Prototype Steam Deck Featuring 6-Year-Old AMD Picasso APU with Zen+ and Vega Sells for $2,000 on eBay

If you’ve ever come across engineering samples of gaming consoles or accessories before they hit the market, you’ll know they can command impressive prices among enthusiasts. Recently, a prototype of Valve’s Steam Deck found its way onto eBay, much to the excitement of the community at r/SteamDeck.

One user shared that this Steam Deck prototype was sold for a staggering $3,000, although it eventually sealed a deal at $2,000. The model closely follows designs Valve has shown off previously and includes an AMD APU built with Picasso silicon from 2019.

This prototype, dubbed “Engineering Sample 34,” stands out from regular Steam Decks. Sporting blue accents, curved lines, circular trackpads, and a curious sensor on the right joystick, it’s certainly unique. Despite the “Not for resale” stamp on its back cover, some believe rules are made to be bent or broken.

During development, Valve churned out various prototypes for internal testing, so pinning down the exact age of this piece is tricky. However, its older APU suggests it was made to test mechanical elements before finalizing specs for the retail version, hinting at a creation date around 2019 or 2020.

The seller noted that the device lacks an operating system like SteamOS. As per images captured by Notebookcheck, the BIOS lists several intriguing specs. It appears Valve was experimenting with AMD’s older Picasso (Ryzen 3000 mobile) chip, which includes up to four Zen+ cores and a GCN 5.0 (Vega 3/8/11) based integrated GPU. These architectural differences highlight the performance gap between this and the final retail Steam Decks.

Moreover, this version only sports 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, which pales in comparison to today’s 16GB and 512GB offerings. Unless you’re looking at the base 64GB eMMC version, modern Steam Decks, powered by AMD’s Aerith and Sephiroth APUs, would significantly outperform this prototype.

We’re now left wondering who bought this rare gem. If it’s someone in the tech reviewing or hardware analysis scene, we could expect a detailed breakdown of this modified Picasso chip and how the Steam Deck evolved from such prototypes. On the other hand, it could simply be tucked away in a private collection.

Valve has noted that fans yearning for a next-gen Steam Deck will need to hold on until more advanced processors become available.