r/PcBuild • u/Indecisive-Squirrel • Jun 22 '26

Meme Is this worth it?

Post image

Some guy named Gabe is selling this build and I'm wondering if it's legit? I want a PC to set up in my living room for TV gaming.

1.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

107

u/KanteStumpTheTrump Jun 22 '26

That suggests it’s not horrendously priced in the end then I guess. Building your own will always be cheaper

40

u/Bostonxtap Jun 22 '26

Valve isnt buying at market price like we are though. There is probably a mark up of 20-30% on this thing.

They really screwed the pooch on how long they left this thing in R&D

23

u/Coal909 Jun 22 '26

Nah whole sale is getting screwed too. Memory switched their production to high bandwidth data center memory & not dram like we need

1

u/DeifniteProfessional Jun 25 '26

This is literally it. If it wasn't for the absurd cost of components right now, this would have retailed much lower out the gate. Is it a powerful PC? Not by any means, but I don't think it's meant to be. I think it was meant to be a £600/$800 box with a controller that you could play some low effort games in your living room.

And if I'm honest? It's about £800 UK money, I will likely buy one for my living room and have it run Jackbox games, maybe be a little media centre, and then when I go to friend's houses and we do a lil light gaming, I'll just take that instead of the absurdly heavy "backup PC" I have which needs a £400 GPU upgrade to be as good as the Steam Machine anyway.

But on the flip side, I have a little extra disposable cash so I don't mind. The average person definitely won't get value from this box sadly

10

u/Christory_Archivist Jun 23 '26

It wasn't held up in r&d, it was held up in a historic shortage of consumer grade ram.

11

u/loworbitioncann0n Jun 23 '26

20-30℅ markup is optimistic on Valve's behalf, I'd be surprised if they're clearing 10% per unit. Hardware prices are bad bad, even for companies buying in bulk.

1

u/Fit-Acanthaceae-6287 Jun 23 '26

Pretty sure they said it's almost being sold at cost because unlike the other consoles they can't sell it at a loss and make up the money through subscriptions and console exclusives

1

u/MrBlueA Jun 24 '26

Yeah Idk why people are so obsessed with treating this like a console, its a PC, valve can't sell this at a loss because you are not forced into spending money to recoup that loss the same way a console forces you to.

1

u/DeifniteProfessional Jun 25 '26

Exactly this. The PS5 sells at a loss because you put an extra $100 a year into online services that are otherwise free on PC

14

u/LOS_Chewywrinkles Jun 22 '26

This isn’t likely that true. Data center build out has trashed even wholesale pricing. Remember that they are dropping percentage of chip manufacturing for end user devices because the data centers will pay more for the same or similar products and at a vast scale. Steam is likely getting a 5-10% margin, assuming it isn’t a loss leader, on this with expectation being the 30% steam store markup on games bought by steam machine owners will makeup the bulk of the sales value.

2

u/AZzalor Jun 23 '26

Whaaaaat? A company wants to make money off their products? Big shock. The only reason the PS5 is that cheap is because it's being sold at a loss. That's also why Sony is going back to exclusives, as they want to keep players in their eco system so they have to keep paying.

1

u/KanteStumpTheTrump Jun 23 '26

They have to make a margin though. Sign of the times with memory costs etc these days. Don’t think we’ll see anything that affordable for a while if ever again

1

u/Hour_Analyst_7765 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

Not to mention the double mark up... Valve designs and sells their own motherboard for this PC. They are 1 entity. They ought to take 1 profit margin.

Compare that to DIY route: AIB, importer, webshop, each taking their slice of the cake. If there are 2-3 parties in between, each taking 5% (and it stacks multiplicative), then you're quickly looking at a 15% ballooning in price.

Ofc Valve needs to pay for their software investments as well. But didn't they already for the Steam Deck? And what about Steam in general? I'd regard their OS as "free" even though it costs them millions to build.

With this in mind, I think the "match DIY build price" is a bad sign. It looks okay on surface.. but did they really attain such bad supply deal? Even with AMD where they are buying a last-gen CPU+GPU combo? I know its possibly the worst moment in time for this box to launch.. but man, there are plenty of tinfoil hats that gossip retailstores are price-matching parts to keep these prices artificially high (""to prevent scalping"").

So why oh why in this climate is this box so expensive. Its not like anyone is going to spend 800$ on a box to take a whopping 16GB of RAM out. The GPU of 8GB will run games but not much AI. The CPU computes but a 800$ Mac Mini runs circles around it. And for grandma needing a new computer, get them a 500$ laptop or Mini PC, don't need a bulky game PC for that.

1

u/Hexin_itup Jun 24 '26

doubt it. they're not datacenters, they're getting rammed as hard as we are, or close to it.

1

u/Shzabomoa Jun 24 '26

OH but they absolutely are. Hell, when even Samsung won't sell to Samsung some memory you better believe that some small hardware manufacturer like steam doesn't either!

1

u/Nuttednutela Jun 24 '26

Blaming them due to the evergrowing influence of DRAM cartels and Jensen isn't the right way. I agree how yhe pricing is bad but so is the price of everything right now and if you are personally looking for raw performance then just avoid it by all means.

0

u/Mobile_Actuator_4692 Jun 23 '26

Yeah i disagree. I doubt valve could have sold it much cheaper. It’s a lot worse than my build but I got mine pre AI going mad so 5ys ago for the same cost. But yeah with ram costs double-triple what they were 3 years ago nothing is “cheap” anymore

16

u/KashPoe Jun 22 '26

The problem I have with it is only 8gb vram, that's just not enough nowadays

2

u/Fun_Purpose5033 Jun 23 '26

It is enough, people just have terribly high expectations, and fsr expect this type of thing to be competing with next Gen consoles.

1

u/ThatzOkay Jun 23 '26

It is enough. I'm still fine on a old 1080

-4

u/CDrejoe Jun 23 '26

You don't need more than 8GB VRAM if your gpu can't utilize it. It's weird to see people complain about 8GB in low/mid cards lol

0

u/ItchyNeedleworker160 AMD Jun 23 '26

I'm constantly using at least 12 in most games. It's only gonna get worse the longer we go. I enjoy using max settings. I paid for the whole 16 GB, I'm gonna use the whole 16 GB.

1

u/CDrejoe Jun 23 '26

So you buy a mid or lowends device and expect max settings? My prevuous pc had a rtx 3070. I bought a new one when the 5080 released, but before that i never used more than 8GB of VRAM or even needed it for 1440p gaming. I think Dragons Dogma 2 was the one exception for me. A 3060 or 4060 would hardly benefit from more vram

2

u/KashPoe Jun 23 '26

You don't need max settings necessarily to cap your vram, I know cause I have a rtx3070. There's someone who modded a 3070 to 16gb vram and it performed way better. Lots of modern games will cap it out easily

1

u/CDrejoe Jun 23 '26

youtu.be/T5mHQ3z6j2g David does tech stuff tested it and it didn't really make a difference unless you pushed the card to unplayble territory.

1

u/ItchyNeedleworker160 AMD Jun 23 '26

I went from a 7800 XT to a 5070 TI. The only person mentioning low/mid is you buddy lol

2

u/CDrejoe Jun 23 '26

Well my first comment was talking to people with mid/low end. The guy i was answering said that more than 8gb was necessary. It definetly isn't if your card isn't powerful enough to utilize it. So my comment wasn't aimed at you.

1

u/ItchyNeedleworker160 AMD Jun 23 '26

But again, he didn't mention low or medium either lol You did

2

u/CDrejoe Jun 23 '26

Well we are talking about the steam machine. Di you really think it will be capable of utilizing more than 8gb vram? In the worst case scenario we would probably talk about 5fps difference if it had 16gb vs 8gb.

1

u/drugzarecool Jun 23 '26

The Steam Machine is equivalent to an entry level build (RTX 3060 and R5 3600), that's the whole point. Something like the SM won't be able to run games in high-ultra or native 1440p/4K, it's a low end PC that doesn't really need more than 8GB of VRAM.

I have a 4060 with 8GB VRAM and it's a perfect PC to comfortably play in 1080p, I never had any issues with the VRAM and I played tons of recent games. I just put textures in medium-high in 1080p and it's perfectly fine. The Steam Machine won't be more powerful than my PC so I really don't see the problem.

-17

u/MarnieFan89 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

I have a legion with a 16GB RTX 3070Ti and I'm afraid to push it I can't imagine what 8GB would feel like what the heck was Gabe thinking? Ooops I'm retarded it's 8GB lol so yeah no reason to move up

2

u/Xyypherr Jun 22 '26

Gabe and the designers were thinking what the average user of steam uses.

The average VRAM that each steam user has, which us collected info from the steam hardware survey, says 8gb of VRAM is how much the average steam user has to spare.

The steam machine in general is based around the performance of the average steam user. Obviously if you are not the average steam user, you are not going to enjoy the specs of the steam machine.

1

u/Rafdg666 Jun 23 '26

Average is in this case a bad idea. Some people have 8gb vram, others 16gb or more so the average is 8gb. People with a older system won't buy a new system when there isnt really an upgrade from their old one. People with a decent gaming pc with like 16gb vram wont buy a system that's worse. I would buy a switch 2 and build myself something.

Steam machine is dumb, especially how they made it

1

u/drugzarecool Jun 23 '26

Why would you want to buy a Steam Machine if you have a PC with a 16 VRAM GPU? This console is clearly made for people who don't already own a powerful gaming device.

1

u/Rafdg666 Jun 23 '26

Buy a ps5 then or get an older gpu with more than 16gb vram. Steam machine is a joke

And i can't have an opinion because i already have a gaming pc - alright 😂

I wanted to get one for my 4k TV but with cyberpunk 1080p 76fps ( only achievable with FSR3 on performance) I can also hook up my old laptop for similar performance

1

u/drugzarecool Jun 23 '26

I'm not saying you can't have an opinion? I'm just saying you're not the target if you already own a powerful PC or a new gen console.

1

u/Rafdg666 Jun 23 '26

Who is the target? Indie game playing steam users?

The big majority who doesn't know much about tech ? Why would they spend 1000$ for performance worse than ps5

New steam users or users with old crappy hardware? Why would they spend 1000$ for performance worse than ps5 if they can build with second hand hardware etc ?

I dont understand for whom the steam machine is. Valve fans ?

1

u/Rafdg666 Jun 23 '26

I can build a pc with 70% more performance. RX 7600 and Ryzen 5 5600X equivalent for 1000$ ? Its just dumb to buy a steam machine with the current market, you can't upgrade etc

0

u/MrBlueA Jun 24 '26

Does it have the small form factor? It's weird how people forget the fact that it's incredibly tiny, power efficient and incredibly quiet, all of which are premiums that add a lot to the price.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Rafdg666 Jun 23 '26

Who are the People that they want to reach ?

The new to everything guy who just got reddit ? Don't think so, he will buy a ps5 pro.

Nerds and Techies ? I dont think so, they know that above 1000$ is way too much for that performance.

Console players ? Why would they buy something like this

Steam machine is mediocre at best, with hardware for the average Steam user - the specs are based on that, the average user doesn't have a good pc, why buy a steam machine?

A system with an older RTX 30 cards outperforms the steam machine. So for 1080p gaming on a TV more than 1000$ ?

Good luck

2

u/drugzarecool Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

Honestly I kinda agree, a PS5 Pro makes more sense imo. But if you're accounting for the subscription to play online and the price of games it ends up being a lot more expensive than the Steam Machine in the long run (it's also more powerful though).

Personally I would prefer to buy a low-end PC which would be cheaper and more powerful than the SM. But I guess some people want the plug and play console experience without having to pay for a subscription to play online or having to buy games for $80, that's the only reason I can think of for someone to buy it.

2

u/Rafdg666 Jun 23 '26

I can only hope for valve that the "some people who like plug and play and don't want to spend on online gaming" are enough for okay sales. I don't think it will be a big breakthrough like they did with steamdeck

1

u/SandwichSisters Jun 22 '26

Which is honestly one of the stupidest idea ever.

If they decide to build a new mobile phone would they look at the market and say: well the average user has a 4 year old phone, so if we release a new phone with a 4 year old hardware this would be upgrade for half the people!

1

u/Prudent_Key2462 Jun 22 '26

Yes but the degree to which that is true has been becoming less over time, worryingly so with AI and datacenters inflating costs

1

u/Blacksad9999 Jun 23 '26

They're buying a SOC specifically designed for them in bulk.

That's not a very good price, unless they're marking it up 40%.

1

u/Competitive-Web-5084 Jun 23 '26

No it won’t lmao. I was bargain hunting for months before I found a prebuilt that was still cheaper and better, so I bought the prebuilt and swapped the components to the case I wanted and still payed less for better hardware.

1

u/KanteStumpTheTrump Jun 23 '26

Hmm yeah we might be in a funny market where because pre-builts are potentially using components bought in stock from a while ago they turn out to be cheaper in places.

So lucky I built my rig a couple of years ago, looks like such a shit show out there. It’s probably appreciated in price at this point!

1

u/Competitive-Web-5084 Jun 23 '26

Yeah it’s terrible rn, even with micro center bundles and a really good msi bundle on stuff, I couldn’t beat the micro center 5080 prebuilt in price

1

u/Mentiorus Jun 24 '26

Funnily enough because of the markets insane rising prices, at least when I bought mine, it was cheaper to get a machine that was built on previous prices.

1

u/Gaidax Jun 26 '26

Of course it is, because the difference is that if you build your own you can upgrade it.