AMD Ryzen APU Handhelds Achieve Massive Sales, Yet Steam Deck Remains the Top Choice

Over the past three years, it’s become clear that AMD Ryzen chips are the driving force behind the majority of gaming handhelds on the market.

AMD Poised for Dominance with 8 Million Handheld Devices Set for Shipment by 2025

Although handheld gaming devices have been around for years, it wasn’t until Steam’s Deck came out in 2022 that the concept of playing PC games on-the-go truly took off. Fast forward three years, and we’ve seen an influx of handhelds from major brands like ASUS, MSI, and ZOTAC, among others.

What unites most of these devices? They predominantly feature AMD processors. From the outset, when Valve introduced AMD’s custom Zen 2 CPU with the Steam Deck, many manufacturers opted for AMD’s quicker chips. This trend was somewhat expected, given that Intel’s Meteor Lake didn’t debut until late 2023, while brands like Lenovo and ASUS had already launched their Legion GO and ROG Ally handhelds.

Even with Meteor Lake available, most manufacturers preferred AMD’s Zen 4 chips; and with more shifting towards Zen 5 processors, AMD maintains a stronghold. Recent data from IDC underscore this dominance: between early 2022 and 2025, most handhelds shipped have AMD at their core. This achievement is something AMD takes pride in, with their Senior Director of Consumer Marketing, Saša Marinković, celebrating the success on X (formerly known as Twitter).

"From Zero to Hero, in just four years. Vast majority of these handhelds are powered by @AMD," tweeted Marinković.

Frank Azor, head of Consumer and Gaming Marketing at AMD, added:

“I think it’s amazing. This didn’t exist three years ago; we went from nothing, zero, to incremental category creation in the millions of units.”

IDC’s research reveals that nearly 6 million Windows and SteamOS handhelds have been shipped over the last three years, with expectations of hitting 8 million by the end of 2025, primarily featuring AMD technology. This figure doesn’t capture every device but includes top sellers like the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw 7.

It appears that over half of these 6 million units are Steam Decks, possibly surpassing 4 million by now. Despite being the slowest in terms of gaming performance, the Steam Deck’s standout selling point—its user-friendly SteamOS—has given it a competitive edge over Windows-based handhelds.

While Intel’s Lunar Lake chips have performed respectably, if AMD’s Strix Halo gets incorporated into new gaming handhelds, Intel might struggle to catch up in terms of performance. Until Intel’s upcoming Panther Lake series proves its worth against Strix Halo’s iGPU abilities, AMD seems to be leading the pack in this market. With the release of AMD’s Ryzen Z2 series, the competition in the handheld sector is heating up.

Sources: The Verge, @SasaMarinkovic