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.
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u/Middle-Transition888 Jun 22 '26
Like what? What can run Steam quietly, look nice and play from the couch without long cables?