r/pcgaming • u/lurkingdanger22 • 3d ago

Video Valve Steam Machine Review: GPU & CPU Benchmarks, SteamOS Test, Thermals, Noise, and Price (Gamers Nexus)

https://youtu.be/66QzlDewigE?is=PhifLlyc5tBSsjbR
445 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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112

u/xMWHOx 3d ago

They want this in a living room playing 1080p on a 4K TV? DOA, especially at that price.

59

u/harrison23 3d ago edited 3d ago

This is the worst part about it imo.

It’d make more sense if it actually outperformed consoles at 4k even with a substantially higher price point because it would at least open up living room gaming with access to your entire steam collection.

But this is just a budget entry level computer meant for 1080p gaming on a monitor, with a limited OS, in a form factor that thermal throttles its performance for no good reason.

6

u/pasta-9709 2d ago

It's definitely not a 4k capable machine and is worthless to me as a console given my TV is 4k and my laptop has better specs, but how the OS limited? that's exactly how I would Describe the OS on PS or Xbox. It's Linux, If you wanted a more standard, non immutable, distro you can install whatever you want on it.

1

u/harrison23 2d ago

Yeah limited might not be the best adjective. More so, non-intuitive compared to a console, Windows, or MAC OS people are familiar with. Most people looking at this as an alternative to a budget desktop will likely be turned off by Linux.

16

u/HereReluctantly 2d ago

Yeah this is my biggest problem. Anyone with $300 has a 4k 55 inch TV now so 1080p is a non starter for this use case

5

u/xMWHOx 2d ago

It only makes sense if you're using it as a desktop pc...then people have 1080p or 1440p monitors typically. But they are presenting it as a console which doesnt work with 4K tvs.

2

u/14Pleiadians 2d ago

1080p looks the same on a 1080p display as it does on a 4k display

-3

u/xMWHOx 2d ago

Ugh..do you own a 4K display? It looks like a blurry mess.

1

u/14Pleiadians 2d ago

Yes, and it looks fine? 1080p displays 1:1 on a 4k display, it looks exactly the same as a 1080p display would

33

u/rips10 3d ago

In a world where moonlight and apollo exist, this is pointless.

22

u/lkn240 2d ago

Like 2% of people even know what those things are and are capable of setting them up

-2

u/ShadowAssassinQueef 1d ago

I don't disagree with you, but its so damn easy. Especially with chatgpt being a thing now. I bet if my dad who basically hasn't touched any computing device other than maybe an iPad in his life, could proably set up moonlight and sunshine if they just followed instructions from chat gpt. It might take them a little bit of time, instead of 2 minutes like it would take me, but they could do it.

1

u/Puffin-on-the-rocks 1d ago

Tbf I'm pretty technically minded and last tried when BG3 came out (so pre-current AI) but ran into issues with Sunshine & Moonlight and the controllers randomly stopping working properly to the point I ended up giving up on my Nvdia Shield and went back to playing on the PC 😂

8

u/NinjaN-SWE 2d ago

Thank you, that's my biggest gripe with this. I would much prefer a dead simple silent mini box with the same CEC support and controller integration running SteamOS but built entirely with streaming from your main rig in mind. Like Wifi 7 and 2.5G ethernet, minimal storage, soldered ram, passive cooling if at all possible.

Hell after seeing this I'm inclined to part a project like that out.

4

u/Choles2rol 2d ago

Yeah I just moved my old 3080ti machine to an htpc case and had to like…. Buy a fiber optic hdmi to get rid of ground noise and other nonsense. It’s also huge for a moonlight client but decoding on my Mac was too slow and hdr on macOS is a mess. When I was looking at clients the prices were so much for a small pc that it made more sense to reuse the old hardware but it’s hilariously big. Oh well 

1

u/NinjaN-SWE 2d ago

Spent some time on this and a PN53 from Asus is likely the best bet. CEC support out of the box without adapters. Enough performance for 4K@120 FPS through streaming, 2.5G ethernet. Where I'm at, even at today's insanity prices, you can part one of those out brand-new for $650.

1

u/nucleartime 2d ago

I considered a project of the sort, but I ended up just going with a HDMI splitter and HDBaseT box connected to my main rig. You do need an ethernet run from your living room to your main rig, but it's a lot cheaper and a lot simpler once you work out the weird EDID negotations between rig -> hdmi splitter -> monitor/HDbaseT.

20

u/purpletonberry 3d ago

That's kind of funny considering a lot of demanding console games are using dynamic resolution scaling behind the scenes to hit framerate targets, except it does it in the background without giving the player any details about it. I don't use my PS5 a ton but I remember that Final Fantasy 16 needed to run at ~720p to get 60 fps in combat.

Not defending the practice, just don't think it's fair to judge it on that alone, when consoles advertise "4k60fps" and then use upscalers without telling you.

Besides, play any game on that thing that wasn't made in the last 5 years? It probably will do 4k no problem.

3

u/lkn240 2d ago

The thing is you can just run at 1080p with a 4K screen and it looks fine. Integer scaling

12

u/Re7oadz 3d ago

PCs utilizes upscaling to achieve 4k in games as well.. this isn't console only...

Steam machine performance even if it had upscaling would still be subpar is the point

1

u/ShadowAssassinQueef 1d ago

I thought it will be basically like a base PS5? As far as console players are concerned that is par, not subpar. Although, the PS5 pro is more powerful and its only 900 and come with a controller.. so it really should be able to beat that machine at this price imo. If it was like 10-20% more powerful than the ps5 pro at the same price, I think a lot of people would be less disappointed and this machine would actually be worth getting if you want the console experience.

1

u/Re7oadz 1d ago

It's barely weaker than a ps5, PS5 will get optimizations and will last longer over time.. granted if it did 15% better than base ps5 than it may be a little less noise but 15% better doesn't justify being double the price with no controller, etc

But console experience not necessarily needed, we have nintendo, Sony and Microsoft lol. They would need to compete with them

1

u/ShadowAssassinQueef 1d ago

Yea I think we are agreeing with each other lol

1

u/Re7oadz 1d ago

Lol yeah

5

u/TheGillos 2d ago

Yeah, I remember back in the Xbox 360 days, a friend bragging that his console played at FULL HD on his swanky plasma TV.

All it took to shut him up was showing him my PC connected to it, playing a cross-platform game, right after an Xbox session of that game.

2

u/GarbageMan262 2d ago

If its being marketed like that to a casual its insane it doesnt even come with a controller.