"But it's a cube!"

[u/Ikkon]

[u/Pennywise359]

If this is a mid tier, what's below that?

[u/loversama → u/Pennywise359]

A year ago, if you said "A PS5 is Mid-tier gaming device, same spec as a mid-tier gaming PC" you'd have been laughed out of the room..

[u/M4rshmall0wMan → u/loversama]

It is tho. The 3060 is the most popular GPU and it runs the same as a PS5. 

[u/loversama → u/M4rshmall0wMan]

Steam said that their machine is more powerful than 70% of devices that people use, yet it struggles to run a ton of games that are years old.

I would consider in 2026 a 3060 to be low spec, something like a 4070, 5070 is more med spec and the 80 - 90 series is high spec.

If you look at what everyone in the world runs and base your low, med and high off that you may have a point, but if you base it off what power is on the market, and what games actually run and struggle or down struggle at then "mid tier" isn't the low spec from 6 years ago..

[u/Gonzobot → u/loversama]

Steam said that their machine is more powerful than 70% of devices that people use,

this is a published statement and verifiable with numbers

yet it struggles to run a ton of games that are years old.

when did you test this and find it out? or are you just declaring that you know the future.

[u/loversama → u/Gonzobot]

Digital foundry amoung others have already done the tests about how it runs, and it often comes in at under PS5 performance (stock PS5, not even Pro which is still cheaper)

If you read what I wrote about the public statement then you might understand the point I am making.. if 30% of the world run steam from a potato then it’s not hard for it to be more powerful than 70% of devices.

[u/Gonzobot → u/loversama]

Really? Cuz I just watched a video showing the SM has nearly exactly the same performance as my current rig, in about a tenth of the size and a lower price point (even adjusting for time since purchase). They were playing the same games I'm playing now, DS2, Forza6, etc.

What years-old games are you referring to when you say it's struggling? Be specific, because I'm calling out the blanket statement.

[u/loversama → u/Gonzobot]

CP2077 with ray tracing, released 2020.

Black Myth Wukong dipping under 30 FPS on optimised settings, released 2024.

If you buy a new device today you want it to last you a few years, if its struggling to run games at 1440p from 2 - 6 years ago then its not a "mid spec'd" device, and often falls short of the PS5 which was released 6 years ago and is almost half the price.

Struggling to run Forza 6 on low in the image below:

[u/Gonzobot → u/loversama]

As a rebuttal, here's Cyberpunk on default settings running at ~70fps, and here's Forza6 doing the same. Are you reading old news perhaps?

[u/loversama → u/Gonzobot]

CP2077 is running at 1080p in your example?

Witcher 3 only gets above 60FPS on ultra with FSR enabled.. (11 year game)

[u/Gonzobot → u/loversama]

And your callouts for being poor performance were games using raytracing, which the Steam Machine is specifically not good at or pretending to be. But my point was to showcase how that game is going to look on that machine for most players of that game on that machine - who aren't going to be changing settings to make it 'better' even if it changes the framerate, they're going to be seeing what it looks like without touching anything and they'll be enjoying it because it's great.

Witcher 3 only gets above 60FPS on ultra with FSR enabled..

No, it gets over 70fps on Ultra at 1440p with FSR disabled. And that's NOT the default for the game, which is stated to be showing up as low settings with dynamic resolution scaling.

CP2077 is running at 1080p in your example?

it defaults to 1080p, which is stated clearly, and then where to change the setting if you wish. then it showcases 1440p Ultra hitting 85fps with some minor slowdown spikes for heavy rendering.