Don’t like the overpriced Steam Machine? Just build your own and put SteamOS in it
Seems a bit unreasonable to call it ‘overpriced’; it’s hard to get equally-specced parts any cheaper at the moment, and it’s all wrapped up in a neat, small, integrated package.
Being able to run SteamOS elsewhere might help convert more people to Linux, but the obstacle identified here is NVidia driver support, as usual. Steam has been very easy to install on every Linux distro I’ve ever used if you’re still wanting to use it as a general purpose machine, but having it all wrapped up would be nice too.
It definitely costs $100 or so more than commodity parts with equal performance. However, if you care about the form factor or the HDMI CEC it’s impossible to do better.
I run Steam on Kubuntu on a mini-ITX PC, but it’s 6"x10"x13" instead of 6"x6"x6". It’s also much better spec’d than the Steam Machine (5700X3D, 64GB RAM, 9070XT) and probably cost less than at least the 2TB version of it, but I built it before prices went crazy.
It definitely costs $100 or so more than commodity parts with equal performance.
Not that weird tbh. System builders (that aren’t complete scams) usually charge $50-100 in assembly fees
Don’t forget the massive heatsink (which translates to silence) and the controller puck inside of the case which all adds to the living room experience.
This thing is priced perfectly. It’s just that hardware is expensive, and this thing has it all.
What the reactions have made clear is that people just value raw power, at least on paper.
I wonder if any of the critics ever tried putting a chunky loud PC with a dongle hanging out near their living room TV.
My computer has AIO water cooling for the CPU and both it and the GPU fans are pretty decently quiet (probably not as quiet as the Steam Machine, but I don’t know how to measure), so I didn’t count it as a difference in the comparison.
I wouldn’t say the Steam Machine “has it all,” BTW. It definitely has enough for a console competitor, but in terms of mini PCs, in order to “ha[ve] it all” it would have to have a Strix Halo like the Framework Desktop or Minisforum MS-S1 Max. “Has it all” is a completely different market segment than this thing competes in.
Put your AIO Water cooled PC next to your living room PC and check the reactions of the people around you.
When you respond to “has it all” you are only talking about raw power and missing my point.
I just upgraded my PC with used parts about 6 months ago with the intent of using steam OS Linux on it when it was released officially. I paid $150 for a ryzen 5 5600x CPU and $200 for an AMD 6600xt GPU that has rdna 2 (same as steam deck). Other components to build one from scratch should cost you like $600 more if you had nothing. Less if you find used stuff. But yeah. No tiny form factor and you won’t save that much. Especially that the ram and hard drive in the steam box are easily upgradable, so you can buy the cheapest one and deal with those getting upgraded later after the ai bubble bursts.
Once they have an Nvidia version and the ability to dual-boot, I’m checking it out.
Valve are the good guy more publishing companies should be like them.
This has been going on for years, still waiting but not holding my breath.
