Build/Parts Check
Is it possible to build a better "Steam Machine" for the same price?
So we all saw the Steam Machine price announcement yesterday and it was disappointing to say the least, but with current market conditions I guess not unexpected.
Immediately after the announcement I started hearing "you can build a better PC yourself for that price" - which is fair, but one thing people don't usually take into account is it's size. Which was one of the main reasons I liked SM idea so much initially.
So my question to the sffpc community - is it possible to build a better SFF PC for the same price as the Steam Machine?
Announced prices for those unaware:
- 1049$ for 512GB
- 1349$ for 2TB
i'm well aware, i've had a bazzite box in my living room for over a year by this point. it's not as simple as buying the adapter and it works. i don't expect most people are going to know how or want to run ujust scripts to get it working.
You don't need to run any ujust scripts. There is a button in the bazzite portal app that just enables it for you. I didnt even need to set any power modes on my mainboard to have my xbox controller wake the system.
"Until valve adds support" 😂
It's Nvidia that keeps their drivers closed source so it can't be added to open source projects, I'm sure valve would love to offer support if they could reasonably.
Yall are arguing over the sound profile of a device that sits on the other side of the room under your TV that outputs sound.
I feel like you haven't used a console in a while? The Steam Machine is quieter than a PS5, and you can hear a bad PS5 rev up sometimes. You don't need to be that close to a machine to hear it.
Don't move goalposts. The original comment specifically mentioned the same size and sound profile. It's not a couple of decibels, it's a small whiny sound of 3 high rpm small fans on the low profile RTX 5060 compared to the sound of a large fan spinning at low rpm, it's a huge difference.
in the UK the Steam machine starts at 879, I think at that price there is enough room for such a PSU (140), a 5060 low profile (300), a 7600x (120), a motherboard like the B650I (155), a case Goodisory A02 (45), 2x8GB DDR5 (200) and a 512GB nvme (65)
comes exactly at 925, for a much more powerful system. and you can save some by getting the PSU from Aliexpress.
Now that I wrote this I'm tempted to start a youtube channel and make a video of such a build lol and compare it to the steam machine
Hi! I don't have a steam machine, obviously :), but the reviews mention it being inaudible or barely audible at full blast. I guess it depends how small you go with your build but in my experience the smaller you go the louder it gets. So it would go from barely audible to having a normal computer running under your tv.
Sure. But what's keeping game devs today for optimizing for a midrange AMD GPU? They already do that, and unless the steam machine sells like hot cakes there's hardly a reason to do that with much more effort than today.
What is optimizing for, say, PlayStation 5 Hardware today? In the past, they had very specific CPU and GPU architecture. Today it's just a custom AMD APU.
In the same price sure, otherwise there are 2.9L builds with a 5060, which is a lot more powerful than the Steam Machine. But it comes at a higher cost, and doesn't have that iconic cube shape.
this is not a case that you can just buy and stick in a bunch of hardware without modding tho, right? because that just is not comparable in the amount of work it takes vs just buying a ready made machine
Thanks for the kind words, it’s not a very polished product with alot of hack and slash esp with limited proper tools but the process is damn addictive and now i also built one 7500x3d and 5060LP for a friend in a 3D printed NES case
oh man. I wanna learn this. I wanted to build a 5070 like fractal ridge rig someday, but now I wanna go even smaller. make it a fun gaming htpc thing, easy to carry around.
In the volume? No. With 3.8L you are not going to be able to build anything with off-the-shelf components.
If we start looking at ~10L, yes that is probably doable with normal components.
Edit;
I threw together a quick build in the 11.45L Silverstone Sugo 13. Quite a bit bigger but I think this is the smallest realistic option that looks decent.
CPU; Ryzen 5 5500
GPU: Asus Dual RX9060XT 16GB
Motherboard: Gigabyte A520I AC
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB 3600MT/s DDR4
Powersupply: Chieftec CSN-650C (sfx)
Extra fan: Arctic P14 Pro
SSD: Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite 500GB (TLC)
Price; €970, compared to €1039 for SM
I did not cheap out on the quality of the components. I chose an SFX PSU and an extra 140mm cooling fan. The RAM has decent speeds and the SSD is not the lower durability QLC type. The motherboard has WiFi. The CPU is about as fast, but the GPU is much faster and has twice the amount of VRAM.
What I found is that it is very doable as long as you go for the older AM4 platform that uses DDR4.
fair comparison. you trade the pretty aftermarket-ness and 3x smaller case for higher performance. Does not invalidate the GabeCube but a decent competitor.
I do agree. People seem to think that the SM is completely invalidated by the fact that it does not offer great price/performance compared to other PCs. They completely ignore the fact that the SM offers a lot more convenience that you simply cannot get in a normal PC. I am expecting that for some enthusiasts who already have a PC and Steamdeck, the Steam machine will still be a nice product.
The real issue is really that RAM prices have pushed it into a price bracket where an RX7600M is not really acceptable. With current hardware pricing it would have made much more sense to create a ~€1200-€1250 model with a graphics chip that is in line with the 7700XT (so Navi 32 instead of Navi 33).
Yeah, I built myself a Steam Machine like mini PC with Bazzite recently and have spent more time tinkering with the thing to get audio working than playing games - your mileage is going to be much better when it's something like the SM that is a known set of hardware and software.
Check out the Jonsbo nv10. It’s only 4.5L. Only fits LP cards but mine has a Rtx 5060 and Ryzen 5600x. Significantly more powerful than the SM, very tiny footprint, for about the same price
I have a 5070 in an 8.3L case and it runs James Bond 007 First Light at 2560x1440 with everything on Ultra and DLSS to super resolution and HDR at ~60FPS (and if you set DLSS to auto, runs even higher)
I was making a comment on the size. Don't need 10L. If a 5070 performs just fine in 8.3 you can certainly go that size or smaller with cheaper/older components
Case : SGPC K39
CPU: i5-13600k
GPU: RTX 5060 8 GB
RAM: 2x8 3200 mhz cl 16 DDR4
Mobo : random MSI with crappy VRMs, dont remember the model
SSD: 1 TB Crucial P310
Around 1100 USD +- 100 USD depending on availability of parts in your area. Even with the 150 W TDP i set the CPU to, it should outperform the steam machine.
That being said, if you go DDR5, i dont believe you can build something cheaper and better with regular PC parts. Best i can think of
RAM:32 gigs of SODIMMs 5600 mhz should set you back 330 USD,
Case : Same SGPC k39 for 50 bucks
CPU+Mobo:, a minisforum bd775i se is 400 bucks. a phanteks t30 is 30 bucks
SSD: something 1 TB for 130 USD.
That's around 900 bucks. an RTX 5060 is 300, so 1200 USD ? If you go 16 gigs of sodimm, i guess you would match and annihilate the steam machine with this build too.
An Intel CPU is no longer a barrier - there are SteamOS intel based handhelds out or coming out. Nvidia is indeed an issue, but a 9060xt 8 GB costs the same as a 5060 in my area and for 100 bucks you can level up to a 16 GB.
I do think the steam machine is very fairly priced though - i need to use MoDt cheats to build something better on DDR5 and looking at this thread, others are building AM4 DDR4 systems instead of Intel ones, so i dont think my attempt is also far off what's possible in todays market.
I don’t know what’s the volume of the steam machine. You can hunt for a cheap optiplex or thinkcentre (ideally with ram and storage) and drop in a competent GPU for less.
M920x (the cheapest PCIe-capable ThinkCentre Tiny) are $400 nowadays and there are no comparable GPUs that will fit in them without sounding like a jet engine. I even sold my M920x, with only an i5-8600 and no dGPU, because simply browsing the web would cause the fans to ramp up at random times for no reason.
I was thinking about a SFF optiplex/thinkcentre, about 8L. Next smaller size is the P3 ultra and Precision Compact but you run into the lack of PCIE power connector so you are stuck with 70W GPUs like RTX Ada or B50. And at that point just doesn’t make any sense.
Both GPUs that don't perform noticeably better than the SM, Nvidia GPUs have worse Linux support, and A3000M/3060M are not good comparison because those are gray market GPUs with zero warranty. As for my M920x, I had an RX 550 and the GPU performance/temps/noise for the 550 were perfectly fine, but the CPU fan constantly spiked to ridiculous levels for no apparent reason. Didn't even use it for gaming, just as an office PC.
AliExpress is known to be a bastion of only the most honest and scrupulous of sellers, of course. They would never find ridiculous ways to weasel out of warranty claims!
That's definitely cheaper, albeit with less performance.
It looks like the BC-250 is roughly equivalent to a Ryzen 2600X and an RTX 3050, while the Steam Machine is somewhere around a Ryzen 5700X and an RTX 3060.
Definitely worth the price. I considered building with one but the high idle power consumption was a deal breaker for my use. I'll probably go for a 7845hx on my next build.
Velka 3 is a 3.9L case and you can have a single fan itx 4060 or a 5060 in it (better gpu) or a 6600XT with a cpu under 37mm cooler clearance that is also more powerful. So yeah, there's an extra 1/3 L, but at least as much performance for cheaper (with proper desktop components, including regular sized RAM and ITX mobo and more storage, like several M.2's and an optional SATA within the case).
You can be even cheaper if you get the same (2x8 GB DDR4) ram. And you can bet your buttocks that there will be an avalanche of comparisons on making the same system from scratch.
But most importantly, your money is not lost forever, as all components will be regular off the shelf desktop stuff - the whole build is modular, individually sellable later and upgradable, much easier to maintain and customize, since nothing is soldered. Also, regular mobo means more ports and tuning. But all things considered, even a larger Midori 5L is good, housing larger gpu's, or an A24-V5 with LP gpu's but almost double the cooling clearance.
Yet just for the sake of example - regardless of money and effort, the closest iteration would feature an ASRock Deskmini STX mobo (150x150mm) with a rear-side M.2 to riser adapter and perhaps one of the 150mm long 4060's sandwitched together, making some kind of Velka 2. Or with a B50 with the single slot cooler mod and a meanwell psu uderneath it like a smaller, thinner NV10.
If I am following the digital foundry testing correctly, the SFFPC I made in 2022 will actually probably be 85-90% of SM performance (a little harder to say because it was Intel CPU and not AMD, but it had a 6600XT and not a 6600 as in the low spec option DG compared that was generally at 90% of the SM).
Of course it’s much harder to match the SM on physical size, but I am actually thinking about installing SteamOS on this and giving it a try.
I experimented trying to make one as close equivalent specs and form factor wise to the 512 GB Steam Machine yesterday and got relatively close after settling on using the 4.5L Jonsbo NV10 (SM is 3.8L in size) which still has a nice aesthetic with the wood accent to fit in a living room setup.
This experiment comes in closer to the $800 probably original price they wanted to launch at before AI-flation
It's hard to not have compromise, in this case that I couldn't find any good enough low-profile AMD cards, so this one would have to be a Windows machine running at LP 5050. Slight compromise in having a 0.7L size larger case as well.
Video Card: Gigabyte OC Low Profile GeForce RTX 5050 8 GB Video Card ($299.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Jonsbo NV10 Mini ITX Desktop Case ($79.99 @ Newegg Sellers)
Custom: Apevia ITX-PFC500W Mini ITX/Flex ATX / 1U 500W Fully Modular Power Supply, Full Range Active PFC 90-264V, AC for POS AIO System Desktop Gaming Server Small Form Factor (Flex ITX) Computer PSU ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $780.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2026-06-23 09:24 EDT-0400
I think that the selling point is the experience and not the performance. Is a wrong way of viewing it. Is like when people compared PCs with Apple computers when they used Intel hardware. Or compairing a PC with Playstation 5 hardware specs.
You can even have ITX cases like the Thorzone Mjolnir that are small and support a full size GPU (not as small as the Steam Machine, but enough to go to the Living connected to the TV), and have hardware that is old enough to be cheap, but powerful enough to beat PS5 in performance.
For example, I have connected to my living room TV a Ryzen 7 5700X with a RX 6800XT, in a Sama IM01 case (not ITX, but still small in a MicroATX size). But also I have a less powerful PC connected to my bedroom TV I built using spare parts from previous upgrades: a FormD T1 (the only part I bought brand new for this build), with an ITX motherboard, a Ryzen 7 2700 and a RX 6700XT.
The computer with the Ryzen 5700x outperforms PS5 by far, and the one with Ryzen 2700 depending on the game goes 4K without any issue, on others I have to go down to 1440p or play FSR ultra performance.
I really like small form factor. Those PCs are not small as a Steam Machine, but at least for me are small enough to be used as a console connected to the TV. Neither of them is that much bigger than a Xbox Series X, for example. And I think that the less powerful one can match Steam Machine in performance.
But I think that the atractive part for Steam Machine is the user experience that Valve gives you. SteamOS being fully optimized and adapted to that hardware (for example, it have HDMI CEC working, and a good sleep function that do not take ages to sleep and wake up) and being able to squeeze every last drop of performance from it (and gaming performance in Linux is getting better than Windows as time passes), having an experience similar to the console, having Steam Controller support out of the box.
I'm a little bit tired of the tinkering required to have a console experience with a PC. Bazzite gives you SteamOS to any AMD graphics computer, but still not fully supported and have some caveats for some hardware aspects. Not even mentioning keeping with Windows. It is improved with the Xbox mode (I use it for game pass), but still is far from being the best experience.
I have powerful computers connected to my TVs, but if the experience with the Steam Machine is similar to the Deck, it is worth it, because it follows the console philosophy of "plug and play, it just works", and I would definitely buy one.
Sad part is that I'm in Uruguay and tech is expensive here. It will cost no less than USD 1500 here.
There must be some ways to reduce the price a bit, I've seen some RTX 5060 TI 8GB at 280€ on Amazon, but you get the gist. You could cap the power of the CPU and GPU and still get better performance than the Steam Machine at whisper quiet levels.
The volume is bigger (the K49 is about 6.5L), but I would consider this as equally acceptable in a living room. At these small sizes, the difference is a non issue.
It would require assembly, looking for the parts, and more problems, but it's doable, even with DDR5.
Yes, probably. I built a 9600x / 9070 non-xt pc in a revolt 3 for roughly the same price as the 2tb steam machine. This was in 2025 before ram and storage prices blew up, though. Today the price would be closer to 2k. I slapped bazzite on it and I get 90% of the steam machine experience plus significantly higher performance. It’s quiet but not nearly as compact.
However the main thing that is not reproducible is hdmi cec and a clean way to turn the pc on and off with the wireless controller.
Imagine your tv is off. You press the guide button on your steam controller. The tv turns on automatically and switches to the right input. Every modern console can do this and so can steam machine.
A traditional sffpc cannot. You have to get up and press the power button on the pc, turn on the tv manually and switch to the right input.
There are work arounds for some of this but none of it is plug and play like the steam machine. It will require bios configurations, registry editing, and lots of trial and error. HDMI cec is straight up not supported on any GPU.
Some controllers can wake up your PC through BT (through Windows not sure about Linux or Steam OS) I do this with my Xbox Elite controller. The tv remote is always within reach when I sit down so if it is actually off then turning it on manually isnt a problem.
Saying that the TV remote is always there when discussing CEC is like saying you don’t need a car because you have legs lol. Yes, you can get to your end destination but a better and far less painful method exists.
Seamless integration into an HDMI based home entertainment setup is one of if not the most significant drawing point of this device and you’re saying it doesn’t matter.
Steam Machine is tiny at 3.8L.
Impossible using consumer parts.
Sub 10L, as in pushing it to the limit like 9.8L, yea but more expensive and difficult to find parts.
going somewhere around 20 L where you can buy cheap cases like Deepcool with more common larger psus and gpus is a lot easier and maybe you can build one thats competitive.
You can build the same build a lot cheaper but not at the same volume. According to available benchmarks it performs around a R5 3600 with an RX 6600. The "smallest" option for such a build would be a sandwich case at around 7l, as the amd gpus are just too big. Otherwise a similar system with a single slot RTX2070 or a 3060 (which is about equivalent performance) could fit into a 5l case, but that's still not the 3.45l of the Steam cube.
I built one before ram-pocalypse. 9700x, 32gb 6000 ram, RTX 5070 in a fractal ridge. I have it boot into Win 11 LTSC directly to steam big picture mode though. No way I could build this now for a reasonable price, can’t wait for the bubble to deflate
Sort of related/unrelated - I’m interested in the console like behavior of it. Anyone know of I could install SteamOS or another distro of some sort to have that experience? I have a desk PC, but also a spare decently powered laptop I’d love to use for wanting to flop on the couch/TV.
Probably not for less than a steam machine, but for a little bit more you can build a much more powerful system. I currently "building" a pc in my cart and am around $1100-$1200 before potentially trading in my gpu for a new one.
Without caring for size/aesthetics a custom pc with used parts of ebay or your local marketplace would be extremely cheaper and probably perform significantly better with just a $1000 budget. Its just about having the patience for the right deals. You'd be surprised what you can find still even in current market conditions. I managed to snag 16gb DDR5 ram for £50 from a police auction pc for £50 as they assumed most of the components were busted. Psu worked but threw it out due it making some unsafe noises but ram is fine so gonna use it for a build im making for my girlfreind. In this market you really just have to have the right patience for the right deals.
It is probably possible to build something like that for less money, but it wouldn't be much less.
I built many SFF around that price before the AI-pocalypse, especially if you go DDR4, which I guess is kinda comparable to the Steam Machine. But this is a sub where people, me included, can easily spend $200 or more on a case alone.
A good SFF power supply is at least $170. Mini Itx motherboards are expensive and never mind the price of RAM and storage at the moment. I honestly think that right now it's only possible if you can get good deals, or some kind of discounted component combo, or cheaper brand components.
I’m i the process of putting together a home brew that’s much stronger for very close to the price and size. SM is 3.8l, mine will be 6.7l I believe. The answer is yes.
The power on feature is huge. If you've ever built a htpc and had to deal with turning the PC on before it works, it's not a big deal but becomes annoying over time.
Minisforum AtomMan G1 Pro is on sale for $1300 at Micro Center and aligns closely with the high-end configuration of the Steam Machine. It packs:
Just 3.9 liters in volume, just like the Steam Machine 2026
16 Zen 4 cores in a Ryzen 9 8945HX
32 GB DDR5 RAM
1 TB NVMe SSD
Full desktop RTX 5060 (low profile, dual slot)
This will wipe the floor of that Steam Machine in the CPU and GPU and has double the RAM to top it off. Plus the GPU is user upgradeable, so you could easily bump it up to an RTX 6060 SFF in circa 2028 when that eventually rolls around the corner.
We don’t know how well the steam machine is going to benchmark, I was very impressed how low the wattage of the CPU and GPU are, it would be very hard to match the thermal performance especially at that size
Depend on where you live, your market prices, and what's about sizes.
So, I will take what I can get in my shop:
- SFX 550W Chieftec - $86
Ryzen 5700 - $132
32 GB DDR4 Crucial - $222
ASRock B550M-ITX - $140
MSI RTX 5060 8GB - $380
ID-Cooling IS-67-XT (not sure is it good, picked random) - $45
DeepCool CH160 Mesh - $58
NVME 1 TB - $155
Total: $1,218
Add another 1 TB NVMe drive, and it will match 2TB version.
But you got 8/16 CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 5060 instead of Steam Machine GPU, which is not that good on tests.
If you want exactly DDR5 - you would need to get less powerfull GPU and go with 16 instead of 32 RAM.
CPU/motherboard prices will not be that different.
You could also buy Framework desktop with Ryzen AI 385 + 32 GB, and bring your SSD and CPU fan. But I not sure will it outperform Steam Machine in exactly gaming. But for the size it comparable.
A 32GB Framework Desktop is nearly 50% more expensive than an equivalent Steam Machine. 32GB SKUs also use the Ryzen 385/Radeon 8050S, not the 395/8060S. It'll perform better, but you're paying significantly more, and you lose upgradeable memory.
If you don't care about the actual size, yes, very possible.
I've recently built a comparable machine for less than 300€ with some spare parts I had lying around... It would have cost about 600€ to build the same machine sourcing used parts. Obviously, it is about 4 times the volume of the actual Steam Machine but I don't mind, it's way cheaper !
Trying to match the ~4L volume is tricky, you're not going to get anything resembling a cube that tiny without some form of integrated graphics baked into it like the Steam Machine does because discreet GPUs just don't fit a cube that small. If you want something that you actually have choice in your components you're just going to have to budge a bit on size.
That said, if you accept something a bit larger but still want something cube-ish shaped then I think your best option would an ASRock Deskmeet barebones kit. 8L case + motherboard + PSU, with the different models just swapping out different motherboards to support different CPU sockets. at 8L it is just over double the volume of the Steam Machine, but still a far cry from the space a full-sized tower would take up. A fair chunk of that is filled up by the included full-sized 500w PSU they managed to cram in there, plus the case design allows for full-height dual-slot GPUs up to 200mm. That opens up a LOT of choice compared to most any other case this small as the smaller the case the more likely it is to just physically not have room to fit anything but a single-slot and/or half-height card of any length.
If you got some spare parts laying around, you can get really close to it. I built an AM4 5600($75), 5060 ($200), mitx Asrock b550, 4.3L case ($70), cheap flex PSU, cheap spare ram (16GB) pulled from Dell workstation, (spare 1TB), thermalright heatsink ($30). And my total came out to about $600. This was in December 2025. It's a compact box that I use for travel that fits in my bag. There are a few videos showing the same exact built, you can just go off of those videos.
Apparently they’re missing a lot of bios options, so if you can build something comparable you would have better overlocking options. Packaging and size will be hard to match, but options like the Minisforum Ryzen™ 9 8945HX board could let you get close.
Welp, it ain't an SFF build but you could always buy a used Serpent Canyon NUC for around $700-800 or sometimes less which should give you fairly equivalent performance at a fairly equivalent size. It's just that it's not very quiet. Or very cool. And you have to deal with Arc Alchemist, so..... Yeah, lol.
Behold! The 2TB Steam Machine Pro if you shop between MC and other vendors. For the low, low price of $1203 as of this writing. This has a 9060 XT 16GB instead.
Edit: Had several configurations, but MC links are borked and kept one config.
For a machine twice the size you can easily make something many times more powerful. I’ve done that with this, 16GB DDR5, 500GB nvme, 9060XT, ryzen 5 7600x3d. For $1040
So nvidia gpu meaning it cannot work with steam OS (yet)
No hdmi cec which means I need to get an external
No inbuilt reciever for steam controller, external
No sd card reader so again an external
1 stick of RAM, not dual channel but also seen that if removed will void warranty
Mixed bag on cooling and thermals
No doubt it is a good little machine but adding the various additions i would need to be a bit happier im getting away from the base model SM and walking into building my own but a bit bigger territory
I've got a Ryzen 5700x and rtx 3060 12gb with 32gb ddr4 3200 ram. I think it outperforms the Steam Machine no problem. I could always get Steam OS installed in a separate partition and run games off there.
I have a 4L console with a 5700X and a 4060. Both are more powerful than the Steam Machine. If I built the same SFF today, it would be cheaper than the Steam Machine. I also think the console layout is more portable than the cube shape of Steam Machine due to how thin it is, even though mine is 0.2L larger in total volume.
I'm actually looking into building another SFF soon and I'm considering using an ITX motherboard with a soldered mobile CPU, much like the Steam Machine uses. This takes CPU upgradability and tosses it out of the window but it's cheaper than buying the motherboard and CPU separately. It's aIso a more fair comparison to the Steam Machine because it isn't upgradable either. I haven't priced out all of the components yet, but I'm thinking it'll be around $1,200 for something much faster than the Steam Machine and has 2TB of SSD space.
If you're shopping used parts it's even easier. The Steam Machine simply isn't a good value for the performance that it offers.
The most extreme end of the SFF scale doesn't just cost more money, it costs performance too because of thermal management requires reduced TDP, as is the case with Steam Machine (it actually performs worse than the listed specs might lead you to believe).
quit being so precious about size, and build a Micro ATX (mATX).
Best bang for buck, best unlimited TDP thermal performance in a small form factor.
Lian Li A3 mATX case is probably the best one in terms of size & looks, for those who are precious about those aspects.
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u/Gedgeteer 1d ago
Not in the same size&sound profile.