A technology media outlet reported yesterday (August 19) that Valve is developing a gaming device codenamed "Fremont," featuring a custom Advanced Micro Devices Hawk Point 2 SoC equipped with a 6-core, 12-thread Zen 4 architecture CPU with a maximum frequency of 4.8 GHz, 16 MB L3 cache, and an integrated Radeon RX 7600 (RDNA 3 architecture) graphics card. This gaming device has appeared in the GeekBench benchmark database, and based on its specifications, the device is positioned not as a handheld console but more akin to a gaming console.

The key highlight of Fremont lies in its adoption of the Advanced Micro Devices Hawk Point 2 SoC, which contains a 6-core, 12-thread Zen 4 architecture CPU with a base frequency of 3.2 GHz, reaching up to 4.8 GHz, supplemented by 16 MB L3 cache and 6 MB L2 cache. Compared to the Steam Deck OLED (which only has 4 cores, 8 threads Zen 2, maximum frequency of 3.5 GHz, and 4 MB L3 cache), the CPU scale and performance have significantly improved.

In terms of GPU graphics, Fremont is equipped with a Radeon RX 7600 (RDNA 3 architecture), expected to be a discrete GPU, presumably featuring 28-32 compute units and at least 8 GB of dedicated video memory. Compared to the Steam Deck series' mere 8CU (RDNA 2 architecture) integrated graphics, the graphics performance represents a qualitative leap, capable of meeting console-level AAA gaming requirements.

Fremont adopts DDR5-5600 standard memory, with the exposed prototype configured with only 8 GB, less than the Steam Deck OLED's 16 GB LPDDR5-8533. However, the performance gains from the new architecture are evident, with Geekbench 6 scores of 2412 for single-core and 7451 for multi-core.

Previous rumors suggested that the next-generation Steam Deck 2 would adopt the Aerith Plus SoC, but this has been denied. The SoC specifications used by Fremont differ from Aerith Plus, leaning more toward the high-performance console market.