Conflicting Reports on New Valve Steam Hardware with AMD RDNA 4

YouTuber eXtas1s has recently shared his thoughts on what might be Valve’s upcoming Steam console. He, alongside HandleDeck, has noticed connections between AMD and Valve in the latest Linux driver updates for the Radeon RX 9070 and other RDNA 4 desktop graphics cards.

Speculations About Valve’s Console

This has led them to speculate that Valve could be working on a home console that might compete with the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 Pro (currently priced at $699 on Amazon). It’s important to mention that neither of them has offered any solid proof to back up their assertions, even though the drivers are open-source.

For now, it would be wise to regard any hints about Valve creating a new Steam Machine with caution. eXtas1s has a somewhat patchy track record regarding leaks of this nature, having missed the mark several times after initially detailing last year’s Xbox Games Showcase.

Counterarguments from GamingOnLinux

In response, Liam Dawe from GamingOnLinux completely denies the claims made by eXtas1s and HandleDeck. He points out on GamingOnLinux that Valve has been hiring developers for many years to update AMD Mesa graphics drivers to maintain Linux compatibility for both current and future AMD hardware.

Dawe argues that eXtas1s and HandleDeck have misread the recent driver modifications, likely influenced by earlier rumors about the Valve ‘Fremont’ linked to the so-called AMD Lilac platform. To support his argument, a senior member of Valve’s Linux graphics driver team noted in the documentation for a recent Mesa driver patch regarding AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture that:

This initial support should be good enough but it’s missing two features (cooperative matrix and video decode/encode) compared to GFX11 (RDNA3) because lack of time.

DCC is still under active development but it might be possible to finish it during the RC period.

The Validity of the Rumors

In summary, this new rumor seems just as credible as the one about an AMD Ryzen Z2 refresh for the Steam Deck that VideoCardz discussed. For context, Pierre-Loup Griffais, a well-known designer of the Steam Deck, publicly dismissed this rumor. While the future of new Steam hardware is still uncertain, some third-party hobbyists have successfully transformed the Steam Deck into a home console experience.

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