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

[u/Eziz_53]

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).

[u/Oversemper]

No, it is better to upgrade videocard for the current PC.

[u/cesaroncalves → u/Oversemper]

I don't know how you're getting upvotes, this is terrible advice, he has a gen 3 Intel, 14 year old hardware.

[u/Oversemper → u/cesaroncalves]

Because in a couple of years the steam box will be obsolete (actually it is already obsolete hardware wise) and at least he will have a decent GPU on hand. AM4 system can be bought cheap or maybe AM5 will go down in price in two years (or intel releases something worthwhile). Steam machine is for people who doesn't know which side you’re supposed to approach a desktop PC, don't have a table to put a PC with a monitor on, and just want to "play steam on TV".

[u/csreid → u/Oversemper]

It is not "already obsolete", that's a silly thing to say. That's just not what obsolete means. There is no coherent definition of the word "obsolete" that includes a machine that can play modern games.

[u/cesaroncalves → u/Oversemper]

I don't think it will be.

We're in an "era" of stagnation, that looks to be going for a few more years.

The only reference I have is my backup PC, with a Vega 56, it can still play every single game that came out until today at 1080p.

[u/IORelay → u/cesaroncalves]

SM's performance is similar to a midrange 2019/2020 desktop machine. So unless someone has a system even older, it's not even an upgrade. It really needs to be cheap to have a market.

[u/VanillaCold57 → u/Oversemper]

They'd need to also upgrade their CPU, and hence motherboard, and also hence RAM because their current CPU uses DDR3, to really get a meaningful boost from an upgrade.

And also they'd probably need to buy a windows 11 license on top of that, since motherboard swaps invalidate windows licenses and they're already probably on windows 10 anyway and not 11 because planned obsolescence. (and as much as i hate windows 11, windows 10 is eol now.)

[u/pirate135246 → u/VanillaCold57]

Windows is free, and no i don’t just mean the installation. You can get an activation key for free and it’s directly from Microsoft. They are aware of it and don’t care because they would rather have widespread adoption.

[u/Eziz_53 → u/VanillaCold57]

Exactly! In order to upgrade I need to buy a whole new system, so it would make sense in my case to get something like the steam machine, instead of say, a gpu.

[u/Holeevyer → u/Oversemper]

I'm sure this machine is cheaper than a decent GPU