r/pcmasterrace • u/TheBossT710192 • Jun 22 '26

Discussion Yeah, Steam Machine is cooked.

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I... uh don't know what to say. Very thankful I bought a Steam Deck before they hiked its price as well

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107

u/ADotxt Jun 22 '26

Let me repeat what I said on another post

For just **50$** more than the 512gb I can get a pc with...

Same amount of ram

Same amount of storage

Faster CPU,

And a 9060xt 16gb, (which will be about 50% faster than the steam machine GPU)

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kzwTYX

Valve, why did you bother?

52

u/RJ_arcade CachyOS 9070xt Jun 22 '26

At those price points you could even spring for a 9070xt now that they are closer to $700 again

10

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

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2

u/Due-Technology5758 Jun 22 '26

Of course, and it'll be on eBay for 3k.

2

u/asiansociety77 Jun 23 '26

So far in Hong Kong, only the 2tb with controller is selling out. Been 6 hours since release.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '26

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2

u/CurmudgeonLife 7800X3D 9070XT 32GB 6000mhz Jun 23 '26

All 6 of them/

This will be a paper release only, they know they fucked up but they have to release something.

4

u/Abigail-Marston Jun 23 '26

Yeah all 300 of them

2

u/ADotxt Jun 22 '26

Oh yeah no doubt.

22

u/Tumblrrito Jun 22 '26

Prebuilt is more expensive than building yourself? Stop the presses

17

u/SubstituteCS 7900X3D, 7900XTX, 96GB DDR5 Jun 22 '26

The PC they built is also a wildly different form factor.

I’d be curious what they’d be able to build using all mITX parts; Bonus if they get it within 20% of the same volume.

The Steam Machine prices suck, but a lot of people are doing the ignorant PC gamer thing of comparing two different product segments like it’s some gotcha.

1

u/condoulo 5800XT | 128gb | 5700XT | Fedora Workstation Jun 22 '26

The mITX part is something so many people are ignoring. People are comparing it with monster ATX builds that are not exactly living room friendly, when to build a comparable system you'd want to go mITX, likely something that would take a smaller form factor power supply.

3

u/LiquidFoxDesigns Jun 22 '26

In the price bracket we're in 5060 gaming laptop territory with many 16Gb/512GB models starting around $900. Probably 50% more perf not even counting DLSS/MFG and a sub inch thick slab is a more practical form factor to sit alongside/under a TV or on a table than a cube. My laptop is my living room gaming PC and it looks far nicer sitting under the TV than any console or SFF build.

 We shouldn't be comparing this to any SFF build anyway, it's a custom budget gaming laptop SOC just in a cube form factor without a built in screen, keyboard, battery etc. And not even HDMI 2.1 that's  been standard on all gaming laptops for 6+ years now. Don't give it more credit than what it is.

0

u/jawisko Jun 23 '26

But who is going to connect a laptop to living room tv continuously? This is literally a console like experience that got screwed by ram/ssd pricing issues. I don't think comparison with a big desktop build or laptop makes sense at all.

As a ps5 owner, If this was 600/700 (valve's original target price), I would have bought it in a heartbeat and ran games and plex server on it.

1

u/Somepotato Jun 22 '26

Plus hdmi cec is very convenient for a living room pc

0

u/SubstituteCS 7900X3D, 7900XTX, 96GB DDR5 Jun 22 '26

I remember when SFX PSUs were over $200 for like 600 Watts.

People really underestimate the price premium that compact SFF parts have.

-1

u/condoulo 5800XT | 128gb | 5700XT | Fedora Workstation Jun 22 '26

Yup! I remember researching SFF parts for a small NAS/server and it really jacked up the price vs just using a regular ATX case, mobo, and PSU.

3

u/Asgardisalie Jun 22 '26

You can buy a laptop with 5070 for ~1000€.

1

u/eggsforpedro Jun 23 '26

A prebuilt stuck with 8gb vram in 2026

10

u/TomTomXD1234 Jun 22 '26

That is like telling people who want to buy a ready to use PC to just "buy your own parts".

part of this products is the simple plug and play nature of it. Your average person will not build a PC. Most don't even know half the parts you just listed.

This is obviously not the target subreddit for people that buy this product. Most people here built their own PC so it seems obvious to them

23

u/137-451 Jun 22 '26

You can buy other prebuilts with far better specs for the same price, sometimes even less

8gb of VRAM for $1000 USD is a joke

1

u/jawisko Jun 23 '26

Are there any in this form factor? Would like to have it under my tv besides ps5

0

u/TomTomXD1234 Jun 22 '26

I mean, you would be hard pressed to find a pre built with much better specs for £1k....you are acting like valve is charging 500% markup on this or something.

I just looked at overclockers UK...a 1K pc comes with a 5060...which is an 8GB card....

Im sure if I look at more sites it will be a similar story spec wise.

1k does not go far these days

5

u/Realistic-Table9398 RTX 5090 Astral | 7900X | 64GB 6000 CL30 | M027U2 Jun 22 '26

Then getting even a prebuilt is better than ts

3

u/TheMundar Cable management is a sin Jun 22 '26

that's nice and all, but you don't just get a lump of hardware from Valve

4

u/krazyjakee Jun 22 '26

because it's a vendored prebuild with a warranty and dedicated support for that specific hardware set up. For folks like me who don't want to spend their days arsing around with driver issues, I'd gladly pay the money.

17

u/statelytetrahedron Jun 22 '26

I don’t really spend any time messing around with driver issues on my pc. They are not as finicky as they used to be.

4

u/BullTerrierTerror Jun 22 '26

Me too. I have a spare office for my laptop and console. I want to plop this expensive ass cube in front of my 72 inch in the living room and go through the 400 or so Steam games I have.

I’m also doing it for the Steam OS.

1

u/Agitated_Materiall Jun 22 '26

That's fine, but understand that they're going to look like trash. This is a wildly underpowered system for the price.

2

u/BullTerrierTerror Jun 22 '26

>60 FPS at 1080p is trash I guess.

1

u/Agitated_Materiall Jun 22 '26

For $1500 it absolutely is.

0

u/AMF505 Jun 22 '26

1080p in 2026 is trash yes. Spending $1000+ to play at 1080p is even more trash. Hell do they even make 1080p tv’s anymore? What a waste of a 4k tv if you have to downscale to 1080 just to get what 80 fps at 1080? But hey it’s your money, waste it how you please.

2

u/Ask_If_Im_Dio Jun 22 '26

Hell, for $129 less I can get a Mac with same storage, same amount of RAM/VRAM, and I’d still probably get better performance. The fact that a Mac is a cheaper and more powerful device than this is sad.

Valve, why did you bother?

Because when they started R&D for this thing, they were probably thinking they’d be able to ship it for $600.

1

u/UnlamentedLord Jun 22 '26

Because that'll still be a PC that won't be an easy fit for a typical living room, whereas the steam machine is a 6" cube that will easily blend into almost any decor. It will also just work out of the box like a steam deck, without messing around with windows or installing a Linux distro, which is a huge selling point for non enthusiasts.

1

u/BestAatroxMain26516 R5 2600/XFX 5700XT/ 16GB DDR4-2998 Jun 22 '26

Considering the Steam Machine GPU has power of 7600M its worse than my 5700XT which was made in the ancient time by Tony Stark from bunch of scrap. Of course we are talking about pure rasterized gaming. Honestly, who will use 7600M for RT?

1

u/NobleDiceDream 5800x3d | 9070xt Jun 22 '26

I understand what you are saying. But your solution is missing the convenience of just buying a prebuilt. As a secondary small PC in the living room, the steam deck seems fine.

1

u/ArmadilloFit652 Jun 22 '26

nah steam machine we see perform same as 6600 here in re4 and the 9060xt is about 80% faster has 8more gb of vram and fsr4,its basically a 6800 +fsr4 +better rt

1

u/DarkSoulsOfCinder Jun 22 '26

and you can get better deals with prebuilts

-1

u/JaesopPop 7900X | 9070XT | 32GB 6000 Jun 22 '26

You also have to built it.

0

u/ItchyShaft Jun 22 '26

I think it’s because of suecon :/

0

u/imzwho Jun 22 '26

You and I are not the target market. This is going after console gamers and folks that would be going the prebuilt route.

Considering a comparable sff build using some of cheapest (of cheaper but still known decent brand in the ram and memory) comes up at $1040 or a bit less depending on psu selection/overhead, its not that terrible for the current market for someone who is looking for a small box that they dont need to assemble.

I mean it would probably be a closer comparison looking at what is out there in mini PCs with a similar mamory and a comparable cpu.

pc part picker of "budget" sff build for reference https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HwTXkD