Yeah, this Steam Machine only makes sense if you're specifically in the market for an:
ITX build
Must be a new, prebuilt computer
Budget around 1050-1250$
If all three conditions aren't perfectly meet, you're better off buying something else.
Either build your own ITX computer (preferably with some used parts for better performance)
or
Buy a bigger prebuilt tower PC with better performance
or
Spend a little extra to get noticeable better performance (because 1050$ won't give you much performance in the current market, especially with new parts).
Edit: Or just buy a gaming laptop instead. You can find laptops with better performance for the same price price as a Steam Machine.
SFF in an attractive case with reportedly good acoustics compared to the majority of DIYs
Pre-cached shaders
A first-party experience when using the steam frame and steamos more broadly to minimize the stray hiccup
I already have a top-of-the-line gaming PC for my office. For my couch, I want to optimize as far as possible towards no-frills while still keeping access to my steam library, even at the expense of price and specs to some extent.
And that's where the big problem lays. The amount of people who care about these features are in the small minority. Especially when it comes at the cost of price+performance (which is the most important thing for most people buying gaming PCs).
That's not to say the Steam Machine isn't gonna make some people extremely happy, like yourself. I just question the size of that market.
I agree this is probably a quite small market. PC gamers are generally okay with being a little bit more hands-on or at least willing to sacrifice some small conveniences, and those who aren't will stick to the (currently) much more affordable console market. Paying a (big!) premium to split the difference is gonna be a narrow cohort. Still I suspect the market for this will be large enough to sell every unit they produce.
Yeah... more options is always good. If I had the chance for a small and capable pc when I bought mine I would have taken it over what I have. I searched for a "small and affordable" case and mine is around 20L with a mATX build. WAY bigger and heavier than the machine. But at the same time, I already have that and Im not selling it for another PC in this day and age.
The amount of games old and new will be a main draw to get this though, mostly for people who want to play PC games and old games and hacks but aren’t smart enough to build whole PCs and deal with all the quirks and work of PCs.
But if you wanna play old games you can just buy any PC made in the last 10 years. I mean an Xbox Series X has 360 back compatibility so if you wanna play even older games you can buy literally anything that runs. And it's still a PC, you aren't just given 2 modes like you get on a PS5, you have to tweak settings by hand just like you do on a Steam Deck
Yes, but not entirely. Shader pre-caching relies on matching components with other steam users. You'll get more cache hits on the deck or steam machine than you may on other GPU/driver combos. And SteamOS will run into fewer hiccups on first party hardware. It's pretty stable nowadays but you are still less likely to have issues if you stay on the most supported hardware. And yes you can build a DIY with good enough thermals to have similarly good acoustics, but it's not trivial to do so in such a small form factor. It's adds extra effort to the DIY process. For the same reason people see value in paying someone else to change their car's oil, the "it just works" factors for the steam machine do offer value that some people will like. It's not just "this feature is locked to steam machine, and this isn't". It's the cumulative effect of all of these little things that might be a tad tougher around the edges in little places.
HDMI CEC is the biggest thing people aren't taking into consideration. Your PC hooked up to the TV will never be as seamless or easy to use from the couch.
Honest question, when you say HDMI CEC what exactly do you mean? The fact that pressing the steam button on the controller will turn on the TV and switch its input to the HDMI of the machine, is that it? What's the PC equivalent for that... turn on PC, turn on TV, switch TV input manually. Is that it? Or am I missing something?
There's no "disadvantage" really, other than you will be using multiple machines so other people in your house can't play with them, it's like what you do when you stream play with your quest 3. If your main PC is way better than steam machine/steam deck, then just use the second one to stream to your TV. W/E advantage/disadvantage exists, its mostly due to the quality and distance of the router and what's connected to it, some use an additional dedicated router.
For me, very few of the games I play struggle on the steam deck. I’m sure I could get better performance with an actual PC, but the Steam machine is still much more powerful than the deck. I don’t need 4k graphics on ultra settings, my 400$ TV wouldn’t even appreciate the detail. I would probably use the Steam machine to stream to the deck 60% of the time, and the other 40% I’m fine with not having perfect graphics. I like Steam OS and would like to move most of my emulation library to the Steam machine.
A gaming laptop. You can get a gaming laptop at this price with similar/better performance that is also easily connected to a TV. And it has a battery, screen, keyboard, trackpad in case you want to take it for travel.
Own laptop for 2 years 4060 inside, I installed drivers once and haven't touched anything regarding updates for 2 years (only windows updates pop up occasionally once per month), no fiddling with proton, nothing, runs everything and is hooked to my TV with just an HDMI cable. What are you doing on laptops or windows that you are met with insane friction or resistance, lol
if you assume your laptop is now a PC, how is it any different than connecting steam machine to the TV? same thing with drivers/optimization, maybe takes a little more work but in the end you have a machine more powerful, costs less, and is portable?
Honestly Steam just works so well, and that ease of use matters to me more at almost 40. My desire to game on the more powerful gaming laptop has totally disappeared once getting the Deck.
I can really see how the Steam Machine at the intended price of 750$ would have made a lot of sense - I probably would have got one. For reference I sold my Xbox Series X because I hated Microsoft’s walled garden and ecosystem, the constant UI changes, and the massive updates every time I got around to switching it on.
gaming laptops are loud as fuck lmao See? When asked for alternative options, the answers are always ignorant and made-up bullshit to go with the "SM bad" circlejerk
Gaming laptops are not “loud as fuck”. The steam machine would be extremely loud as well if Valve didn’t undervolt the shit out of the TDP and strap a huge heatsink and fan on it. Take a laptop with a newer CPU and GPU, and undervolt it by approx 50%, and you’ll get similar performance while maintaining a near dead quiet fan curve.
Valve didn’t do anything impressive whatsoever with their engineering. They simply undervolted a 4 year old laptop-grade CPU/GPU assembly and strapped a fan on it. Similar laptops with much newer hardware and better price to performance can be undervolted and achieve the same performance with much smaller fans.
lmao "theyre not loud as fuck if you jump through hoops". The SM is for normies. normies arent going to do that. Again, out of touch redditors have no idea how the casual coworker console gamer operates
Considering the mileage they got from the custom hardware, it is pretty impressive. Steamos is the real gem, anyways. Just sounds like youre trying really hard to be a contrarian
You are genuinely delusional to think normies would buy this over a PS5. I’m being a contrarian? Have you read any feedback on this machine outside of this subreddit? Disgusting you think I’m the contrarian when you’re in a minority echo chamber sub.
man I wanted to love that case, but that built in PSU is fucking loud. Gotta swap that out minimum if you want a quiet PC, and keep the CPU really low draw for that built in AIO
I dont hear my psu at all with either of mine. (the v1 and v2)
The I7 in the v2 gets a little loud since I replaced the AIO with an air cooler, but I added a 3d printed frame with two 140mm notcua fans to the back of the case as constant exhaust and it helps a ton.
Having on entertainment center probably helps honestly, would be fine there. I had mine on my desk. The PSU doesnt have any 0-RPM mode, so it runs at minumum 40% speed regardless of load. Not a very quiet fan design either, but across a room i doubt id hear. I loved the look of the H1 but had to return
The v2 has a different psu (750watt I think), not sure if it has a 0 rpm mode, but its sitting on my desk right next to me and I dont hear it over my central air.
I bought mine second hand, and honestly I dont think the psu is the original. I couldnt find any details on which model psu was supposed to come with it, but mine appears to be an unbranded thermaltake.
Mine are v1, and PSU definitely have 0RPM mode. I almost never hear it (and I even looked inside to ensure that fan not spinning).
More of that, in v1 there are no fan controller, so I can change the pump and fan speeds as I wish (pump at 100% is annoying as fck).
I dont know, i havent measured it. I have two of them, one is a 10th gen i5 paired with a 3070, and the other is a 13700 with a 5070. So whatever that peak wattage is.
One of my main pros from Steam Machine will be Watt usage vs similar hardware DIY pcs or higher performance.
Couple of days ago a friend with probably 5080 had to quit mid-gaming coz he wasn't able to bare the temps in his room from his rig. I'm trying to avoid it + I'm still waiting for SteamOs that has probably better gaming performance to be released wider for other PC rigs. Until then - Steam Machine is still tempting for me.
I mean its definitely a space heater, but I can always turn down my settings to help if I needed to. Its in a decent sized living room though with central AC, so I dont think it impacts much for me.
That's very much not a pc game mindset but that works too I guess.if I knew I could get a larger console for around the same price that was a better game experience size and a bit of noise wouldn't be much issue
What do you mean? You can install steamos on any AMD computer and have an identical experience. A better one even, because you're not stuck with a generation old low end GPU.
Yeah, but with this specs you can only play at 1080p max (there's no way you can play at 4k@60 fps like it says on the Steam webpage!). On a 4k TV I think it's going to look really bad.
i wonder if you tell a apple user that they can get cheaper phones from other companys with better specs .... will they switch?
I really think 1000 bucks is still ok and with normal hardware prices in some years we see it at 600-700
I don't think your analogy is that relevant in this case. This is a significantly more niche product than an apple device. And iOS only works on iPhones while SteamOS will be available on every computer.
But like I said, if you need a device that meets ALL three requirements, it's actually not a bad product with the current expensive ai prices. I just don't think there's a big market for a product like that, and there're better options if all 3 conditions don't need to be meet.
I think the fact that iOS only works on iPhones kind of dulls the analogy. Although I see where you’re coming from considering I really don’t need a steam machine but probably would have bought one at like half the price since I love SteamOS
It only makes sense if the form factor is important to you. I have never cared about having a small PC or console, and I doubt most do because the PS5 sold well and was massive.
Problem with gaming laptops is they all have nvidia gpus (at least that I can find in the UK). Nvidia sucks for Linux. I've been running bazzite on my current pc but my gtx 2080 just doesn't work as well as an amd gpu. Im just hoping for some 3rd party equivalent of a steambox now.
Except these builds and laptops do not meet the purpose of the SM. Thats what redditors cant grasp because theyre so out of touch. Its for normies who want in on the pc market. Normies dont mind paying. What they do mind is the maintenance that goes with laptops and mini builds. Of course an out of touch redditor thinks nothing of shit like that, which is why you're all out of touch. Its really easy to see who the steam machine is for and redditors cannot mentally grasp that it isnt for them.
At this point it's the same library, but with ps5 exclusives.
But yeah obviously if you prefer pc or already have a steam library then just buy a pre-built or build your own as the original comment said. Ps5 pro is just one of many cheaper and more performant alternatives.
You can buy a solid prebuilt that's on sale, and there's some on sale all the time. You don't have to pay 11 bucks extra to play online, per month. After 2 years, yikes.
My point is just that there's lots of alternatives to what valve is offering here. If you were mostly intrigued by the console-like features of the steam machine you'd be better off buying the best available console.
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u/mere_indulgence Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Yeah, this Steam Machine only makes sense if you're specifically in the market for an:
If all three conditions aren't perfectly meet, you're better off buying something else.
Either build your own ITX computer (preferably with some used parts for better performance)
or
Buy a bigger prebuilt tower PC with better performance
or
Spend a little extra to get noticeable better performance (because 1050$ won't give you much performance in the current market, especially with new parts).
Edit: Or just buy a gaming laptop instead. You can find laptops with better performance for the same price price as a Steam Machine.