Qualcomm's new gaming handheld chip has Steam Deck and AMD in its sights

pcgamer.com:

Qualcomm has announced a new range of chips aimed squarely at gaming handhelds. The highest spec model, the Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen 2, is said to be over twice as fast as its predecessor. So, can it take the fight to the Steam Deck or even AMD's awesome Phoenix APU in handheld's like the Asus ROG Ally?

The new Snapdragon range for gaming handhelds comprises three chips. Along with the aforementioned G3x Gen 2 are the G1 and the G2. The G1 is an ultra-low power item designed to support game streaming on a handheld rather than running games locally, while the G2 is a mid-tier item analogous to a smartphone processor.

So, we can ultimately dispence with the G1 and G2, they don't move the needle for performance. But what about that Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 beast? How does it compare to the AMD Aerith APU in the Steam Deck or the even more powerful AMD Phoenix chip in the Asus ROG Ally and the plethora of gaming handhelds, new examples of which seem to appear almost daily?

That's quite hard to say given the wildly differing architectures and OS platforms. The G3x Gen 2 rocks an eight-core ARM CPU and peaks at around 15 to 18 watts, which is definitely more Steam Deck than ROG Ally in terms of power consumption. Its Adreno A32 GPU is said to be over twice as fast as that of the G3x Gen 1 as used in the Razer Edge handheld, but it probably needs to be given that is a streaming-focussed device rather than something built to run AAA games locally. 

When asked directly by the Verge how the new chip compares to the obvious handheld gaming incumbents, Qualcomm gaming director Mithun Chandrasekhar didn't give a direct response, saying rather bombastically, “I can theoretically crank the performance to 2GHz and beat the living s***