymore. They improved it heavily with the 50Wh upgrade, and it's the handheld with the best battery life currently. As for storage, I could see it being a problem, but with the 1TB option, I haven't seen many complaints either. It would be awesome if we get a 2TB option, but I feel the CPU/GPU are the main concern. If they can find a way to increase battery life more, that's awesome, but I feel a lot of these other complaints were addressed in the OLED refresh.
I'm not expecting Steam Deck 2 until RDNA5 at the earliest. It needs to be able to fill the role of a portable, standalone PS5, or more specifically like a 15W device with the full performance of Strix Halo to be worth it for Valve to make and I highly doubt RDNA4 cores are powerful and efficient enough to do that. And honestly it'll be better if they waited and kept supporting the current gen Deck. We don't need them to be spitting out products continously which would just degrade overall quality and the user experience.
They have waited 3-4 years already, definitely not in the same vain as other handheld makers like ASUS and Lenovo making a new model each year. I don't think them releasing a RDNA 4 Steam Deck would be considered them "spitting out products."
That being said, I can see your point with waiting for RDNA 5, but I think to stay competitive, releasing a little sooner would be beneficial. Seeing the performance of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (RDNA 3.5 cores with Zen 5), I think RDNA 4 mixed with the AI upscaling of FSR 4 will be enough to handle a lot of these games that we couldn't play before.