Steam Machine

Companion Cube 😍

The only thing the old Steam Machines were missing a decade ago was good Linux compatibility via Proton, but now we've got that! I have literally never been more excited for a new "console." Goodbye, Steam Deck.

Goodbye to Steam Deck for this? Both, both is good.
I'm buying this not just for TV play, but hopefully also streaming to SD as a performance upgrade (without handing a ton of money annually to GeForce for laggy inputs), as someone who hasn't had a desktop to do that in a long while. At that point, Steam Deck is a GabeCube accessory turning it into a Switch.
- That sounds like the perfect setup! If the Steam Deck were smaller, that's exactly what I'd do too.
I, for one, can't wait for the limited edition companion cube edition to get released exactly 30 days after I have my steam machine delivered.
- Thank you for your sacrifice. The same thing happens to me at my bus stop whenever I open my umbrella on a rainy day. The bus arrives as soon as I open it.
Goodbye, Steam Deck.
Nah, just stream from the Steam Machine to your Steam Deck.

This is the weirdest looking humidifier I have ever seen.

This thing has pretty interesting hardware:

The chip almost looks like a cut down AMD Ryzen AI Max 385, but with fewer CPU cores and GPU CUs, but the GPU gets its own dedicated VRAM, rather than sharing it, like it does in something like a Framework Desktop.

It also seems like it gets a decent amount of power, so likely at higher clock speeds, performance should be pretty good for not that much money. If this is supposed to be a console then it can't be much more than a PS5 at $550 or PS5 Pro at $750.

Dave2D mentioned that Valve said it isn't aiming to directly compete with consoles, but rather sff PCs. So the price will likely be in the $700-900 range(?)
- I can see this going for around $750 personally
Moore's Law is Dead is estimating a $425 cost to produce, sale price between $450 to $600, depending on how hard they want to fuck Microsoft out of gaming.
I was going to build a gaming pc for the first time in years on Black Friday
This news put it on hold immediately. I’ll just get the Steam Machine instead, it’s exactly what I’ve wished for: a more powerful Steam Deck without a screen or controller built in.
AND it’ll run 4k games so I don’t need to downscale to my monitor.
I’m perfectly fine with it being FSR and only 60fps, as 99% of the stuff I play are single player games anyway.
- With 8GB of VRAM, 4K gaming will suffer some.
Is it an APU, or is it a "desktop" CPU and GPU on one board? CPU specs are close to the 7600x but downlocked. And with dedicated vram I'd assume the GPU is it's own separate thing.
GPU looks like it's probably a tweaked RX 7400 based on the specs.
- This seems to blur the lines between desktop and mobile APU's, but I would bet that's it's closer to a higher clocked mobile chip, than it is to desktop. The only reason I think this is the case is due to the similarity spec wise with the Max 385, and that it's semi-custom.
  If it was just a 7600x CPU + 7600 GPU I think they would have just said so. It could be separate CPU+GPU, but I think it might be possible that it is built more like a SOC, where the GPU is just given its own dedicated VRAM.
  Looking at the hardware of say a PS5, it has 16 GB of GDRR6, the same as the Steam Machine's VRAM.
  If everything is soldered anyway, there is no reason to have separate chips for CPU+GPU, especially if that hardware already exists like the AMD Ryzen AI Max line.
- Is it an APU, or is it a "desktop" CPU and GPU on one board?
  2 separate chips, both soldered to the board
- To keep the package small, they might still have laptop type discreet GPU, just integrated on the same board.
I’m wondering how much horsepower this stationary device have compared to a PS5 or Series X.
I'm not the best at gauging this but it seems it's meant to be carried around and plugged into a 4K TV and operate okay at 60fps for most games that multiple people would play while in the same room. The specs seem to align with that. What would the GPU be comparable to? A 6700 (non XT)?
- GamersNexus estimates a 7600.
Retro Game Corps was estimating $500-$600 and they are defintely out to lunch with that
- Depends on tariffs.
You call pretty interesting hardware what looks like non-replaceable parts?

This is not only about gaming. If this low consume high performance sweety is actually affordable, 2026 could actually become the biggest year ever for Linux users. SteamOS is based on Arch Linux, and considering the power of the machine, editing should be more than doable. Now, i'm not too sure about the current compatibility/emulation of windows native software on linux, but with a substantial increase in desktop users, there could be some serious breakthrough, just like we already had with Proton for the games.

Litetally two days ago, I said that Proton is the most important project in the history of linux, in terms of getting linux to a mass adoption / user base.
Got mostly downvotes.
Then this happens.
Another thing I'vr been saying for a while:
Kernel Anti Cheat profileration in huge AAA games has the effect of stymying wider linux adoption.
It will be MSFT's last trump card, now that they're basically just a mega publisher, in terms of video games.
The relevant bit is not that SteamOS is based on Arch, but that it is running KDE Plasma desktop.
with a substantial increase in desktop users there could be some serious breakthrough like we already had with Proton
Most desktop users are not going to turn developers.
- I don't think that's what they mean. They mean it'll show these companies that there's a market and money to be made by releasing Linux versions of their software.
The bearded madman did it! He really nailed it!

Pretty exciting announcement! I was thinking about building a new rig and retiring my current machine with a 3080 to the TV. This might change that.

What I'm more curious about is how are the folks at Microsoft reacting to this news, since it sounds like the next Xbox was essentially going to be a PC. With Valve doing it first and the fact that the Steam store is so huge, I'm imagining this makes them a bit nervous.

Never buying Microsoft after the recall bullshit. Also not paying monthly subscription to enable Internet on my device
don't wait for this, get or build a normal pc that you can change parts anytime you want, you will not regret it.
- If I were 20 years older, I'd be happy to spec out a mini-ITX build. But with a 3 year old running my life, my time is limited and if the price of this is right, it might make more sense for where my current life is at.

Let's goooooo I just need to sell one kidney and I can complete the set

It's expensive, but not that expensive.
- I meant that I am that poor
- The kidney?
How much is it?
- Around 700, if we follow previous trends and account for inflation.

Love to see it! Been very excited about the rumors of the steam machine! Probably won't get one for a while cuz money, but I'll probably pick up a steam controller!

I'm a bit concerned about the vram situation. 8Gb is not a lot nowadays, particularly if you start adding stuff like ai framegen and stuff which these types of machines tend to need further down the line.

An extra 8gb wouldn't have killed the profit margins.

An extra 8gb wouldn't have killed the profit margins.
I see you haven't checked ram prices lately...
- Bulk pricings has increased sure, but not to the extent consumer price did. Capitalism, ho!
- Given that they'd have locked in the supply at least half a year ago, though, it would be funny (though unrealistic) to find out they contributed to the price hike 😂
Would it be safe to assume their processor/gpu magic that brought us the deck has advanced enough since then to compensate?
I’m no hardware guru, but wouldn’t it be possible to use a swap file or other methods to simulate extra ram if optimized and efficient enough?
- As a deck owner, it's not that powerful, you're never going to drive it at full settings on most modern games, so the size of the vram does not matter all that much.
  Also, the GPU already does the cache work itself if the vram is full anyway, and GDDR is much faster than regular DDR, which is why you see stuttering on 8gb GPUs when texture resolution is pushing the limits.
  With the spot price if GDDR6 modules it's frankly disappointing to only see 8gb.
  Plus, add in the fact that FSR/DLSS models take up valuable vram size to work for framegen and stuff, it reduces even more the availability for actual data.
It seems to just be a 7600m laptop GPU which comes with 8Gb. I don't think this is a custom chip like SONY uses but, just off the shelf stuff AMD sold for a discount.

There's an LED strip, y'all!

Cool, I hope they keep that idea. 😀

Anyways it all depends on price/performance is good.
Previous attempts at 3rd party Steam Machines were not good in that regard.

Have you heard of the Steam Deck? Things aren't the same as they were ten years ago.
- What a moronic question to ask on a Steam Deck sub?
  Of course I have, and Steam deck was priced very aggressively, but info on who makes this Steam Machine and how it will be priced is 100% absent here.
  There was a pretty massive attempt at launching steam machines years before Steam Deck, and that it didn't go well.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(computer)
  Following a two-year testing period, Steam Machines and its related hardware were released on November 10, 2015. By 2018, many Steam Machine models were no longer offered on the Steam store.
  How does that raise the question whether I'm aware of Steam Deck????
The LED strip? It's on the units that have already been tested and demo'd. What looks really interesting is the (presumably optional) front panel display that shows machine vitals. I've only seen that mentioned on some articles and videos.
I saw that area and secretly hoped for an optical drive slot, not that it would ever happen.

I'm still surprised that there's no USB c on the front. I've felt this way for 3 hours now since I first saw the picture.

And only HDMI 2.0, not 2.1. At least it has DisplayPort.
- @dangrousperson @WhatGodIsMadeOf The hardware is apparently capable of HDMI 2.1, but the HDMI Forum doesn't allow open source to have HDMI 2.1 drivers.
Agreed, I wonder if this has to do with pricing? I imagine they can save on PCI lanes this way, and can keep the cost of components down.

Prreciousssss....

We wants it!

In one of their videos on the store page, they even show the face plate being changed. :O

Yeah, it seems that they have different color and graphics face plates, but what looked really cool to me was the actual live display front panel showing machine vitals. Someone in comments mentioned that it's e-ink. Very interesting.

This will no doubt be good for linux pc gaming. On the steamdeck Valve contributed greatly to the opensource proton project.

Linux PC gaming is already here. The only games that don't work with Proton are if the developers specifically disable support for Linux (via intrusive anti cheat).

I'm excited to see what it can do at idle power draw along with the price. This can end up being a really good miniPC if it's priced as competitively as the Deck was when that launched

I won't be able to afford the Steam Machine at launch, but it will probably be a long time before I can easily get one anyway. Pretty sure I'm going to be jumping ship from traditional consoles to Valve with the way the industry is going. They've really impressed me with the Steam Deck.

I wonder if I'll be able to drag and drop the game and save files for my non-Steam games from the Steam Deck to the Steam Machine and have them just work? That would be nice!

I read that SD cards will be hot swappable, which seems to imply you might get your wish!
- Oh wow, that'd be super convenient! I keep all my non-Steam games on a card and my Steam games on the console.
Wait the wait for used ?

No 4k120Hz. bummer. To be fair, 4k120hz is not a primary market pull.

It's for people to play on their living room TV. Most of those don't do 120 Hz.
- Right, like I said, 4k120hz is a very limited market. However, for those of us with living room OLEDs, 4k120hz would be very much appreciated. The couch gaming experience on a 77 inch 4k120hz oled is pretty wicked.
- I do 120 hz on my TV. With PS5 and Xbox I think market for it is bigger than you would think for 120 hz TVs among gamers who picked up new TVs when they got their new console.
- They’re becoming more common though. The Sony oled I just got does 4k120. I’m bummed it doesn’t have hdmi 2.1 though. VRR would have been nice but maybe the hardware is powerful enough it won’t need it.
It has DisplayPort 1.4 which supports 4K@120hz
- Fair enough. The displayport has limited use though, given how there aren't many (any?) large 4k120hz televisions with displayport. And let me be clear, that's no dig against displayport (which is the better standard). As far as I know, certain shady license deals keep hdmi artificially ubiquitous on televisions.
Yeh this will make it a tough choice for me. Have an OLED TV and playing something like Hades 2 in 4K120 would be really nice. Maybe a USBC hub/adapter could do the trick but that’s kinda weird and an extra cost. Definitely dampened my hype for it sadly.
I mean if you're playing older stuff it will output 4k 240. You can probably run Crysis at 4k 240 on that thing.
- Eh, that's not really how it works. It all comes down to the HDMI standard. The HDMI 2.0 used by the steam box has a max officially supported output of 4k60hz. You need HDMI 2.1 to get 4k 120hz - regardless of the capability of your machine.

I sort of gave up on upgrading my under TV Steam machine so this actually looks like a nice way back in.

Is Steam OS available for public use, or only Steam devices?

It is available for public use. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamoslandingpage?l=english
- It is also arch linux based
- They do not list support for desktops, only Steam Deck and some other handheld devices.
How much jank are you willing to deal with?
- Minimal jank

Looks cool, don't think it is for me but hope they succeed this time. Same goes the VR headset.

I am interested in the controller though, but my 8bitdo's are still working fine, so probably not buying in the short term.

If I am correct, CPU in this one is approx 7600x-7900x which i fucking cool! I got HX99G and I love my little machine. It seems that insides of Steam Machine are a little bit better, which is fucking insane and probably will mean that prices are not going to be super high. In any case, seems to be a very stable machine to run games on with a 4k TV.

🎶 They're here! They're here! They're fina-lully here! There's no more time for expectat--

🤔wonder if this would double as an hdr-compatible media pc.

I don't think the rest of Linux is ready for HDR.
And judging by my mum's LG OLED tv, nobody else is ready for HDR either.
- lg oled does hdr ok, just needs hardware/apps that support

Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it's still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?

I wonder if this means it's less locked down the Deck? Like is it kind of an iPad vs Mac situation? When I got the Deck and it was my only CPU travelling around at one point, I tried installing some general tools so I could get some actual work done on the road. Things were fairly heavily sandboxed, though nothing was a total deal-breaker I guess?

You do know you can boot up to a full-ass Linux on the deck?
Afaik that side has zero sandboxes
Yeah but that lock down is just there to protect most users. Afaik it doesn't require any heavy workarounds?
- yeah you can just dualboot another non-atomic distro and call it a day
Curious about this too. I love my Steam Deck, but Desktop Mode is horrible. You can't install apps from the command line because they just get deleted on every update, including CUPS which made printing a huge hassle. You have to jump through hoops to get it to mount an external hard drive automatically. I could never get Discord voice or video chats to actually work. But if you install a separate distro, you lose out on the performance settings that are locked to Game Mode.
Now that Valve is actually doing a desktop, I'd love to use this as my daily driver so my old ThinkPad can finally rest. I'm hoping Valve will finally fine-tune Desktop Mode so people can actually use it. Or at least not throttle performance if people want to install a different OS. Maybe they could even let us boot directly into Desktop Mode this time?
- FYI the way to get around updates deleting everything is to build a flatpak with the things you want, and then install that.
It will run on Steam OS like the steam deck is.
If you have troubles with its protections (like the non-writeable system partition), you can just disable them.

Ooh that's completely unnecessary to my use but looks amazing and if I had a big enough place it would be something I'd seriously consider

Why are people so excited about what looks like custom proprietary hardware designed to have a limited lifespawn and that will end up in a landfill in less than a decade?

I wish it had a more defined upgrade path, I really do. I was actually going to get a Framework 16 until their controversy came to light. For those of us who care for that sort of thing, the only game in town left the building.
So my answer is that this device checks all my boxes except for that. It's built with Linux in mind, it's small, it's not a laptop, it has quality assurance and I don't have to build it myself, and it can run all my favorite games. And it is still repairable, just not upgradable. But I'm going to get as much life as I can get out of it, and I'm not going to just throw it out or sell it when the next Steam Machine comes around. I'll make do with what I have until it breaks or becomes unusable.
- For those of us who care for that sort of thing,
  what sort of thing? a SFF pc? you can build one quite easily of pay someone to build it for you, it's cheaper and more reliable
I'm seriously stoked about this, even though I'm not planning to buy any of the new hardware! It all comes down to the fact that Valve's hardware projects force them to pump huge resources into open-source development, and we all get the benefits. That means the compatibility tools like Proton—which are essential for the high-end Steam Machine and Steam Frame—are immediately available to my desktop rig. By pushing Linux into the living room, VR, and high-performance space, they're pressuring game developers to finally treat Linux as a serious platform. Basically, Valve's huge investment accelerates development and developer adoption, which makes my own Linux desktop a way better and will hopefully get more people into Linux and open source.
- Remember that valve main product is a proprietary third party software launcher that doesn't share much with what linux stand for. With this hardware to me it looks like they are trying to make a console out of a pc.
This is a custom small form factor PC with many of its components being user replaceable. The GPU and CPU are soldered, which is unfortunate, but it is still significantly more upgradable and repairable than any other console that has existed. So what the hell are you on about?
And Valve already has a partnership with iFixit to offer replacement parts for their handheld gaming device, the Steam Deck, and they intended to continue that partnership with their new hardware products.
I think you're just dumb and don't know what you're talking about.
- This is a custom small form factor PC with many of its components being user replaceable. The GPU and CPU are soldered, which is unfortunate, but it is still significantly more upgradable and repairable than any other console that has existed. So what the hell are you on about?
  Well there seems to be exactly one component that's upgradable that you don't have on the other consoles, which is the RAM. And at first sight I think you'll have to remove the heatsink to get to it.
  If you want any 'usable' upgradability it's better to compare to modern minipc's where you can easily replace the RAM and WiFi, have multiple SSD slots and even have the option to connect an external GPU.
- This is a custom small form factor PC with many of its components being user replaceable. The GPU and CPU are soldered, which is unfortunate, but it is still significantly more upgradable and repairable than any other console that has existed. So what the hell are you on about?
  Consoles are garbage, bringing a PC close to these is rowing in the wrong direction. Their presentation doesn't say much about components being replaceable and hint at fix storage. GPU is one of the most important pieces in a machine that is supposed to be dedicated to videogames
  I think you’re just dumb and don’t know what you’re talking about.
  You are on lemmy, a decentralized and open source platform that doesn't share peanuts with steam or for profit companies like valve, i may be dump but i encourage you to learn more about open source software/hardware and decentralized platforms.
It's a console for PC gaming. Consoles have always been like that. The original Steam Machines were small modular PCs built by system integrators and they sold barely any of them.
- the original steam machines had linux in a protonless time so they didn't have much appeal in the first place
- consoles are PCs running proprietary software
I'm not a hardware guy, how is this different from the Steam Deck? Is the hardware here used of crappy quality by comparison? I thought most people liked the Deck (and everyone in here, I thought this is general Linux for a second), I sure do and will likely use it for a decade.
- The steam deck is a portable device, soldering components and custom parts in devices that need to be small it's more justifiable because it can save space. This box on the other hand is a SFF pc that has to be small only for marketing reasons.
- Hardware in the cube is said to be roughly 6x more powerful.

That looks really cool! I'll likely pick up a couple of the new controllers, but I've currently got a few mini PCs scattered around the house for gaming so I won't need a steam machine until one of these craps out on me. But I'm very excited for the folks who will be able to get and enjoy it!

Getting Shuttle PC vibes from the form factor.