PSP 2 could beat the Steam Deck 2 to market, and may be more powerful than an Xbox Series S

(Credit: Dall-E)

• Leaks suggest that Sony’s upcoming companion handheld to the PlayStation 6 could be quite powerful

• One leaker has suggested it could be more powerful than the Xbox Series S in rasterisation and ray-tracing

• The reputed PSP 2 is set to be powered by a new six-core AMD Zen 6-based APU, and will have an RDNA 5-based GPU with 16 Compute Units

• The device is rumored to launch in fall 2027 alongside the PS6, and will beat the Steam Deck 2 to market by several months at least

Sony’s reported handheld companion to the upcoming PlayStation 6 (which may well be the PSP 2) looks to be packing a fair amount of power.

That’s according to reliable leaker KeplerL2, who has again commented on the likely performance of the upcoming handheld. They say that its graphical power in rasterization may be set to be higher than the GPU in the current Xbox Series S.

Moreover, with ray-tracing in tow, Sony’s handheld is likely to yield even stronger performance over the Series S.

KeplerL2 had previously leaked that the PSP 2 was set to have 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM, the same as the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. Other leaks have indicated that Sony is employing a custom AMD APU based on its Zen 6 architecture, with six cores, plus a modern RDNA 5-based GPU with 16 Compute Units and a lower clock speed of up to 1.2GHz in its handheld mode.

By contrast, the Xbox Series S has a 20 Compute Unit GPU with clock speeds of up to 1.56GHz – theoretically more, but it’s based on AMD’s older RDNA 2 architecture, and Team Red has made some large performance gains from newer architectures, as seen with its Strix Halo APUs and more besides. It works out to a total performance of around 4 TFLOPs.

For reference, the Nintendo Switch 2, while it provides a hefty boost in performance over the OG Switch, achieves around 1.7 TFLOPs in handheld mode, rising to 3.1 TFLOPs in its docked mode.

The PSP 2 is expected to release in fall 2027 alongside the PS6, and may pip the Steam Deck 2 to the post in terms of release date. Valve’s next PC-based handheld may have been delayed beyond the originally anticipated 2028 release date owing to the current RAM crisis, and we’ve already seen what’s happened to the Steam Machine as a result of it.

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Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.