4 ms·

Is the Steam Machine a decently priced desktop compared to the "generic" ones?

by rbanffy 4mo ago

giancarlostoro 4mo ago
[dead]
artisinal 4mo ago
For a small gaming box it is a good price. If you don’t care that much about size, HDMI-CEC or SteamOS there are faster alternatives for the price.
- voidUpdate 4mo ago
  Especially since, afaik, you plug it in and it just works. No messing around with installing operating systems, setting up users (aside from signing into steam) or anything. It's essentially a console that plays PC games, but it's also a PC for the purposes of upgradability and ability to do other, non-console stuff with it
  - weberer 4mo ago
    >No messing around with installing operating systems This is the real killer feature. So many people that I talk to know they want Linux, but are deathly afraid of installing it themselves.
- hamdingers 4mo ago
  If you do care about SteamOS, any machine with a reasonably recent AMD GPU will run SteamOS or a similar distro just fine.
oAlbe 4mo ago
Gamers Nexus did a very in depth review of the Steam Machine [1], which includes a comparison to a build yourself similar machine. The result is that for about 70 dollars less you can put together a somewhat more powerful PC than the Steam Machine, but not for that form factor, it would still be bigger. IMO, the Steam Machine is not a bad purchase if you are in the market for that type of product. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=66QzlDewigE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=66QzlDewigE
haunter 4mo ago
Wildly depends where you live. For the same price I can get a prebuilt desktop PC with double the performance (Ryzen 7 5700 + RTX 5060 Ti) Even if you go mini ITX you can get a better PC with 50% more performance (Ryzen 7 5600x + RTX 5060) https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/498435-diy-45l-steam-machine-killer-mini-itx-pc-build https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/498435-diy-45l-steam-m...
delecti 4mo ago
You can't build a machine which is as powerful, small, quiet, and cheap, nor can you take for granted that a machine you build can have a controller that can wake it from sleep, or which has HDMI-CEC (both are possible, but take extra work or hardware). You can rather easily build a machine with multiple of those attributes, but you'll have to pick ones to sacrifice in the name of the others.
- tl 4mo ago
  I like the SteamDeck I have, but it doesn't do HDMI-CEC or controller wake from sleep today. Valve needs to prove the Steam Machine doesn't fail here.
  - delecti 4mo ago
    The Steam Deck itself doesn't have an HDMI port, but the official dock does, and that does support HDMI-CEC (support was added to SteamOS a couple years ago). The Steam Deck also does support controller wake from sleep (added in the past year or so); I've actually seen people complaining about their Steam Decks waking up when they didn't realize that feature existed. And all of the reviews I've seen about the Steam Machine talk about how well both of those features work.
    - tl 4mo ago
      It does not. Source: have a dock. Latest firmware installed from deck. And because the current Steam controller is a recent release, I had to try a whole mess of third party controllers before settling on PS5 controllers because everything else I tried had Bluetooth pairing issues / disconnects as you approached four controllers. SteamDeck as a handheld is great plus or minus a few nits baked onto the power / battery life choices Valve made. SteamDeck -> TV and SteamDeck -> USB-C KVM are both workable, with caveats. I had hoped we would see the bug fixes you describe before the Steam Machine release. Alas, no.
      - esseph 4mo ago
        You are confidently incorrect. SteamDeck supports HDMI-CEC as of 3.7 ~2 years ago, using the original dock or select third party docks. --- How to Enable CEC: Press the STEAM button and go to Settings. Navigate to the Display tab. On the right side of the screen, find and toggle on Enable HDMI CEC Support. Ensure Wake TV when device resumes from sleep is also enabled.
weberer 4mo ago
Compared to buying from parts? No. Compared to an average prebuilt? You can probably find large tower PCs at a lower price, but they'll likely have a low quality motherboard or power supply. Compared to an average prebuilt that ships with Linux? Absolutely
- rbanffy 4mo ago
  I was thinking about the usual Dell and Lenovo boxes.

Is the Steam Machine a decently priced desktop compared to the "generic" ones?

by rbanffy 4mo ago

Is the Steam Machine a decently priced desktop compared to the "generic" ones?

giancarlostoro 4mo ago

[dead]

artisinal 4mo ago

For a small gaming box it is a good price. If you don’t care that much about size, HDMI-CEC or SteamOS there are faster alternatives for the price.

voidUpdate 4mo ago
Especially since, afaik, you plug it in and it just works. No messing around with installing operating systems, setting up users (aside from signing into steam) or anything. It's essentially a console that plays PC games, but it's also a PC for the purposes of upgradability and ability to do other, non-console stuff with it
- weberer 4mo ago
  >No messing around with installing operating systems This is the real killer feature. So many people that I talk to know they want Linux, but are deathly afraid of installing it themselves.
hamdingers 4mo ago
If you do care about SteamOS, any machine with a reasonably recent AMD GPU will run SteamOS or a similar distro just fine.

oAlbe 4mo ago

Gamers Nexus did a very in depth review of the Steam Machine [1], which includes a comparison to a build yourself similar machine. The result is that for about 70 dollars less you can put together a somewhat more powerful PC than the Steam Machine, but not for that form factor, it would still be bigger. IMO, the Steam Machine is not a bad purchase if you are in the market for that type of product. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=66QzlDewigE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=66QzlDewigE

haunter 4mo ago

Wildly depends where you live. For the same price I can get a prebuilt desktop PC with double the performance (Ryzen 7 5700 + RTX 5060 Ti) Even if you go mini ITX you can get a better PC with 50% more performance (Ryzen 7 5600x + RTX 5060) https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/498435-diy-45l-steam-machine-killer-mini-itx-pc-build https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/498435-diy-45l-steam-m...

delecti 4mo ago

You can't build a machine which is as powerful, small, quiet, and cheap, nor can you take for granted that a machine you build can have a controller that can wake it from sleep, or which has HDMI-CEC (both are possible, but take extra work or hardware). You can rather easily build a machine with multiple of those attributes, but you'll have to pick ones to sacrifice in the name of the others.

tl 4mo ago
I like the SteamDeck I have, but it doesn't do HDMI-CEC or controller wake from sleep today. Valve needs to prove the Steam Machine doesn't fail here.
- delecti 4mo ago
  The Steam Deck itself doesn't have an HDMI port, but the official dock does, and that does support HDMI-CEC (support was added to SteamOS a couple years ago). The Steam Deck also does support controller wake from sleep (added in the past year or so); I've actually seen people complaining about their Steam Decks waking up when they didn't realize that feature existed. And all of the reviews I've seen about the Steam Machine talk about how well both of those features work.
  - tl 4mo ago
    It does not. Source: have a dock. Latest firmware installed from deck. And because the current Steam controller is a recent release, I had to try a whole mess of third party controllers before settling on PS5 controllers because everything else I tried had Bluetooth pairing issues / disconnects as you approached four controllers. SteamDeck as a handheld is great plus or minus a few nits baked onto the power / battery life choices Valve made. SteamDeck -> TV and SteamDeck -> USB-C KVM are both workable, with caveats. I had hoped we would see the bug fixes you describe before the Steam Machine release. Alas, no.
    - esseph 4mo ago
      You are confidently incorrect. SteamDeck supports HDMI-CEC as of 3.7 ~2 years ago, using the original dock or select third party docks. --- How to Enable CEC: Press the STEAM button and go to Settings. Navigate to the Display tab. On the right side of the screen, find and toggle on Enable HDMI CEC Support. Ensure Wake TV when device resumes from sleep is also enabled.

weberer 4mo ago

Compared to buying from parts? No. Compared to an average prebuilt? You can probably find large tower PCs at a lower price, but they'll likely have a low quality motherboard or power supply. Compared to an average prebuilt that ships with Linux? Absolutely

rbanffy 4mo ago
I was thinking about the usual Dell and Lenovo boxes.