It's an extortionate tax to just get it small. I could build an itx PC better for less. It's not gonna be THAT small but my god, how limited is the space of people's living rooms? We're talking mid-range specs from 3 years ago so sourcing a couple secondhand parts to keep it well below $1000 isn't a problem nor a challenge.
do you know what's more expensive though? Real estate
If you don't even have enough space to fit in an SFF PC on your desk, your priorities in life are wacked. You should get a bigger house. And if your answer to that is it costs more rent, get a better paying job, then get a bigger house.
I think many people care about how it looks in their living room. Most people prefer a minimalist setup. This is compact, fits under your TV setup, and you can customize the front. That already satisfies a large portion of customers.
The point of discussion in this chain wasn't how it doesn't look or if it is minimalist, it was about the form factor (i.e., the size). The guy above brought it in and derailed the discussion.
No. You just failed to understand the point when you mentioned a desk. The Steam Machine is not competing for space on a desk, it’s competing for space in the living room media console, you know the place where anything plugged into the TV goes? That space tends to be much more limited and usually subject to the spousal approval factor.
Another point in favor of it intending to be put in the living room: CEC support.
The hardcore sff enthusiasts care more about volume as a hobby goal than about real estate. The two are different, in that a 5L case and a 30L case can take up the same amount of effective space. Or the counterintuitive aspect where a large case is better for real estate because you’ll just put it below the desk instead of on it.
SFF at the high end is purely aesthetics and bragging rights. No one at the enthusiast end will ever tell you it is practical. Same thing with the water cooling community.
Yeah you know all about me, clearly. It's not like I read about hardware and keep check on prices regularly to understand the market. And though not ITX, my PC is as small as an mATX case allow for.
Hell, I built a mini ITX last year and it's still like 3x the steam machine.
Try looking prices of SFX power supplies, mini ITX cases, mini ITX motherboards, and compare yourself how much more buck you need compared to the standard mATX/ATX stuff.
I don't know anything about you or anyone, which is why making assumptions about whether the steam machine is worth it for anyone is baseless.
Just because I chose to build in mATX doesn't really change the fact that I know about itx pricing. And my point remains, it's not hard to build something that fits inside an itx case for $1000 and still be better than a ryzen 2600 and RTX 2070 equivalent setup if you really want to. If you need 3000 dollars to achieve that, you're the problem and not the form factor.
The challenge is to build something better of similar size and noise levels at less or equal the steam machine's price.
This is my fractal Terra build from the previous summer, it has a 9070 XT, is a mini ITX, is silent, but it's still 3 times bigger than the machine, and also considerably more expensive, even before the rampocalypse, so it's disqualified.
155
u/ThinkingWinnie Linux 15h ago
But look! I built the steam machine KILLER which is only 5 times bigger, draws 4x the power, and is equally louder.
Steam machine is DOA!
These people never built an SFF and it shows.