The Steam Frame is the VR headset I've longed for — but I can't get over this one key spec

After years of keeping it under wraps, Valve finally unveiled the Steam Frame. Not only has it easily become my most anticipated VR headset of 2026 (I mean, there isn't much competition... for now), but I also foresee it being the main way I play VR games and non-VR PC games.

There's a lot going for this standalone headset: Valve introduced Foveated Streaming that enhances image details to where your eyes are looking, there's a 6GHz wireless adapter for uninterrupted, high-quality PC gaming, it brings pancake lenses featuring 2160 x 2160 panels with up to a 144Hz refresh rate and the controllers are essentially a normal gamepad split in two.

That's just to name a few of its many welcome features. The Steam Machine and new Steam Controller impress, but as someone who makes the most of the Meta Quest 3, I have high hopes that the Steam Frame will introduce a new era of VR and PC gaming — Valve does call it a "PC," after all.

But there's one element that's been nagging me after pitting the Steam Frame and Quest 3 against each other. There I was, scrolling through Valve's list of specs until I came across its processor, and in a very Jack Skellington-like fashion, I exclaimed, "what's this?"

Valve decided to use a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor to power its Steam Frame, despite the chip launching in 2023. It's not the latest, nor has it been used for XR devices. Surely, there was room for an upgrade. So, just how powerful will it be to play demanding VR and non-VR titles? And will it be able to keep up with the best VR headsets?

Behind the times?

Based on a 4nm process and using ARM64 architecture, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the Steam Frame is the very same chip that powers the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S24 and OnePlus 12. In case you missed it, we should soon see the Galaxy S26 equipped with the next-gen might of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

That's just around the corner, and Qualcomm has even dubbed it the "world's fastest mobile system on chip." That's not just marketing hype; we've benchmarked the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 ahead of its official launch on smartphones, and it beats the likes of the A19 Pro found in the iPhone 17 Pro Max in performance and graphics.

I don't know about you, but that sounds like a great fit for a next-gen VR headset that's also releasing in 2026. But perhaps there are a few reasons the Steam Frame was given the Gen 3 processor over the latest and greatest. One could be that it wasn't geared to deliver the performance of a Gen 5 chipset, and it just wasn't the right timing.

Valve has been working on the Steam Frame even before its first VR headset, the Valve Index, was released in 2019, as noted by Road to VR. It's clearly been long in development, and in those six years, the company may have settled on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and worked around the chip.

Now, while it would of course be great to see one of the most powerful mobile chips on the market make its way onto the Steam Frame to deliver cutting-edge performance, I wouldn't want to knock the VR headset so soon. One perk, at least, is that a past-gen processor should take the price down a peg or two, but there's more to it.

Unexpected power

So, if not the latest chip Qualcomm has to offer, then why not an XR-focused chip? Well, this is where Valve will have made the better choice.

Valve wanted to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 over usual XR chips, like the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 in the Quest 3 or the XR2+ Gen 2 in the Samsung Galaxy XR headset, to prioritize gaming performance thanks to its higher CPU frequency, according to SteamDB.

Plus, it will support Valve's Proton translation layers and Fex emulation to allow Windows PC games on Arm devices (a.k.a. the Steam Frame), which is a massive leap forward in letting PC games be played on, well, anything. However, for a standalone VR headset, using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will see performance benefits.

It's tricky to benchmark the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chips, but we know it's based on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Plus, the XR2+ Gen 2 processor offers 15% higher GPU and 20% higher CPU max frequency for XR headsets, but is only a minimal bump to support higher display resolutions for spatial computing.

With this in mind, we can see the performance gains based on our benchmarks in smartphones, like the OnePlus 12 with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and the Xiaomi 13 with a Gen 2 processor. Samsung's Snapdragon chips are made for Galaxy phones, so I've left these out.

As you can see, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vastly outperforms its previous-gen sibling, especially when it comes to graphics. That said, you can see how well the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 performs, and while we didn't get the 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited test for it, we did see it perform incredibly in the much harder Wild Life Extreme Unlimited benchmark, which runs at 4K.

In any case, the main takeaway from all this is that, yes, Valve's Steam Frame will perform better than the Meta Quest 3. Well, that's hardly a surprise, seeing as the Frame comes with double the RAM at 16GB and storage at 1TB, too. But there's another interesting point.

I have to give credit to Reddit user wwbulk, showing the differences between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and its Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 counterpart. The 8 Gen 2 comes with a CPU frequency of 3.2GHz and a GPU frequency of 680MHz, while the latter sports a CPU-heavy frequency of 2.05GHz and a GPU-heavy frequency of 599MHz.

So, not only is the XR2 Gen 2 in the Quest 3 not up to par with the 8 Gen 2, but it also shows that it will be far behind the 8 Gen 3 in the Steam Frame. Of course, we'll have to see this performance in real time, but either way, when there's seamless, wireless streaming straight from the power of a PC, this standalone VR headset's power reaches new heights.

The performance of a PC, too

It took some time, but the Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S offer up PC VR gaming wirelessly via Air Link. It's improved over the years, but you'll need a strong 5GHz Wi-Fi network connection (and even then, it's a tad spotty), or simply use a USB-C 3.2 wired connection for low latency. At the very least, it works well when streaming Xbox Cloud Gaming (with fast internet).

A strong start, but the Steam Frame? It's essentially made for wireless streaming to a gaming PC. Using the 6GHz wireless adapter that comes in the box, you can pop it into your rig and start playing VR and non-VR games with a high-quality streaming experience.

Whether you've got yourself one of the best gaming laptops or best gaming PCs, you can get the power of that beamed straight to your face — wirelessly. Think playing the likes of Half-Life: Alyx with the power of an RTX 50-series GPU, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset becomes an afterthought. (Perhaps "Stream Frame" may be a more fitting name? Probably not.)

Valve is making sure the Steam Frame has the finest streaming connection, using a dual-radio system that has one dedicated to streaming the audio and visuals, and the other purely for Wi-Fi. It lightens the load on bandwidth, and it should make wireless PC VR gameplay and 2D Steam titles, a heck of a lot better to play on the VR headset.

Yes, the Steam Frame will work for standalone games, too, as there will even be a Steam Frame Verified program for titles, just like the Steam Deck. That will put its processor to work, but if it's not enough power, just plug in the wireless adapter and you'll be off to the virtual races

Regardless of the Steam Frame not having the latest Snapdragon chip Qualcomm has to offer mobile devices, it will still have more than enough power to play the best VR games around. And even if it doesn't, that wireless adapter should solve the problem. My high hopes still remain for Valve's VR PC for your face, and it's only a matter of time until we see the performance this headset brings to the table.

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