6 ms·

A bit too sparse on details. - No price - No indication for whether the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD are upgradable or all soldered together on the board. - "4K gaming at

• haunter 1y ago
  8GB VRAM + 4K + FSR3 is very tough situation. Basically bit better than an Xbox Series S but quickly outpaced by midrange PCs. It will all come down to the price.
  • paxys 1y ago
    Yeah non-upgradable 8GB VRAM would make it a no-go for all but the most casual gamers. But then the casual gamers would rather buy a PS5 for the same price, so let's see where this one fits in.
    • whynotminot 1y ago
      The size here is actually important too. I think the PS5 is monstrously large and ugly. I do not want it in my living room. If this little box is roughly PS5 power and reasonably priced (we shall see) then that might hit just right.
    • MBCook 1y ago
      They already own the PC market. This seems more like a play to start to introduce Steam towards more of the console market. And for that, assuming a reasonable price, it looks like a nice attempt. Certainly much better than last time.
    • haunter 1y ago
      Yeah it's confirmed solderd and not-upgradable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ&t=591s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ&t=591s
    • Kirby64 1y ago
      It's essentially an RX 7600, roughly. It's not quite 'the most casual gamer', but it isn't super amazing. But... neither is the steam deck, and steam deck flies off the shelves.
    • SchemaLoad 1y ago
      Quite a lot of actual casual games, things you'd see in the indie or "cosy"/stardew valley-like genre only release on PC, or they take years to come to the Switch but nothing else. I see a lot of casual gamers getting the Steam Deck just because it's has the best selection of casual games. For casual games even the steam deck can run most of them at 4k 60fps
    • Jnr 1y ago
      As a Steam Deck owner since pre-orders, unless the price is extremely high, I am going to get the Steam Machine as well. Kids plug the Steam Deck to TV to do couch co-op gaming even though the resolution is only 720p. So getting a better resolution and performance while still getting access to the huge Steam library and non-steam games (Minecraft, etc.) is worth it. I don't care about the latest AAA titles and FPS shooters, for those I already have a desktop PC. PS5 is too expensive long term and is not usable for anything else. And when Steam Machine becomes obsolete, I'll probably just use it/gift it as a mini pc/home-server to someone in the family.
  • energy123 1y ago
    The performance has little to do with the amount of VRAM. The VRAM is just a cap on texture resolution.
  • mmis1000 1y ago
    They said they route vram/rams though the io die in the gamer nexus's video. Wondering if that means GPU will also have direct access to ram. So it will not actually be a very big problem? Probably slower, but not terribly swapping like those 8gb gpu.
• nalekberov 1y ago
  It's soldered on the board, Gamers Nexus has already reviewed it: https://youtu.be/bWUxObt1efQ?t=591 https://youtu.be/bWUxObt1efQ?t=591
• mayli 1y ago
  Yeah, gemini gives $649 - $699 for BOM, $749+ if they want some margin from the hardware. Which is cheaper than most "Gaming PC", but still more expensive than Switch/PS5, and lack the expandability of PC. I wish they could sell at $300-$500, that's really going to make this a must have for this year.
  • keyringlight 1y ago
    Using the deck prices seems like a good place to start unless they're using the opportunity to change strategy. It's an updated SoC, but minus a screen, battery, separate dock, built-in controller, and less pressure to pack it in a handheld chassis. They mention a built in wireless adapter for the controller, so I assume there will be bundles with and without a controller.
    • mayli 1y ago
      I feel the same way, it has to be priced in the range of gaming console rather than gaming PC.
      • keyringlight 1y ago
        If that's the case I think it's a hugely positive thing, and has gone away for newly bought hardware for a variety of reasons over the past decade. Having a basic PC and then upgrading it with a GPU used to be a realistic route to a respectable gaming PC, but I think that's largely gone away now (partially due to the death of the general "home PC" or many being on laptops. There are bargains to be had in the used market, but that comes with a lot of asterisks. If they can get this to a large market I think it's great value, not just as a console-model PC but because a full featured desktop without lockdown is so near. It's a reverse of where I've thought MS missed a trick with the xbox, add a keyboard and mouse and let users have turn on a sandboxed lightweight desktop mode then funnel users to get software through their store, which would have been a great way to get xbox hardware installed in houses (especially the cheap S models) during covid when there was a sudden rush to buy PCs for home working that previously didn't need it. This is targeted at the living room, but I'd love to see non-gaming uses highlighted and get the equivalent of 'deck certified' whether that's linux native or efforts into working well under wine.
• JeremyNT 1y ago
  There are some early previews where people ran some actual games at it[0]. Here are some of their results: > In Cyberpunk 2077, running at 4K, it’s a surprisingly stable 60fps, albeit with the caveat of that using FSR 3 upscaling on Performance mode with Medium quality settings. But, also: basic ray tracing, something the Deck can’t even think about enabling outside of very specific games. > The next game I tested, Black Myth: Wukong, is best run with its own RT effects switched off. Still, it also averaged around 60fps on otherwise similar settings: Performance-level FSR 3 upscaling to 4K, plus the Medium quality preset. And, in an almost unnerving repeat performance, Silent Hill f ran close enough to a solid 60fps (with most drops owed to Unreal Engine 5’s signature stuttering) on the Performance-level graphics settings and, once again, FSR 3 running on Performance mode. [0] https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/hands-on-with-the-new-steam-machine-valves-square-shot-at-steamos-pc-redemption https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/hands-on-with-the-new-steam...
  • andrepd 1y ago
    > In Cyberpunk 2077, running at 4K, it’s a surprisingly stable 60fps, albeit with the caveat of that using FSR 3 upscaling on Performance mode with Medium quality settings So it's not running at 4K nor 60fps. I wish people would stop calling 1080p upscale through some dogshit filter as "4K"...
    • rpmisms 1y ago
      I would call it TV 4k, not monitor 4k. FSR looks just fine from across the room.
    • encom 1y ago
      I agree 100%. However, the upscaling is pretty good. You can tell it's not 4K, but it's also considerably better than simple bilinear resampling from 1080p.
      • entropicdrifter 1y ago
        Especially FSR 2 and its subsequent iterations. The motion vectors let them basically do TAA on the upscaled image.
• legitster 1y ago
  > No indication for whether the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD are upgradable or all soldered together on the board. Almost certainly. This is the direction the industry is heading, and the perverse unavailability of high-end discrete graphics cards is the nail in the coffin. See also the Framework PC.
  • esskay 1y ago
    We do have an indication. The RAM and SSD are both upgradable. The RAM is SODIMM, and storage is NVME
    • SchemaLoad 1y ago
      I feel like these are the only things worth upgrading even in a desktop too. Unless you are the kind of person who buys the new CPU every year, upgrading anything in a desktop usually means replacing almost everything. Every time I've looked at upgrading a part in my PC it's been the case where the CPU socket has changed, memory has changed to the next number of DDR, etc so it's basically just buying a new one of everything but the storage, psu, and case. There are absolutely cases where I've wished I could upgrade the storage in devices though.
      • krige 1y ago
        No, not really. I bought my current motherboard in 2018, and it's still more than good enough - runs almost everything at max detail 1080p/1440p - after I replaced the CPU+GPU 2 years ago.
      • herewulf 1y ago
        Upgrading, yes, but sometimes one of those parts breaks and it is nice to be able to fix the machine with the cost of just that one part.
        • esskay 1y ago
          Valve's already said they hope to extend their relationship with ifixit to allow parts to be purchased, so that would presumably cover this kind of situation.
• jm4 1y ago
  It's basically a more powerful Steam Deck that's connected to a TV. The games will be "verified" and the settings pre-tuned for ideal performance just like the Steam Deck. They did a good job making the most of mediocre hardware in the Deck. My initial thoughts were that this thing would cost considerably more, but I'm looking at the specs and it might not be too bad. Maybe it'll start at $499 or $599 and go up $749 or $849. I'm guessing SoC and not easily upgraded. It says Zen4 so it won't be Strix Point/Halo, but maybe some bastard variation with a Zen4 core and newer GPU than the Deck.
• torben-friis 1y ago
  Consoles frequently get better performance than an equivalent pc because companies optimize for that specific hardware. Frame becoming a mainstream device (compared to any random combination of components) might make a difference that way.
• catlover76 1y ago
  [dead]
• mindcrash 1y ago
  > "No indication for whether the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD are upgradable or all soldered together on the board" With 99.9% certainty this box is carrying on the legacy of the Deck and the Deck OLED, which means that it has a 100% custom crafted SoC with soldered components. Which also means they also could perform some trickery not found in "normal" PCs, like UDMA and custom interface. > "but doesn't mention what kind of games it can run at that quality." According to the specs it has a custom RDNA 3 chip w/ 28 CUs and boost clock at 2.45Ghz. The Playstation 5 has a custom RDNA 2 chip w/ 36 CUs @ 2.23 GHz and the Xbox Series X has a custom RDNA2 2 chip w/ 52 CUs @ 1.83Ghz. Given the optimizations AMD made in RDNA 3 (the "budget" 9070XT can easily keep up with the prev gen "enthousiast" 9700XTX) I could make a safe bet it's on the same level of performance as a Playstation 5 > "No performance benchmarks, or mention of what the equivalent retail CPU/GPU to their custom one is." ~7600X, ~RX7700, but like I noted earlier that's meaningless because the overall architecture of the hardware in this box is likely completely incomparable with a generic PC (just like with XBX and PS5, by the way)
  • wmf 1y ago
    They said it's semi-custom discrete not a custom SoC. So basically it's a Ryzen 7400 + Radeon 7400.
    • mindcrash 1y ago
      I was close :)
    • puzzlingcaptcha 1y ago
      7400 clocks at 1.1 GHz so it's not really it. 7600m is what it looks like.
  • lawlessone 1y ago
    Would this be capable of utilizing the ray/path tracing many games have now?
    • mindcrash 1y ago
• butlike 1y ago
  All my friends have moved on to PC, and I don't really want to build a $1000 minimum computer with crazy LEDs that takes up a ton of space with a monitor at this point in my life. And SteamDeck doesn't support KB+M well. I have no qualms about couch gaming with a KB+M if I can do it with my friends and my already extensive Steam library. Unless they completely drop the ball on this, I'm in.
  • paxys 1y ago
    > and I don't really want to build a $1000 minimum computer with crazy LEDs that takes up a ton of space with a monitor at this point in my life. The beauty of a PC is you can build whatever you want. It doesn't need to be large, and doesn't need to have LEDs. There are plenty of small form factor cases on the market with the same footprint as this one.
    • YuukiRey 1y ago
      The Steam Machine is smaller than any case that would be considered mainstream in the small form factor community, at least to my knowledge. The FormD T1 is around 10L for example, and would look almost comically large compared to the Steam Machine. And enthusiast cases like this are often quite expensive and not easy to get. Then you need to think about thermals, and find hardware that actually fits. You can approach it form another angle and treat it more like a NUC and get a SoC but then you're probably not going to get close in terms of gaming performance. So long story short: I disagree that it would be straight forward to build something like this on your own, at the same price point.
      • paxys 1y ago
        How are you declaring it not possible "at the same price point" when the price of this isn't even announced?
        • joseda-hg 1y ago
          At the expected pricepoint, this Steam machine can't cost too much over say a PS5 or a regular PC with comparable specs and still make sense We're more or less waiting to see if / how much is Valve willing to subsidy the price with the expectation to recoup it with software
• WithinReason 1y ago
  SSD and RAM replaceable, CPU and GPU soldered according to Linus. GPU equivalent to AMD Radeon RX 7600M
• littlestymaar 1y ago
  > - No indication for whether the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD are upgradable or all soldered together on the board. SSD and RAM are upgradable, source: https://www.theverge.com/tech/818111/valve-steam-machine-hands-on-preview-specs-announcement https://www.theverge.com/tech/818111/valve-steam-machine-han...
• cubefox 1y ago
  > - No indication for whether the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD are upgradable or all soldered together on the board. According to a video by Digital Foundry, the main limitation will be the 8 GB of VRAM (some new games may require more), which definitely can't be upgraded.
• stoobs 1y ago
  "- No indication for whether the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD are upgradable or all soldered together on the board." SSD and RAM are user replaceable, CPU and GPU are soldered