Steam Deck Successor Rumors Heat Up: AMD "AERITH Plus" Chip Spotted
Steam Deck users, listen up. The rumors of Steam Deck's successor seem to heat up. The heart for this next-gen handheld may just have made an appearance. Whispers (well, one could say, shipping manifests) indicate a new AMD chip, codenamed "AERITH Plus." This silicon may power the much-expected Steam Deck 2.
"AERITH Plus": Spotted in the Wild
You remember "AERITH". That's the name of the custom AMD chip inside the original Steam Deck. Now it appears AMD is developing a "Plus" version. Recently, an eagle-eyed user flagged shipping records mentioning "AERITH PLUS." While official details remain under wraps, it tantalizingly places some possibilities on what Valve might be contemplating on its next foray into handheld gaming.
More Speed and More Power
The information on the shipping manifests hints at some juicy upgrades for "AERITH Plus." Let's analyze the conjectured details.
- Onward to Better Boost Clock: The leak indicates boost clock speeds up to 3.8 GHz. This is a clear bump from AERITH at 3.5 GHz. In portable gaming, every bit of extra clock speed certainly counts.
- Increased TDP: Among the shipping records, a TDP of 20 W is mentioned, while the original AERITH had a maximum of 15 W. More TDP should bring better performance, though it influences battery life and heat level.
- GPU Boost: The iGPU on "AERITH Plus" is said to clock up to 1.8 GHz from a previous maximum of 1.6 GHz on AERITH. We love better graphics on the go.
- Faster Memory: Possibly the most exciting upgrade is LPDDR5x memory mentioned to be whirring at 8533 MT/s speeds. The existing Steam Deck uses LPDDR5 at 6400 MT/s. Faster memory will reflect on overall system responsiveness and gaming performance, especially related to integrated graphics.
Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5? Potential Architecture Leaps
The use of LPDDR5x memory at that speed strongly suggests that "AERITH Plus" is designed on top of AMD's cutting-edge Zen 5 CPU architecture. With the anticipated use of RDNA 3.5 architecture for the iGPU (a major bump up from the Steam Deck's RDNA 2), we are looking at a serious leap in performance for handheld gaming.
Rumors point to "AERITH Plus" being a custom variant of AMD's "Kraken Point" APU. If that is the case, we might be looking at a whopping 8 cores/16 threads for the CPU and well up to 12 Compute Units for the GPU. This would put the original Steam Deck to shame with a huge increase in raw processing power.
Steam Deck 2 on the Horizon
All of this is just speculation based on leaks, but the very emergence of "AERITH Plus" is exciting. Valve has publicly stated they aim for a "generational leap" with Steam Deck's successor. With Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5 architecture, very fast clocks, and LPDDR5x memory, "AERITH Plus" could truly fulfill that. It could be that we will see a Steam Deck 2 launch around next year. Things are looking up.
Stay tuned for more news and prepare for a possibly game-changing handheld from Valve.
