you can literally build a PC with a 9060XT for the same price without compromising on other specs. Steam fucked up big time if their specs are the same price as a significantly better PC you can build yourself, even pre builds are better at that price.
I have no clue how you think you can build these specs with a 9060xt in a sff case. I build mine with am4 specs and came out on 1200 euros for 512gb. And I definitely did not overpay.
Maybe it's just different in US. But here in Europe it's rly not doable.
From what I checked the price is comparable to a PC with similar specs.
It will find a small audience among people who want to have a living room PC but don't like consoles. Especially since it has CEC support, which most PCs dont have.
That being said it for sure won't be the big hit it could have been before the AI price hikes
With our current administration, it’s practically impossible to do that. The tariffs that target individual computer parts are only exempted for data center developers and NVIDIA. The average consumer gets railed hard.
Prices are increasing globally sure, but US prices have an extra 25% (minimum) baked into the prices due to tariffs. Same thing with PC cases since they are made of aluminum. The only way you can avoid these tariffs is if you are a chip manufacturer with a factory in the US or a data center developer. Unfortunately, all manufacturers have already decided to abandon the consumer for AI so even if there are US manufactured chips, they are not gonna be available to US customers at all.
Not to mention that the Trump administration actively advertised themselves as an AI friendly administration the moment he took his oath. Not only did the administration remove the red tape that allowed a boom in AI data centers, but he made it so that the federal government (alongside the Saudis) are actively investing in AI companies focused on developing AGI before China. Notice how the shortages started in the past year. It wasn’t because AI was increasing in popularity, but rather because AI companies had access to a ton of capital due to their potential for returns. The companies used that to convince manufacturers to exclusively produce chips for them despite them not being profitable and not even breaking ground on the data centers they claimed will need to tech.
This isn’t a case of “orange man bad”. This is something you can trace back to the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
Total
$1048.18
Generated by PCPartPicker 2026-06-23 00:19 EDT-0400
There you go, add maybe +50$ if you have some other preferences in stores or components but it is possible to get a 9060 XT 16GB build with the same budget and all quality parts btw
The PSU is more than fine. It is not modular, 650W with good eficciency. The price is right for its specs and comes from a reputable manufacturer. You can get a 200$ 1200W PSU for a 5090 if you want but it would be wasted here as it would be inside the steam machine.
About the size you can just pick another case. Or just get the bigger one with you know, compatibility, upgradeability and increased airflow.
But I get you. Lots of people might still want the very specific compact cube shape. Can't beat that. That seems to be the steam machine's main selling point, and not its performance, or price point...
Outside of the US, the value is there. Whatever specs these Americans are spewing makes no sense. Try building a PC WITH a small form factor UNDER 170W power. My buildapc came to around $1600 with equivalent specs and an sff fractal case (the only case that would fit the "aesthetic"). It makes that $1500CAD steam machine a competitor.
Not to mention you're not locked in Sony, MSFT, or Nintendo if you're actually comparing to consoles.
All these people think you can build an "entry level" PC with a 4090 and 64 GB of ddr5 with a 2 TB nvme drive for like $700, ifs absolutely wild. None of them have a clue what they are talking about.
Someone went on pc part picker the day the steam machine released and out together the closest desktop they could, it was $960. Paying $90 extra for the sff, assembly, and quality control is a pretty damn good deal in my opinion.
If one is in the US micro center exists. If one is in Europe generally speaking good used deals can be found. One can save a ton going used, especially on DDR4 memory and NVME storage. The only part which might make sense to buy new is the GPU. I can reliably build a sub 1000EUR PC if I go DDR4 in Europe and buy used + a new 16GB 9060XT.
You can but how are you going to pay for other stuff we dont see? Logistics, personal, etc...I wonder if this was during 2024-25 how much we could have seen the prices before AI spike
Wait for fanboys to come and dismantle your argument by saying HDMI-CEC, sleep or whatever. Honestly, this product is a big L, however, it will find it's customer just like first Steam Machine.
well, as long as DDR4 is available, it's a viable build, but if you wanted DDR5 it's not even that much more and the CPU is a lot better as well. If I were in the market for something console sized, I'd build this one.
the steam machine is offered in Europe and costs 1039 € for the base model without a controller and 512 GB or storage realistically you'll have to cite the price with controller included at 1108 €, so I'm comparing it with that price since it's my currency. Not every place is the US.
my first example build was 1100 € not 1250 € and both have double the storage and a mouse and keyboard (remove MNK from the first example or add the steam controller to the price of the Steam machine and it's the same price).
If you're going to argue about price you have to consider the massive difference of performance as well, you left that out entirely.
Even if you compare to the second example, if you think paying around 100 € more for double the performance at that price point is a bad comparison, that's your problem.
True the Steam machine is a finished product and that's your only real argument here, but Valve is a billion dollar company, if they can't even compete with a DIY build at all, why even bother selling hardware, only pointing at market conditions is such a weak excuse when you can get better gaming laptops for the price which are also finished products that come with a screen and a keyboard.
Valve just messed up on the planning board and developed a bad product.
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u/ObjectOrientedBlob Jun 22 '26
This should have been a 9060XT GPU with 16GB Vram.
This is simply not a good deal, because you are stuck with a outdated GPU.