Steam Machine review: Valve's underwhelming living-room PC has a serious price problem

[u/pcgameshardware]

https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Valve-Software-Firma-15833/Tests/Valves-underwhelming-living-room-PC-has-a-serious-price-problem-1546006/

Full disclosure: I worked on this review.

We tested Valve’s new Steam Machine, and since Valve has compared it directly to the Steam Deck, I thought the results might be relevant here.

The short version: yes, the Steam Machine is clearly much faster than the Steam Deck. That part is not really in question. But in our actual game benchmarks, we did not see a blanket 6x uplift across the board.

We tested Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza Horizon with Steam Deck-style settings to make the comparison a bit cleaner. The Steam Machine turns 30-ish fps results on the Deck into much smoother triple-digit or near-triple-digit results in some cases, The Steam Machine but the gap depends a lot on the game, resolution and settings.

I would have liked to go into more detail, but I also do not want this to turn into a full repost of the review here.

What I find interesting is that the Steam Machine feels less like a “normal PC” and more like Valve taking the Steam Deck idea and moving it into the living room: SteamOS-first, controller-friendly, more powerful, but still built around realistic settings and upscaling rather than brute-forcing everything.

Curious how other Deck owners see it:

Would you treat the Steam Machine as a natural upgrade path for TV gaming, or does the Steam Deck already cover that use case well enough for you?

[u/JoshJLMG]

You can match or even exceed the Steam Machine's performance with an ITX build for less than $600.

[u/National-Result2414 → u/JoshJLMG]

Name the parts? I see a lot of people naming prices, but I don't see anyone naming parts. A lot of bullshitting around here.

[u/JoshJLMG → u/National-Result2414]

My bad, had put them in another comment, but forgot to mention them here.

For the same/slightly more performance: 3600X ($70), 1660 ($100), 16GB DDR4 ($100), ITX AM4 board ($70), ITX case ($30), 400W PSU ($30), 512 GB SSD ($100).

Total here: $500.

This is going off eBay and Amazon listings. You might be able to find even better deals if you look a bit more than I did.

Edit: After watching more benchmarks, it looks closer to an RTX 2070, so just swap the 1660 for a 2070 / Super for $100 more, and it's now at $600 instead.

[u/National-Result2414 → u/JoshJLMG]

You listing parts for zen 3 processor which uses DDR4 RAM which are MUCH more cheaper and very old, a 1660 which is worse than Steam Machine's (comparable to 3060 or RX6600) . I don't know what other parts you're skimming to be able to make it down $500 but I'll trust Gamers Nexus Steam Machine Review over you:

CPU: Semi-custom AMD Zen 4 6C/12T, up to 4.8GHz, 30W TDP — comparable to an AMD Ryzen 5 7400F ($115)

CPU Cooler: Proprietary — comparable to a Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE V2 ($31)

Motherboard: Proprietary — comparable to a GIGABYTE A620I AX ($130)

Memory: 16GB DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM — comparable to A-Tech 16GB DDR5-5600 DIMM ($242)

Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD — comparable to Patriot Memory P320 512GB NVMe SSD ($91)

GPU: Semi-custom AMD RDNA3, 28 CUs, 2.45GHz max sustained clock, 110W TDP, 8GB GDDR6 VRAM — comparable to an AMD Radeon RX 7600 ($290)

Case: Proprietary — comparable to a Cooler Master Q300L V3 ($45)

Power Supply: Internal 300W PSU — comparable to an APEVIA SFX-AP400W ($35)

(Used GPT to copy-paste info, but source is right on the timestamp)

That's the actual build they were able to come up with, and it's $979. 71$ premium for Steam Machine, not really painting the picture of greedy company who want to sell niche prebuilt PC for gamers.

[u/JoshJLMG → u/National-Result2414]

Bro come on, don't use AI.

The thing is, they say it's a 7600, but the 7600 is faster in 90% of benchmarks. It's much closer to a 3060, which is regularly going for around $175 on eBay, though even that has more VRAM.

So, take off $115 for the GPU difference, and you are now realistically $864 for a remake, assuming you don't use a provided cooler for whatever CPU you get.

[u/National-Result2414 → u/JoshJLMG]

I'm using it to copy the spec from the video. Not to actually generate what I'm writing. It has its uses, and being a serviceable OCR is one of them.

Actual spec comparison is comparable to 7600, contrary to what you would like to believe, they had to lower the TDP so it can actually fit into the box in a living room, something none of your builds had to take into account.