New AMD Arm CPUs are coming, and with Steam Deck-type socket, according to leak

Apparently not content with the huge strides it's made in the standard gaming CPU market, AMD is reportedly already shipping test kit for a new lineup of Arm CPUs with integrated GPUs. Tying in with previous rumors about AMD adopting codenames based on the names of Transformers, this AMD Arm chip is apparently codenamed Soundwave, and samples of the Soundwave kit appear to have been listed in shipping manifests.

While x86 CPUs still dominate the desktop gaming PC market, with every single chip on our best gaming CPU guide using the traditional x86 instruction set, Arm CPUs have historically been more power-efficient than x86 chips, making them ideal for the best handheld devices, as well as tablets and phones. You also don't need an x86 license to produce an Arm CPU, meaning all sorts of firms from Nvidia to Qualcomm can make them, with AMD reportedly now signing up again too.

AMD has dabbled with Arm chips before, with its Opteron A1100 CPUs being based on Arm Cortex-A57 cores and released in 2016. There were even plans for a new line of K12 Arm CPUs in 2017, but these were later canceled. Now it looks as though the company is planning a return to the Arm scene, though, with its new Soundwave Arm CPUs apparently set to use the new FF5 socket - the rumored replacement for the FF3 socket used on devices such as the Steam Deck.

There have been rumors about AMD Soundwave Arm CPUs circulating since May 2025, potentially for Microsoft Surface devices, but this is the first time we've seen evidence of Soundwave kit being shipped. The shipping manifests were spotted by tech leaker Olrak29_ on X (formerly Twitter), and they show a number of entries for test kits based on BGA1074 sockets (a ball grid array socket with 1,074 contact points). We've double-checked the listings on NBD.com, and they're real. The listings clearly feature "FF5" in the descriptions, as well as the codenamed "SWV" - short for "Soundwave" according to Olrak29's X post.

Meanwhile, tech site Wccftech speculates that the 32 x 27mm size of the new chips stated by Olrak29_, as well as their use of the FF5 socket, means they're likely to not just be pure CPUs, but SoCs (system on chips) with integrated GPUs, like the chip in the Steam Deck.

Of course, this is all very much at the leaks and rumors stage at the moment, with no official confirmation from AMD, but I'd be very interested to see if AMD does indeed come out with a range of Arm chips. The Switch 2 has shown the potential to make a powerful Arm-based handheld with an Nvidia GPU, and AMD's x86 chips have been popular in all sorts of handhelds, from the Steam Deck to the new Xbox Ally. Meanwhile, Apple has demonstrated that Arm chips can be enormously powerful in its range of M CPUs.

Nvidia putting its GPUs into x86 Intel CPUs, AMD making Arm CPUs? The tech world is changing. Where do you see AMD Arm CPUs being useful? Let us know your thoughts in our community Discord server.