Rare Steam Deck Prototype with 6-Year-Old AMD Picasso APU Sells for $2,000 on eBay

When rare gaming prototypes hit the secondary market, they’re often snapped up for hefty sums, drawing interest from collectors and enthusiasts alike. Recently, an early version of the Steam Deck went on sale through eBay, catching the eye of a user browsing the r/SteamDeck subreddit.

Notably, this prototype mirrors the design shared by Valve in past previews. It boasts an AMD APU featuring the older Picasso silicon from 2019. Initially priced at a steep $3,000, the bidding war concluded with a successful sale at $2,000.

Internally marked as “Engineering Sample 34,” this particular unit diverges from the standard Steam Deck with unique features like blue highlights, a more pronounced curved design, circular trackpads, and some kind of sensor on the right joystick.

Though the back cover clearly warns “Not for resale,” this didn’t deter the seller from proceeding with the sale. During development, Valve often crafted numerous prototypes to test various aspects, making it difficult to date this exact version. Still, the inclusion of outdated components hints that it was likely from 2019 or 2020, before the finalized specs for production models were locked in.

Interestingly, the prototype doesn’t come with SteamOS installed. However, screenshots of the BIOS shared by Notebookcheck give some insight into its internals. Valve was experimenting with older AMD Picasso (Ryzen 3000 mobile) chips, equipped with up to four Zen+ cores and a GCN 5.0 (Vega 3/8/11) integrated GPU. The technical differences here highlight significant performance disparities compared to the new, retail-ready Steam Decks.

Its 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD fall short compared to today’s more robust 16GB and 512GB configurations, aside from the 64GB eMMC variant. Current AMD Aerith and Sephiroth APUs significantly outperform this prototype’s setup.

Everyone’s curious to see who ended up purchasing this piece of gaming history. If it’s a tech reviewer, we might be treated to a detailed breakdown of the custom Picasso chip and Valve’s design evolution. On the other hand, if it’s going into a collector’s vault, it might just disappear from public view.

Valve has also mentioned that fans looking forward to a new iteration of the Steam Deck will have to wait until more advanced processors become available enough to justify an upgrade.