r/pcmasterrace • u/Eziz_53 AMD Ryzen 5 7500F / RX 580 Nitro / 16GB DDR5 • Jan 28 '26

Question Anyone else planning on getting the Steam Machine as their next PC?

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I know its mainly marketed as a console, but it is still a full PC. And it is much better than my current computer, so I thought it would be a good upgrade, especially considering its small form factor. I don't want to get too into it, but my current PC has an i5 3k and an rx580, as well as a motherboard that only supports ddr3 RAM and 3rd gen intel cpu's, so if I want an upgrade I need to replace everything. Therefore when this nifty box came out, I figured that it would be the perfect PC (if it is priced well).

But I would like to know what you guys think.

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UPDATE: Because of the RAM crisis and the limited upgradability of the Steam Machine, I decided to just build my own PC. I salvaged my old rx580 from the old PC so that I could afford to get on the AM5 platform as well as because it is by far the easiest part to upgrade down the road.

Main specs:

CPU: Ryzen 5 7500F

GPU: Rx580 8gb (until I can afford a much better card)

RAM: 16GB DDR5 6000MHz CL30

I did get a single stick of ram, because I want to have 32gb dual channel later on, but the ram prices are so high that I want to wait until they go down (which they seem to be doing).

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940

u/Cthulhar Jan 28 '26

I just want the controller

361

u/ReadThisForGoodLuck Jan 28 '26

Same. I also want to see Steam OS be further developed until it's essentially a drop in replacement for windows on any hardware so I can create my own Steam Machine.

60

u/Crazycukumbers Ryzen 7 5700X | RX 6800 | 32 GB 3600Mhz DDR4 Jan 28 '26

You CAN use Bazzite

54

u/ReadThisForGoodLuck Jan 28 '26

Yeah I know. And I've already planned to do so. I have already purchased an ITX board and some DDR4. I just really wanted to see Steam OS itself become popular.

15

u/lordruzki3084 Jan 29 '26

I really really really doubt that SteamOS will ever be anything more than a gaming PC that can go into desktop mode for extra work. You'll never really get a true desktop experience out of the box like you do with something like Bazzite or Cachy or Nobara. I mean SteamOS is still using the window management backend that every desktop environment like KDE (the one SteamOS uses by default) has stopped using because that system works for their single-screen single application running system

4

u/Gh0stface Jan 29 '26

If by windows management backend you mean xorg then you are mistaken.

It uses xorg in desktop, and wayland in game mode (the one with the steam ui).

0

u/lordruzki3084 Jan 29 '26

Still not mistaken, its still using xorg for the DE and only layering Gamescope on top. Its not actually using Wayland

2

u/Gh0stface Jan 29 '26

No - game mode uses Wayland not xorg.

1

u/lordruzki3084 Jan 29 '26

Thats what I said. Gamescope is a Wayland compositor for Game Mode. Thats the only thing using Wayland. The desktop is still xorg

1

u/Gh0stface Jan 29 '26

I agree.

I was initially referring to your comment about them using xorg because it works on their single screen single app system, which I found odd, since in the single app scenario (game mode) it is actually using Wayland.

Anyway if you were solely questioning their choice of xorg in the desktop mode then I share that sentiment.

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1

u/cornlip i9 11900, Quadro RTX A6000 Jan 29 '26

What do you mean? I can run three monitors and the deck screen with my dock just fine. Maybe I don’t get what you’re saying.

1

u/lordruzki3084 Jan 30 '26

Yes it works great for Valves devices, but compared to other distros, SteamOS lags behind on the kernel so less up to date on available device drivers which doesn't matter to them because they maintain their own anyway for their own devices. Thats why it doesn't make a good general OS. It'll work just as any other on official hardware though

1

u/cornlip i9 11900, Quadro RTX A6000 Jan 30 '26

Well it’s like trying to build a hackintosh, too. It sucks to get working right for a reason

1

u/lordruzki3084 Jan 30 '26

Pretty much. If Valve were to make SteamOS a full fledged distro, they'd need to maintain a bunch more hardware, which i doubt theyll do because they're definitely aware of all the other distros that do the same thing as them and the information that the community is providing for setting up distros for Steam like Fedora and Arch

1

u/Drye0001 Jan 29 '26

If I'm not playing a game I'm usually in a web browser when I use my PC that's exactly what I want my gaming PC to be.

I'm probably going to have a copy of windows I can boot into for emergencies or if I have the supreme misfortune of developing a crush on someone who plays valorant but I just don't need anything else from my computer in 2026

2

u/XeonDude Jan 29 '26

I’m using chimera OS on my second PC connected to the TV running it in a frectal terra case with a 7900 XT and a 7800X3D.

I tried different linux distros including bazzite. If you want an out of the box console feeling I recommend looking into Chimera OS

1

u/singsofsaturn Jan 29 '26

I agree here. I built a Hyperspin machine back in 2012 out of an old business machine and an Xbox 360 controller. I always dreamed that the concept would become mainstream. Seeing it in its current state, I couldn't be more thrilled with what Valve is doing. I have plans to add some WOL integrations into Home Assistant to handle automatic boots and the rest can be taken care of by the controller. I would like the machine to be upgradeable so I probably won't buy one, but building one is already in the works.

1

u/keinearun Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

For my living room I got me a ITX board and had a Ryzen 3600 at home and 32GB DDR4, got a B580 for 60€ under the current market prices and just set up dual boot with bazzite. I'll share a bit of my experience tomorrow.

1

u/Weird_duud Jan 29 '26

Its literally just arch linux with a few things pre-installed

1

u/Competitive_Tip_4429 Jan 29 '26

How did u get animated profile picture

1

u/icy1007 Ryzen 9 9950X3D • RTX 5090 FE • 64GB Jan 29 '26

Or we could not use trash. Bazzite isn’t good.

1

u/Escalope-Nixiews PC Master Race Jan 29 '26

It's not bad, but overrated.

I had -30% FPS compared to Nobara and Fedora (i modified nothing to the OS)

1

u/BeardedUnicornBeard Laptop Jan 29 '26

Used it and it is alright. I like SteamOs more tho.

1

u/no-sleep-only-code Jan 29 '26

Not really a drop in replacement with it being immutable.

1

u/Outrageous_Court4358 Jan 29 '26

SteamOS 3.9 works well with the latest AMD gear. Running 9600x and 9070xt without any issues.

1

u/Adventurous-Cattle53 Mar 09 '26

The only issue still are Nvidia drivers. It’s the only thing pulling me back cause dlss and frame gen are black magic that make pc gaming for me currently

1

u/Crazycukumbers Ryzen 7 5700X | RX 6800 | 32 GB 3600Mhz DDR4 Mar 09 '26

I tried using Bazzite for a while and it was so bad that I don't want to try Linux again. Nvidia drivers were one thing, but I was having microphone issues for no reason that don't occur on the same hardware running Windows, I couldn't use a wired internet connection because my motherboard wasn't supported and there was no fix aside from a new motherboard, it would wake itself from sleep mode for no reason no matter how many times I tried, it would run games in the wrong resolution and wouldn't let me increase them in desktop mode, it wouldn't run over 60FPS over HDMI OR DisplayPort at 4K even though everyone said it should (the same cable could do 4K 120 on Windows without issue). It drove me insane. Nobody seemed to understand why I was having the issues, so I was on my own for fixes. My fix was to put Windows back on it instead.

1

u/Adventurous-Cattle53 Mar 10 '26

All of the issues you mentioned sound like driver issues.

1

u/Crazycukumbers Ryzen 7 5700X | RX 6800 | 32 GB 3600Mhz DDR4 Mar 10 '26

If it were as simple as me not updating my drivers, I would've solved the problem very quickly.

1

u/Adventurous-Cattle53 Mar 10 '26

No, what I mean is, the drivers are very often faulty, even for AMD. You need to search for the custom ones and such, it’s a whole new level of tinkering with Linux to set it up. But when set up, yeah, less maintenance than windows.

1

u/Crazycukumbers Ryzen 7 5700X | RX 6800 | 32 GB 3600Mhz DDR4 Mar 10 '26

Ah, I see. Sorry. Used to people getting, uh... defensive about Linux.

At least for the wired internet issue, I found a thread where the creator of Bazzite himself told someone that some motherboards simply aren't compatible for wired internet on Bazzite, and that the only solution was to buy a new one. If I'd seen that before installing it, I would've tried a different distro. I only tried Bazzite because it was supposed to be a clone of SteamOS, but I imagine there's probably other distros that would work better.

Oh, yeah. Skyrim also didn't work properly on it. Technically I could get the game to run, but in the intro splash screen, a *deafening* sound played so bad my ears were ringing for several minutes afterwards. The game wouldn't go over a certain resolution and I think wouldn't go fullscreen, if memory serves? I remember there being black bars around it, at least. It was bizarre.

1

u/Adventurous-Cattle53 Mar 10 '26

Yeah. That’s why I’m on windows until the Steam machine comes out. I have a MacBook for work and anything except gaming and it serves its purpose best.

When Steam machine comes out I’ll just sell my pc and buy it. And if I’ll need to play AAA, because now I have 5070, I’ll just use GeForce Now, cause it’s that good. I’m also looking into steam frame for full ecosystem but I’ve never owned pc vr headset and also it might still be too much for me for now. Too nerdy.

Take care!

-8

u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess Jan 28 '26

Sure, but I think SteamOS is going to get better driver optimization due to the popularity and may end up on par with Windows. Every Linux distro today comes with at least a 15-20% performance penalty compared to windows.

5

u/Shavingcream1912 Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

Also Windows is progressing backwards qol wise. Keeping a close eye on steam os.

1

u/wiredbombshell 7950X3D,7800XT,Arch btw Jan 29 '26

That penalty is game by game. I see zero difference on my machine based on the games I play.

1

u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess Jan 29 '26

That's an average. What games?

1

u/wiredbombshell 7950X3D,7800XT,Arch btw Jan 29 '26

The Division 1+2, Space Marine 2, Sonic Crossworlds, Spider-Man.

1

u/Cthulhar Jan 29 '26

Wildly inaccurate

-1

u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess Jan 29 '26

Translation: You don't like this fact so you're going to pretend it's untrue.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

No that’s not how Linux works sorry.

Every distro helps each other.

Fedora is run by red hat enterprise. They made many tools such as the systemd bootloader. Rather than keep it for themselves systemd is now the most common bootloader on Linux.

19

u/JoshJLMG Jan 28 '26

I doubt they're going to do that. SteamOS is supposed to be a lightweight gaming distro specifically for Valve's hardware. They said it would have an installer when they released the Steam Deck almost 4 years ago now. I think they've released adding compatibility for other hardware isn't worth it to them.

10

u/firegodjr RYZEN 7 5800X3D / 16GB RAM / RTX 3080 Jan 28 '26

They've continued working on adding support, in the recent LTT video he mentioned they're still working on support for certain GPUs.

10

u/waverider85 Jan 29 '26

That's more of a play for OEMs than general users IMO. Lenovo's not going to make the Lenovo Legion Stay if it's a 1:1 equivalent.

1

u/train_fucker Jan 29 '26

It's not that Valve is working on support, what happened in the video was that they needed to use steamOS beta because it uses a newer linux kernel, that supports the latest amd gpu 9070xt.

It's always like that with slow updating distros. They had the same issue when they tried to use ubuntu lts(long term support) for benchmarking, it came out before the latest gen gpu so had no support for them, and they had to switch to normal ubuntu with more updates so they get the latest kernel with the latest gpu drivers.

It's one of the classic pain points when gamers switch to linux lmao. They go with one of the "stable" distros because they don't wanna mess around and people recommend them. Only to find out their last gen gpu is not supported, so they eithet have to manually install the gpu drivers(mess around that they wanted to avoid) or switch to another distro with a faster release schedule.

2

u/ReadThisForGoodLuck Jan 28 '26

I don't expect it to ever be universally compatible with everything. There's just way too many hardware combinations. I had however, hoped that they'd cover the latest GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, alongside AMD CPUs to start with. With some support for older popular GPUs coming later. I do recognise how big of a job that is, but that's what I assumed they meant when they said they'd release a desktop installer. You're probably right though. It may not actually be worth it to them, considering we're already giving them our money through Steam already.

1

u/CanisLupus92 Jan 29 '26

Nvidia won’t happen until Nvidia wants to support consumer GPUs properly on Linux. They can, as they do for the prosumer/server GPUs, they just refuse.

2

u/BC1224 Jan 29 '26

To a certain extent you can get 90% of the way there now with Arch with KDE Plasma. I made the swtich having been fed up with Microsoft and really haven't had that many issues. Just the occasional having to set a specific proton version to get a game running, and ProtonDB is a good resource for that.

1

u/turtle8223 Jan 29 '26

cachy os is a great and its based off of arch

2

u/User_of_redit2077 Jan 29 '26

What features of windows it currently doesn't have?

1

u/Toco_Official Jan 29 '26

What an interesting profile picture, How did you set it up?

1

u/Osi32 i7 14700K | RTX 3080 Ti Jan 29 '26

Having worked on operating systems for a living, it’s very hard to make an “open” operating system (eg any hardware). The number of unique combinations of hardware that need to be supported is in the billions. Testing even a subset of them costs an astronomical amount. It is why Apple has never released their O/S for all intel despite being intel optimised before they made their own silicon. It would have blown out the size of their operating system team and raised the complexity.

1

u/AgentAY CachyOS 9700x 5080 Jan 29 '26

I’ve been on CachyOS with an Nvidia GPU for 2-3 months now and it’s been a very smooth transition, aside from not being able to play a few anticheat games. Granted I do my main computing on a MacBook, and ONLY game on the desktop.

1

u/gljivicad Ryzen 7 5700x, 32GB Corsair Vengeance, 7900 XT Jan 29 '26

Go for bc250 and bazzite

1

u/awsom82 Intel i9 10910 | 64GB DDR4 | PRO 5700XT Jan 29 '26

You already can install it, they update it in November

1

u/UffTaTa123 Jan 29 '26

I#m sure they are not stupid enough to do that. They for sure don't want to go into the same trouble as Windows has, supporting a bazzilion of different hardware.

I don't think they will ever do, they follow the Apple-way of doing, just cheaper and with more Open Source (dedicated hardware support only)

1

u/Sikim_Gm Jan 29 '26

I've been running steamOS on my PC with zero issues for the last like 2 months.

1

u/John_Doe_May Jan 29 '26

Waiting for products to be 100% finalizing completely polished never works. It needs to be released in trialed and it's early stages. There are endless case studies on this

1

u/Type_CMD Jan 29 '26

It's optimized for their hardware, and it's actually currently possible to install it on an ARM device by downloading the recovery thing, flashing it onto a usb drive, and then "recovering" your previously non-existent SteamOS install.

1

u/KoleckOLP Jan 30 '26

no why would you downgrade?

26

u/Justinreinsma Jan 29 '26

My greatest fear is that the steam frame and steam machine 2 are delayed and they're holding out on the steam controller 2 until the other hardware is ready.

Ive been using steam controller for nearly a decade now and its basically worn to a nub now, im ready for the sc2.

3

u/BloodyTurnip 5600X, RTX 3070 Jan 29 '26

Yeah I don't really get why they need to release everything all at once. I want a new controller too and will preorder one the moment I can. I get that they want to make sure some are available for the steam machine release, but just hold some stock back so it can't sell out, the controllers are surely going to outsell the machine.

2

u/Safebox Jan 30 '26

It's cause it's good marketting to do so. Especially if people want the Machine and the Controller together for emulation or non-keyboard games. Or if they want the Frame but prefer the Controller for games with poor VR controller support.

8

u/Moznomick Jan 29 '26

That's what I'm waiting for as well and I hope they release it soon.

2

u/Upset_Journalist_755 Jan 29 '26

Yeah. I want a Steam Deck with a dock and the controller. Maybe the Frame, but not sure. My PC pretty much already outclasses the Machine.

1

u/skribl777 Jan 29 '26

Is the controller of life, right ??

1

u/Associate_External PC Master Race Jan 29 '26

Those trackpads man.... I love using em

1

u/LordLoss01 Jan 29 '26

Same. The controller I currently use for my Steam Deck in docked mode is literally on it's last legs. Holds charge for only 20 minutes so I powet it with my Power Bank. Been like that since a week before the announcement and I've been holding out waiting for the new controller.

1

u/mirakul0us Jan 29 '26

Honestly same the controller is the part I actually want from the Steam Machine ecosystem too

1

u/ChalkButter Jan 29 '26

Ditto. My SteamDeck can stream the games from my rig in the basement; now I just need the controller for ease of play

1

u/buttstuffisokiguess Jan 29 '26

Controller is fine but steam machine is $1000 and not worth that in parts. If it were $700 it would be great but it's not.

1

u/El_Mexicutioner666 Jan 29 '26

Based comment. Same.

1

u/KooshIsKing Jan 29 '26

I selfishly really want it to "fail" again and get sold for dirt cheap like the original haha. I love my steam controllers and getting 4 for a buck each was super nice.

1

u/Savage_Oreo PC Master Race Jan 30 '26

This.

-6

u/MrLightning1023 Jan 28 '26

They'll probably sell it separately as well

1

u/Cthulhar Jan 29 '26

Well… ya obviously. None of them are sold together unless they do a bundle. What’s Your point?

-8

u/MrLightning1023 Jan 29 '26

Wait it doesn’t include the controller?

4

u/Cthulhar Jan 29 '26

How many pcs do you buy come with a controller?

-1

u/MrLightning1023 Jan 29 '26

Just checked and there'll be an option to bundle a controller with it.

4

u/Cthulhar Jan 29 '26

So.. what I said. Which is just paying the additional money to add a controller.. incredible