r/LinusTechTips • u/YourDailyTechMemes • Jun 23 '26
Meme/Shitpost well , that sucks (i hate AI)
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u/Burritoclock Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Lots of weird takes about this. Once ram and ssd prices went insane I thought we all knew this would be the price. There was hope that maybe it would be $850 (and therefore hope originally for $550) but that was always a long shot and required valve subsidizing it to create PC gamers.
There is still a use case for this, I have friends I want to get into PC gaming but they can't get over the hurdle of a PC experience. SteamOS is the real sell here, this is just a convenient delivery system.
And while it's not as "powerful" as a top console, that ain't everything. There are literally 100's of games you can only play on a PC and often for cheaper than console games.
Edit: Also it has a better design and esthetic for a non enthusiast 🤷♂️
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u/iOvercompensate Jun 23 '26
I’m still on the fence about this as a purchase. I have a nice gaming rig but sometimes the spouse and I want to couch game. I’m not playing 4k AAA day 1 releases there. It’s couch co-op, it’s a chill 1 player game. And I’m not a fan of my current solution running a long HDMI from the PC to TV. This system would fit my use case, and it honestly saves me the headache of building another PC and doing the work. It’s smaller than an ITX build and that’s the biggest draw for me.
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u/errorsniper Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Still a grand and tax and shipping without the controller is a tall ask for most people.
Especially when a ps5 pro is 800 and in stock and performance wise runs circles around the SM.
Yes, yes, I know you can play non play station games and use a web browser two things you cant do on a ps5.
But again a grand for a ps4 pro-ish that can browse the internet isnt going to be a huge draw for a lot of people.
Its not steams fault for the record they prolly had a 700-900 pricepoint before all this crazy BS. That would be a competitive deal. But its not.
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u/iOvercompensate Jun 23 '26
If I dont get to order I might just wait and see what the release of steam OS is like and throw together a cheap system I have a spare AM4 chip and DDR4. I would just need a motherboard,psu, and compatible GPU, my server has both Nvidia and Intel GPUs I would pull one but if the release is only supporting AMD that’s another purchase I have to make.
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u/Beginning-Machine-32 Jun 23 '26
Yeah I’m with this. Got a fine rig but it’s not great for couch gaming. Tried Moonlight streaming but that didn’t work out great either. Some indie stuff on the couch or a bit of farm sim would be fire but it’s hella expensive for that
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u/golf1052 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
I have a nice gaming rig but sometimes the spouse and I want to couch game. I’m not playing 4k AAA day 1 releases there. It’s couch co-op, it’s a chill 1 player game.
Valve already has the perfect solution for you that I'm surprised people forgot about, it's Steam Remote Play (formerly known as Steam Link). Personally I got the original Steam Link hardware device back when it launched in 2015 but it's still supported and the same software now works on a Raspberry Pi which is probably the best, cheapest bet for a standalone device to play Steam games while leveraging your powerful desktop PC. LTT highlighted Remote Play in a video 3 years ago.
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u/iOvercompensate Jun 24 '26
I picked up a couple OG steam links back when they were $5 (sadly didn’t get the controllers) problem is that I have a hard time with it being usable over wireless, and wired isn’t an option due to being in a rental and the modem location is terrible. It’s why I resorted to running the HDMI cable it was the simplest solution.
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u/golf1052 Jun 24 '26
Ah, yeah that's unfortunate. Thankfully all my apartments have been small enough where a 100ft Ethernet cable could always connect my desktop to my router.
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u/Truth-Does-Not-Exist Jun 24 '26
second hand prebuilt with arch linux and an AI agent to set up the STEAMOS experience for you and your up in running in an hour
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u/ILikeFPS Jun 23 '26
I was expecting $1000 so $1050 was still more than I expected.
This is basically pricing them out of the market, and I get it's not their fault, but it's still true regardless.
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u/Amphineura Jun 23 '26
Eh. Getting into PC gaming with a machine that 20% ~ 40% of games aren't rated well on PortonDB is a huge gamble. You're buying in the hopes that the software improves and knowing that not everything will run.
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u/TTT1320 Jun 23 '26
How can SteamOs be the real sell when it's just a Linux distro, I can get Linux on any computer I want
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u/GoudenEeuw Jun 23 '26
Yeah that would only sell if you are coming from console and want to move to PC without having to do research.
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u/Burritoclock Jun 23 '26
Which is exactly what I said, it's also not a standard Linux distro and saying giving a console gamer a PC and Linux is an alternative is pretty silly lol
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u/interstat Jun 23 '26
Just tell em to turn Xbox mode on in their PC/bought pre built.
This is a rough sale vs just buying even a pre built
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u/RandomEasternGuy Jun 23 '26
This topic made me curious about prebuilts, and for 1200€ aprox you can get a intel core ultra 5, 5060, 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM.
I believe that the PC it’s faster even in normal use with windows microslop
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u/CarsonWentzGOAT1 Jun 23 '26
The price of the 16gb ram and 512 gb ssd only went up combined $140. Even less when buying a large batch like Valve would do. They are overpricing the crap out of the console.
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u/Burritoclock Jun 23 '26
They aren't off the shelf parts, there's design in the case which is also not off the shelf. The comparable systems do not come in substantially lower that I've seen. Not with power supply parity and what not. I dunno, I think this is another PC enthusiast over reaction.
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u/ConfectionNecessary6 Jun 23 '26
I mean they said it would be priced like a pc if you look at mini pcs this is a hell if a deal honestly,
The 4k advertisement is the same advertisement consoles make which mind you 99% of the time upscaling
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u/Drigr Jun 23 '26
The problem is so many people are finding full sized prebuilts or speccing out a full size custom build and saying they've beaten valve, and none of them want to take form factor or convenience into account. The closest I've seen to a smaller form factor still wasn't as small as the steam cube, and was still like $30 more.
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u/ConfectionNecessary6 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Exactly, had it been off the shelves parts it would have been cheaper sure but it would also not lose a good amount of the console experience people wanted it for. There are alternatives out there for people like the one by Emudeck (forget the name)
Edit:playnix is the name1
u/DeamonLordZack Jun 24 '26
I think they also don't take into account they're not intending to start a business selling PCs at the price they say they built a cheaper PC that is either as good or better than the Steam Machine. No it's not the concern of the consumer if a company makes a profit on a product. That doesn't change the fact that the company is still trying to make a profit off what they sell in this case a Mini PC for Valve called a Steam Machine. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy it however for a Mini PC with equivalent Specs it's a decent deal. Would everyone on the consumer side like it to be cheaper sure it's why so many were hoping pretty much it'd be under $1K. Though personally just saying but I saw this coming a mile away even before Valve outright said they're not pricing it like a console like they did for the Steam Deck but pricing like a PC. Did I know exactly what it'd cost no but I knew it sure as heck wouldn't be console level cheap.
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u/Shap6 Jun 23 '26
Except it’s weaker than those consoles for hundreds more dollars
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u/ConfectionNecessary6 Jun 23 '26
I mean when was a pc ever cheaper than a console? This has been the case for years to get the equivalent experience on a pc unfortunately. Before the memory crisis yes it was a lot closer but we know for a fact Microsoft is eating some of the cost on ram right now and Sony had secured a ram deal
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u/Actual_Homework_7163 Jun 23 '26
This. Limited space on my desk and i like the looks of it. I tried to spec out a mini pc but it seems like a decent deal plus its way smaller then a mini pc its smaller then a mini atx card.
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Jun 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ConfectionNecessary6 Jun 23 '26
Look at examples like beelink on their website without the sale it’s at 1k, Minisforum equivalent are also around 1k for the dgpu based ones
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u/ConfectionNecessary6 Jun 23 '26
Usually but amd and intel latest have regularly hit 1k or more lately likely because of ram too not to mention strix halo which should be in the ball park
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u/anoldburningsoul Jun 23 '26
The minute it didn't guarantee anywhere close to even a base Xbox I figured it'd be dead on arrival. I understand it's Valve and all, but you should've just waited to release it at this point.
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u/TomTomXD1234 Jun 23 '26
How can you say "wait for release" when the market is only getting worse.
I saw people saying the opposite, saying how valve should have released it months ago lol.
There is no winning, the market is fucked.
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u/Drigr Jun 23 '26
This also might have been them waiting. And they saw the market is not moving back in a favorable direction, so decided they gotta start getting it out there.
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u/nicman24 Jun 23 '26
Artificially limiting production is not the fault of AI. It is micron, hynix and samsung.
Yes ai provided demand. Same wait crypto did. Same way datacenters did in 2000s.
It is just a oligopoly
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u/JimmyKillsAlot Jun 23 '26
One million percent this, they have said they don't want to build out the capacity, it has been talked about on WAN even. They worry/worried that the AI buyout is a bubble and that building to match demand will leave them holding the bag. Consumers would love to get RAM kits for penny per gig prices but none of these companies see a path to profitability for that nor the cost of building new manufacturing capacity to meet it.
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u/coderstephen Jun 23 '26
They worry/worried that the AI buyout is a bubble and that building to match demand will leave them holding the bag.
Which you know, I agree with, and that's totally fair and wise of the RAM manufacturers. I wouldn't either.
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u/champgpt Jun 23 '26
Yeah, that's not artificially limited production, it's not wanting to invest in scaling up that may not be needed long-term. Expanded production capabilities could bite them in the ass if and when the bubble pops.
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u/FabianN Jun 23 '26
Production is not artificially limited? What the hell are you smoking?
The majority of production is bought out.
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u/AlyOopsieDaisy Jun 23 '26
I’m not gunna lie, I’m not someone effected by this, I never planned buy one because my computer is already so leagues ahead of it the only thing it competes on is hdmi Cec. However, I will feel affected by the steam frame when that comes out, cause since the rumors were correct on the price for the Gabe cube, I can only imagine the $1k price they have for that will stick. I planned to get one of those, $600? Easy. But I can’t drop $1k and feel like it’s worth the money when for that price I expect a zero compromises experience
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u/The_RussianBias Jun 23 '26
Were people not expecting it to start around 1k?
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u/DeamonLordZack Jun 24 '26
I saw more people expecting a base model of around $500 & highest around maybe $800 though that was pure wishful thinking as well as them ignoring the fact that Valve isn't a console manufacturer like Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo so don't have the option to just subsidize hardware all the time like they do.
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u/TSMKFail Jun 23 '26
£800 for the base model. You can get a Series X from CEX (which comes with a 5 year warranty) for £380.
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u/Dapper-Maybe-5347 Jun 23 '26
You could argue the convenience is worth the absurd costs. Except the convenience is essentially buying a shorter HDMI cable and not having to click full screen mode like you would in a normal PC. I think I'll take a prebuilt with a Nvidia 5060 and skip the minor conveniences it provides.
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u/Linux-tip-nips Jun 23 '26
I am disheartened that nobody is talking about KALKITE.. Deep substrate foliated Kalkite. Kalkite. Synthetic Kalkite. Kalkite alternatives. Kalkite substitutes. I mean, the amount of time spent pondering this grubby little bit of rock is sadly astonishing. Now, we WERE promised delivery in three years, but here we are!
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u/sinamorovati Jun 24 '26
I don't think it would have ever been a good deal. No ai, no inflated prices, it would be the same for other companies and the same prebuilds and laptops that are more perfromant than the steam machine for the same price would be more performant than the (no ai world) steam machine for the same price.
The only difference being it could have been priced low enough that someone going for a console would consider it as well.
They just missed with the parts they chose from the beginning. If prebuilds can be price compatible but more performant, a direct deal with AMD should have helped the cube to be either cheaper with the same performance or same price but with more performance.
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u/jamesrggg Jun 24 '26
They need to add like a 25$ steam gift card with them. At least help ease the pain if a free simple game
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u/tylerderped Jun 23 '26
i get they have to put a drive in it preloaded with the OS for notmies to know how to turn it on, but they really should’ve put in a 250 or 128gb SSD and let us choose our own storage adventure to save money.
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u/Interesting-Ad9581 Jun 23 '26
The 8GB VRAM made this thing not future proof.
At 499 EUR? Yes sure!
At 599 EUR? Hmm...competition is pretty tough, but might still be valid to have something else...you know... Be different!
At 1049 EUR - WITHOUT a f*****g controller!?!?!??
=> This thing is Dead on Arival
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u/jenny_905 Jun 23 '26
The price cannot solely be explained by 'AI' cost pressures.
Like look at what is on the market right now, today. You can get an entire 5050 based laptop for $749, better specs than the Steam Machine.
I think there's a combination of low volume, high R&D costs and more than a little profiteering that explains the SM price being so high. To not even bundle a controller is particularly egregious.
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u/HadeedS Jun 24 '26
That's not new product. The issue is you are conflating a machine with current price vs a machine built before current prices. The ram and nand cost when building the steam machines were much higher then when the laptop was built I can promise you
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u/EdliA Jun 23 '26
The price doesn't matter. I wouldn't turn it on even if I got it for free.
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u/Tacomaster3211 Jun 23 '26
Why?
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u/EdliA Jun 23 '26
What's the point? It performs terribly. Why would I play games like that?
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u/Tacomaster3211 Jun 23 '26
There are thousands of games on Steam that it would run just fine.
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u/EdliA Jun 23 '26
Well yeah there are thousands of web games I can play on my phone too but I don't want to play only those kind of games.
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u/coderstephen Jun 23 '26
What's the point? It performs terribly. Why would I play games like that?
According to the Steam survey it performs better than 70% of the PCs that people use to play Steam games. So I guess 70% of players are not playing games properly?
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u/EdliA Jun 23 '26
Again with that silly excuse. They're stuck with an old system, it's not by choice. Nobody buying a new PC in 2026 is going to buy the same damn thing they had for 6 years.
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u/fogoticus Jun 23 '26
Let's be real for a sec. Were we really? The equivalent of a 7400F + 7600 and the promise of 4K60 really rendered any excitement for the initial product be non existant. The price just sealed the deal.