Valve is coming into the console wars in a pleasantly weird and flashback-y trend. The unique imaginative and prescient for Steam Machines by no means took off, however years later, the corporate scored a success with Steam Deck, a handheld gaming console for the trendy period. Now, a brand new Steam Machine is right here.
It appears like a console. It has an LED mild strip. It’s lovingly customizable. And it’s additionally a PC, in line with Valve. “Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it’s still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?” says the corporate.
The message is fairly clear. Valve is just not going solely after the Xbox. It is just not solely chasing PC players. It is concentrating on each, and it’ll give all the flexibleness, whereas at it, to maneuver between work and play on the identical machine.
A repair for the pockets woes?
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PC gaming is getting costlier with every passing 12 months. The ongoing tariff tussle is just not serving to the trigger, both. With the Steam Machine, Valve claims to supply a center floor between affordability, comfort, and efficiency.
The value? We don’t have a quantity but. “If you’re trying to make a PC that has similar features and similar performance, I think the Steam Machine is going to be a really competitive price to that and provide really good value to it,” Yazan Aldehayyat, {hardware} engineer at Valve, defined in an interplay with IGN.
“We intend for it to be positioned closer to the entry level of the PC space, but to be very competitive with a PC you could build yourself from parts,” Valve designer Pierre-Loup Griffais informed The Verge.
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Now, one can do a broad estimation based mostly on what Valve thinks of as an entry-level PC. If you’re concentrating on a PC with fashionable components, you’re broadly taking a look at a spending price round $800. You can go decrease than that with a era older, however nonetheless completely serviceable, graphics card and processor.
That’s assuming your baseline is 1080p gaming at respectable graphics settings in fashionable titles. But if ray-tracing, excessive constancy, and 60+ FPS expertise is what you search, you have to to spend over $1,200 on the very least. For comparability, the PlayStation 5 Pro presently goes for $750, whereas the Xbox Series X now prices $650.
But evaluating the Steam Machine with a console, or perhaps a PC, is just not a simple equation. It appears like a console, but it needs to play PC video games, however with out the underlying working system for PC gaming. That’s the Steam Machine — and SteamOS — for you. And yeah, you may select to put in Windows on it.
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If Valve is concentrating on the entry-level PC gaming expertise, it should ideally maintain the value hovering round $800-900. And probably, even decrease, if the corporate pulls off the identical stunt because it did with the first-gen Steam Deck.
The entire concept behind the Steam Machine, based mostly on what Valve engineers have stated to date in media interviews, is to supply a machine that handles the Steam library with the identical form of fluidity as an entry-level gaming PC. It’s a PC that appears like a console, and by the definitions of an entry-level machine of its ilk, it ought to keep throughout the $1,000 baseline.
The comfort downside
Building a gaming PC isn’t a cakewalk. There’s a cause why pre-built gaming towers are standard. Beyond the same old debates concerning the processor and GPUs — as a result of that’s what you see on these minimal/beneficial recreation expertise charts — most individuals don’t dive deeper on the {hardware} aspect.
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But the selection is just not as easy because it appears. There are nonetheless plenty of components to contemplate. Should I follow the latest-but-underpowered GPU, or go along with an older-but-beefier GPU? Intel or AMD for the CPU? Nvidia or AMD for the GPU? Who do I belief extra with the driving force scenario? The deeper you dig, the extra complicated it will get.
Steam Machine needs to resolve that downside. And should you take a look at the specs, you’ll discover that Valve needs to ditch that confusion altogether. You get a hexa-core AMD Zen 4-based processor and a semi-custom AMD RDNA 3-based graphics unit with eight gigs of graphics reminiscence.
It’s exhausting to attract a direct equivalence right here, however consider an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU and an RX 7600 fitted contained in the Steam Machine. That form of configuration, not less than on a laptop computer, will allow you to run Cyberpunk 2077 with FSR and ray-tracing enabled at roughly 50-60fps with medium settings.
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Clearly, this isn’t the machine for purists who balk on the concept of FSR or DLSS, and would slightly spend an obscene sum of money to get pure, high-FPS gaming. The Steam Machine is extra about preserving the technicalities at bay, and letting you merely hearth up a recreation from the consolation of your sofa.
Couch gaming is the large draw right here. SteamOS additionally decouples you from the problems that Windows unleashes at PC gaming, particularly on the hand held format. One of the most important attracts of the Steam Deck is the clear, uninterrupted gaming expertise you get atop SteamOS. It’s ok that Lenovo served it atop the Legion Go S handheld.
Windows-based handhelds such because the ROG Ally have repeatedly been bashed for the poor software program expertise. Independent exams have additionally showcased that on similar {hardware}, SteamOS gives higher efficiency than Windows. Microsoft, alternatively, continues to battle with streamlining the Xbox gaming expertise.
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With the Steam Machine, Valve is providing a PC gaming expertise that’s fast and handy — whereas trying like a console. And whereas at it, the machine doesn’t look unhealthy both. Far from it, truly.
The greatest is but to come back
The failure of the unique Steam Machines concept was not too way back. But again then, Valve was in a completely uncharted territory with software program in addition to {hardware}. The scenario is dramatically completely different in 2025.
AMD has proved that it will probably provide dependable silicon to energy every part from gaming handhelds to top-tier consoles. But extra importantly, Valve now has a confirmed monitor file with software program that’s well-suited for PC gaming, extra so than even Windows.
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The firm is conscious about that. It’s ok that different manufacturers (learn: Lenovo) picked it for his or her handheld console, whereas fans port it on their gaming rigs, as properly. Valve is open to that concept, and the Steam Machine may very properly show to be the launchpad for SteamOS-powered PC gaming consoles.
“That’s the part that we’re excited about. I think folks will have all kinds of different machines, some hand-built, some OEMs will come. I mean there’s, there’s a lot of interesting machines out there,” Griffais stated in an interview with PC Gamer.
The route is just not easy, particularly with the driving force compatibility, however Valve has made regular progress. AMD is already house to SteamOS, and assist for Intel Lunar Lake chips has lastly materialized. But there’s nonetheless Nvidia and Intel GPUs unnoticed of the equation.
Griffais says there’s “a little bit to catch up,” however didn’t rule it out fully. Will Nvidia ever get on board, now that it’s reportedly making its personal CPU? Should Valve even care about Intel GPUs, given their fractional market share? Those are complicated hypothetical conundrums. But the imaginative and prescient is evident.
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Valve is seeing the Steam Machine as its personal launchpad that may usher in different manufacturers to experiment with a brand new type issue. One that appears like consoles, however permits PC gaming atop SteamOS. The foundations are prepared. And if the success of the Steam Deck is something to go by, we will anticipate manufacturers to onboard this imaginative and prescient.
It’s fairly tantalizing. “Something that’s more optimised in your living room, connected to your TV, but also on your desk, with mouse and keyboard too,” Valve’s Aldehayyat notes. The massive query is, will you look ahead to labels like Razer, Asus, or Lenovo to lap up the concept?
I’d love a SteamOS console with a extra highly effective AMD Radeon RX 8000 or 9000 sequence graphics card. I simply don’t know if — or when — it will occur.