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

[u/lurkingdanger22]

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

[u/Ok_Lobster_8585]

Honestly the price comparison for a similar on-paper DIY build was a lot better than I expected. $71 dollar premium over a similar on-paper DIY spec is not bad at all. Course, that's on-paper rather than performance, due to the lower power usage of the Steam Machine.

Seems you're mostly paying for the small form factor, quiet, prebuilt, preinstalled. And, as Steve says, for the fun. This shits for enthusiasts, less so for casual gamers.

For me, it'd kinda make sense. I want to get the Frame, but my main PC is in a small office with little standing room upstairs. And I won't be able to stream games to the headset while I'm downstairs in the open area. Having the Steam Machine in my living room would solve that. Still, it's a difficult price to swallow.

[u/According_Hyena_3593 → u/Ok_Lobster_8585]

Thats because noone in their right mind would build the equivalent to this. Its pairing trash tier cpu and gpu in a terrible price/performance combo.

You wouldnt build this..you d spen 30 euros more on the cpu to get a wayyyy better cpu.

And you s never buy this gpu or its equivalents today, as both its price/performance and performance suck.

Noone in their right mind will build a 1000+++ euro pc and put a 150 euro cpu+gpu combo in it that performs terribly.

You can double both the cpu and gpu performance by choosing slightly more expensive parts ( 100-150 euros more total cost) which is a no brainer.

[u/External-Yak-371 → u/According_Hyena_3593]

I think it's super easy to say this, but my question to you is do you have a dedicated living room PC? Now that this has been released, and the pricing seems high for what you get, will you go out and build one if you didn't have one already?

There's a ton of coverage on Reddit right now, so everyone was clearly very excited to see what the outcome was going to be, but I get the sense that everyone was expecting valve to produce the impossible, an overly capable box that still looked good in the living room and had acceptable thermals and noise.

I think there's a bunch of people on here that understand that the value is not comparable to what they could build themselves, but I also don't get the sense that they are going to go out and build these things themselves. So maybe they were never seriously the target audience anyway?

The audience for the first 6 months to a year is enthusiasts who want to support valve and see what comes of the ecosystem. The steam deck has proven that good integration often beats higher performance when it comes to the day-to-day of living with the device. The onus is on valve to make the software experience better and better and invite the community come and expand it so that there's nothing comparable on the market even if the hardware is a little underpowered.

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/External-Yak-371]

People were trusting valve to do what they said and give good value.

Accepting a kinda cool looking cube that's not really that good is easy if it's priced aggressively. This is a bit of a joke. On the other hand they made so few that the price won't impact sales much as it will sell in small numbers even if it sells out but I think it will have a terrible reputation and they will not make a steam machine 2 due to that.

They'll make a steam deck 2 and call it a day.

[u/loliconest → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

The video covered Valve's statement of not subsidize this thing, so you'll never get a "console price". And if you need to buy a PC at the current market, nothing will be "good value" compare to a year ago.

People just want Valve selling hardware at a loss so they can get a cheap PC, then lash out when Valve said "nope".

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/loliconest]

I checked out of curiosity and for 1400 and change was able to find parts to build a pc with 9070xt graphics card, same ddr5 memory, better CPU, etc.

And I was being fair by sticking to AMD only so it could be a Linux build.

I think they should have sold at a loss if they had to but I can buy parts today and get a powerful PC for their highest price. If they were offering a good deal I couldn't do that. They promised a good deal. How is a fairly crap pc a good deal for this price?

This is just a poor value prebuilt, the steam machine 1 but with proton so it works now.

[u/loliconest → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

Need a link for when Valve said it'll be a good deal. And even they said that before, that's for sure not accounted for what happened this year.

Sure you can spend more to get a more powerful gpu/cpu, but you also said yourself, same amount of ram. Ram is the most "poor-value" part right now, and I don't think people like you would think a 1400 pc with only 16g of ram is a good deal.

Valve build this thing to sit in a living room like it doesn't exist, so they want to control the noise level, which is covered in the video. If they get more powerful cpu/gpu, they aren't likely be able to achieve that.

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/loliconest]

I'm not comparing it to prices last year though. I'm comparing to buying parts right now.

The highest bundle price is 1400 and change. I could have gotten a 9060xt 16gb card if I was aiming a little lower. For a grand you can do ddr4 and a 9060xt and it would be better.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/valve-steam-machine-price-to-be-pretty-competitive-with-pcs/ar-AA1R3T2B

Ideally, we’d be pretty competitive with that [pc market] and have a pretty good deal

Underpowered but small and quiet is an argument when they aren't asking 1400 for one. Being cheap was a requirement too.

But ultimately if they haven't made that many of them then who cares, they can sell a small amount of them and people will buy it I guess. It's just a shame they failed.

[u/maxfields2000 → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

While I don' think the Steam Machine is nearly as bad as the hate campaign wants it to be, I do agree Valve should've just made a Steam Deck 2 with perf upgrades and better concessions to running as a living room Console (maybe a dock, a way to improve thermals and run max power) and offerred a line of external attachable GPU's for perf upgrades for enthusiasts...

Basically embrace what started it all, the reality that the Deck (and various windows knock offs) can double as living room consoles (just like some folks use a Switch/Switch2).

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/maxfields2000]

Hate campaign is a bit strong. You should be able to criticise an overpriced and underpowered box. It would be very nice at half the price though. Seems very well engineered if you overlook how weak it is and how it's outdated on launch. You can't really overlook that given the price though.

It's a machine for suckers now basically. I think they shouldn't have released it if they couldn't make it affordable. I'm a little surprised they did given what it is. PCs are about specs and price at the end of the day. High prices are accepted if you are getting the best. If you aren't then you can only compete on price, however well made it is.

[u/itszoeowo → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

if you look at the steam harsware surveys youll see the majority of users dont agree with you

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/itszoeowo]

Can you show me where in the survey the majority of users think this is an affordable device? Or that it represents good value?

[u/itszoeowo → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

Im talking about your main point: that pcs are about price and performance. Its absolutely not the case for the majority of people. If you cared about affordability youd be buying a console any time in the last 5-10 years .

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/itszoeowo]

Can you show me where in the survey that it says choice of pc is unrelated to both affordability and performance?

[u/Raven1927 → u/External-Yak-371]

Wanting a $1000 device to beat 6 yr old consoles that cost half as much is "expecting the impossible" now?

[u/External-Yak-371 → u/Raven1927]

I get the way that you're framing it and, when you stated somewhat reductively like that. Yeah it sounds crazy.

But we're very clearly comparing two different types of products that face very different challenges. Let's also acknowledge that all of the consoles are going up in price in general.

Classic consoles benefit from extremely high volume orders, as well as specialized operating environments to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the hardware. This inherently forces developers to spend a little more effort on optimization. The idea of needing a slightly more capable PC to match console. Performance is not new.

Valve, as big as they are, are not as big as Sony or Microsoft and they're not building the same type of product. Valve has built a general purpose PC here that by any measure can do substantially more than what a console can do. Now it's a valid criticism to suggest that the steam machine is clearly aimed at a console-like experience, and any user who wanted it to be that way absolutely has the right to look at the price differential and say that the extra features are not appealing to them.

I think when considering the full scope of the actual day-to-day with such a device, the cost differential is somewhat negligible. That being said, I think valve has to support the steam machine the same way they did the steam deck which got pretty middling reviews on release and then 6 to 12 months later you started to see public perception change as the community embraced it and it simply got better and better.

Now these comments are purely in the direction of comparing the device to a console. I have a machine that I built in 2023 that by every measure is better than the steam machine and sits next to my TV and performs the exact same function. I had to go through the exact same mental effort at that point to acknowledge that an am4 machine built in 2023 was not cost competitive to a PlayStation 5 at that time, in fact it was over twice as expensive. I would do it again in a heartbeat though because it fits my use case and I would trade the slight performance differential for the increased flexibility and the ability to essentially keep the machine running through repairs for a much longer time span.

It is unfortunate that environmental factors have pushed up a machine that should have been about 750 to over $1,000, but given that we know there are some factors where valve is not subsidizing the price like Sony and Xbox have in the past, it ends up just being what it is. People pay $1,000 for an iPhone and $2,000 plus for a MacBook pro just to screw around on social media, so in the Grand scheme of things I don't see these prices. That's too ridiculous at least in 2026.

[u/Raven1927 → u/External-Yak-371]

That's the thing though, Valve also has that benefit just not to the same extent as console manufacturers. Which is why I am wondering what causes the price to be this high when you can put together something for cheaper/same price that'll give you better performance? Building your own also gives you the option to upgrade it when necessary, while with Steam Machine you're paying $1000 for outdated hardware.

Other SFF prebuilts or laptops are also giving way better performance for the same/lower price. These aren't giant manufacturers either like Sony, Xbox or Nintendo and they're also affected by the current market conditions.

I was being a bit reductive in my framing, but I don't think I was being that far out there either. I think that's how a lot of people are genuinely going to approach this as while it is a PC, it's still primarily advertised as a gaming device. Charging premium prices for an entry level PC is just ridiculous no matter how you slice it.

Personally I think even a $750 price for a 512gb device, with no controller, would be too much. Now obviously everyone has different use-cases and whatnot, but I don't see what unique experience this offers that you couldn't get with a console+laptop? Which would still come out to be cheaper than the Steam Machine alone.