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Mysterious AMD Zen 6 APU with 24GB of LPDDR5 memory appears in benchmarks — chip may be for next-gen Steam Deck or gaming handhelds A mysterious AMD chip points to a possible Steam Deck successor. An AMD engineering sample has made an appearance in a listing on OpenBenchmarking. According to a report by TechPowerUp, the chip could potentially be a part of AMD’s upcoming Gainsborough family and a possible candidate for the next-generation Steam Deck handheld console. As per the OpenBenchmarking listing, the chip comes with a six-core, 12-thread processor paired with 24GB of high-speed LPDDR5 memory. The engineering sample with part number 100-000001930-12_Y was tested on an AMD GBR-FF6-SKT validation board, with the CPU running at clock speeds of 2.4 GHz. The system also features four 6GB SK Hynix memory packages, resulting in 24GB of LPDDR5 memory running at 9,600 MT/s. That’s a big jump when compared to the current Steam Deck, which comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 memory running at 6,400 MT/s, alongside a four-core, eight-thread AMD Zen 2 processor. The benchmark listing also provides some clues about the processor’s underlying architecture. As per Notebookcheck, the sample’s CPU microcode revision corresponds to AMD’s Family 1Ah, model DCh. Linux kernel changes indicate that this model falls within the range reserved for newer Zen 6 processors, suggesting that Gainsborough could use AMD’s next-generation CPU architecture. However, there is no clarity or any confirmation whether it will use standard Zen 6 cores or the denser Zen 6C variant. The integrated GPU is listed with a clock speed of 2,400 MHz, although its architecture and compute unit count remain unknown. The sample was tested using the GpuTest benchmark suite on Ubuntu 24.04 at 1024 x 768 resolution, resulting in scores of 3,871 in GiMark, 3,508 in FurMark, and 9,319 in TessMark. While the FurMark score is comparable to the original Stam Deck, we can’t really come to any conclusions at this point, as the tests were conducted on an engineering platform using development software rather than a finished handheld. For now, the results do not establish how the chip would perform in games, as power limits, cooling, driver maturity, and the final GPU configuration all contribute to the performance in a compact gaming device. If these specifications carry over to a future Steam Deck, the additional CPU cores along with the larger and faster memory would provide a meaningful hardware upgrade. That being said, neither AMD nor Valve have confirmed a connection between the Gainsborough family and a future Steam Deck. Thus, it is best to take this with a grain of salt and wait until there is more concrete information in the future. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC. - ezst036 Now that Epic has surrendered to the idea of Fortnite coming to Linux and Easy Anti Cheat systems are going to go mainstream on Linux, the time is ripe for a Deck2.Reply - usertests ezst036 said:Now that Epic has surrendered to the idea of Fortnite coming to Linux and Easy Anti Cheat systems are going to go mainstream on Linux, the time is ripe for a Deck2.One of the rumors is that this is using 12 CUs of RDNA4m (RDNA3.5 derivative with full FSR4 support). I'd prefer for it to come out even later with something like Zen 7 LP cores and RDNA5, and dodging the peak of memory prices. The Gainsborough codename is highly suggestive of it being for a Steam Deck 2, but not a guarantee. Reply - robbro9 So the 4 6gb memory chips, is there any chance this is like the Ryzen 390/395 and has quad channel memory instead of just dual? That could be huge for gaming in this space, especially if they up the RDNA cores to use that bandwidth...Reply - usertests robbro9 said:So the 4 6gb memory chips, is there any chance this is like the Ryzen 390/395 and has quad channel memory instead of just dual? That could be huge for gaming in this space, especially if they up the RDNA cores to use that bandwidth...No chance. It's in line with the previous Steam Deck which has 4x 4GB chips: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Steam+Deck+Chip+ID/147811 Every 256-bit Strix Halo product has used 8x LPDDR5X memory chips. Because of rampant confusion over channel counts, which might get even worse as LPDDR6 appears, it's best to specify the bus width instead of talking about dual/quad/etc. Reply - DS426 usertests said:One of the rumors is that this is using 12 CUs of RDNA4m (RDNA3.5 derivative with full FSR4 support). I'd prefer for it to come out even later with something like Zen 7 LP cores and RDNA5, and dodging the peak of memory prices. The Gainsborough codename is highly suggestive of it being for a Steam Deck 2, but not a guarantee.Fair point on mem prices but Zen 2 -> 6 is already a big jump, especially when you factor in 50% more cores. 2x Z6 + 4x Z6d would about be the most ideal setup IMO for a handheld except for the die-to-die latency penalty and added cost of using two dies, even if they are recycled semi-defective ones (some cores weak or dead, etc.). Reply - usertests DS426 said:Fair point on mem prices but Zen 2 -> 6 is already a big jump, especially when you factor in 50% more cores. 2x Z6 + 4x Z6d would about be the most ideal setup IMO for a handheld except for the die-to-die latency penalty and added cost of using two dies, even if they are recycled semi-defective ones (some cores weak or dead, etc.).I'm not worried about the CPU performance which would be great with that setup (I suppose even all/mostly LP cores would be fine, which is why I mentioned them). Rather, Zen 7 cores could be delivering an additional large power efficiency increase over Zen 6 at low power draw (source is MLID): https://www.igorslab.de/en/zen-7-aka-grimlock-at-a-glance-big-gaps-at-amd/ The energy efficiency is particularly impressive: at just 3 watts per core, performance increases by 30 to 36% compared to Medusa (Zen 6). Ideally, the CPU in a handheld rarely needs a lot of power, and extra power is diverted to the GPU in a higher wattage scenario. But more importantly, RDNA5 or later should blow away what is an RDNA3.5 derivative. I understand that 12 CUs RDNA4m would be a decent improvement over the original, but I'm not sure it's transformative enough to meet Valve's past statements about the Steam Deck 2. Having full fat FP8 FSR4 may not even make much of a difference now that a lightweight version of FSR4.1 is officially being made available to "Z2-series", which presumably includes the "Z2 A" which is the Steam Deck 1 SoC. 24 GB is the minimum viable memory for a Steam Deck 2, and should be fine for many games. 32 GB would be better, and I wonder if they would be willing to bifurcate the lineup and offer more RAM in the top model(s). I don't think die-to-die latency is a problem. The Zen 6 family will include smaller monolithic APUs, and Gainsborough seems like it would be one of them. The products that do use chiplets should be using the "sea of wires" InFO-oS interconnect like Strix Halo, which would eliminate latency. Future APUs will be more expensive as wafer costs keep going up for new nodes, which is an argument against Just Wait-ing for Zen 7, etc., but a tiny SoC's silicon cost doesn't matter compared to memory/storage, at least at this moment. Reply
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