Sony may have secured a major AMD RDNA 5 advantage for its upcoming PlayStation handheld

Sony’s rumoured PlayStation 6 handheld could have a significant advantage over competing gaming handhelds, at least as far as graphics hardware is concerned. New information suggests the company could be the only manufacturer to offer a dedicated handheld SoC based on AMD’s upcoming RDNA 5 architecture.

The information comes from Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter, who reportedly discussed the matter during a recent Patreon-exclusive episode of Digital Foundry Direct. According to Leadbetter, behind-the-scenes discussions suggest Sony has an “exclusive of sorts” on RDNA 5 for its upcoming handheld console.

However, this apparently isn’t the result of a conventional exclusivity agreement between Sony and AMD. Instead, AMD is reportedly becoming increasingly selective about developing semi-custom chips for handheld devices, requiring customers to commit to sufficiently large production volumes before allocating engineering re

That explanation is consistent with an earlier claim from Kepler_L2, who suggested AMD wanted a commitment of at least 10 million chips before developing a dedicated SoC for Microsoft’s proposed Xbox handheld. Microsoft reportedly considered that too risky, although Windows Central’s Jez Corden subsequently disputed the account.

If true, Sony could effectively enjoy a head start with RDNA 5 in the handheld segment. Other manufacturers, including Asus, Lenovo and Valve, might have to continue using existing AMD architectures or wait for standard, commercially available RDNA 5 APUs. Looking at the current state of AMD hardware, they might still be stuck with RDNA 3.5, given that RDNA 4 mobile never materialised in the x86 market. 

Interestingly, Sony’s upcoming handheld, reportedly codenamed Canis, has already been linked to an RDNA 5-based GPU. Previous rumours point to 16 compute units alongside a combination of Zen 6c and low-power Zen 6 CPU cores. The device is expected to run games natively, unlike the streaming-focused PlayStation Portal.

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Anil Ganti, 2026-10-26 (Update: 2026-10-26)