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Steam Machine Teardown
- ToastyMallows 13y agoDamn, awesome specs. I also love the subtle unit marker, very cool idea.
- mikestew 13y ago$500 video card, huh? After complaining that $500 for the XBone was a little pricey (I bought one anyway), building my own got just a tad less appealing. I will be interested to see how much volume pricing brings down the final price at release.
- hdevalence 13y agoYou can build your own steam machine without a $500 graphics card.
- jagermo 13y agoor a cheaper one and upgrade from time to time.
- yaeger 13y agoand "from time to time" does not mean every other year in case somebody still thinks that. Nowadays you can go a very long time with even just a medium spec'd gpu and still compare favorably to consoles. But unlike consoles you have the option to upgrade it if you want to.
- ido 13y agoMight as well be the "standard" spec for a good 5+ years (see how long the xbox360 & ps3 stayed in production: 7-8 years), and prices for pc hardware drop quickly.
- salient 13y agoThat GPU is 3x faster than the one in Xbox One. Also, if you cared so much about performance/price, you should've gotten a PS4, which has a performance to price ratio of 1.8:1 compared to the Xbox One (1.8 Gflops/$400 vs 1.2 Gflops/$500), and you can play all games at 1080p.
- mikestew 13y agoI never mentioned price/performance at all. I also don't know anyone at Sony that can get me PS4 games at half price, so there's TCO and more than just the initial price. And my TV is 720p, so 1080p doesn't matter right now. Other than that, you were spot-on with your assumptions.
- girvo 13y agoLol :) Anyway, this is just one config for the SteamBox. Each beta tester has a different hardware config I'm pretty sure, from real cheap, up to an absolute beast. They did that because that's the plan with the OEMs too From my research, you'll be able to get or build an SB yourself cheaper than a next gen console with the same power at least. I'm excited by that!
- pandaman 13y agoI believe you meant Tflops, PS2 was already 6 Gflops just for the CPU units (MIPS and VUs combined), with pretty beefy GPU on top of that.
- ep103 13y agoValve released a large variety of steamboxes for this beta test, so they could test different hardware. Some of the boxes had 1k cards in them, some had cards on the lower end of the range. Don't get too attached to the 500$
- mikestew 13y agoAh, thanks for clarifying. I have not been following all that closely, despite having an interest, and took the iFixIt build to be the blessed standard to be followed by all others.
- jonesetc 13y agoBasically just a small form PC. Pretty much every component that will be messed with is just an off-the-shelf part. Not really any surprises here, but it's nice that it's all confirmed.
- User1398 13y agoThankfully, no proprietary HPU (hat processing unit).
- pekk 13y agoYou will need one to mine Valve's hatcoins
- User1398 13y agoAlthough we're joking, I wonder if Bitcoin would be far more successful if it originated within a platform like Steam. Let's say Steam replaced their wallet with Hatcoins. They allow users to add Hatcoins from their bank account, send Hatcoins to other users, purchase hats, and Steam games at a 2% discount if using Hatcoins during 2014. Valve runs the main Hatcoin exchange, and you'll have millions of people using the currency within a year. If I run a gaming site, I could start accepting Hatcoin donations or subscriptions, since they're already popular with gamers. Or, I could pay for servers using Hatcoins, buy Minecraft items with Hatcoins, Humble Bundles, games from GreenManGaming and GamersGate, etc. It seems like they would have something that Bitcoin doesn't, a lively economy and marketplace to add stability.
- macrael 13y agoThis reminds me of Microsoft Points et al which I find incredibly annoying. It's much friendlier to ask me to pay for things in the currency I use for everything else in my life.
- Loughla 13y agoThat was my thought. Pushing a new electronic currency in a locked-in environment such as steam comes across as a bit too company town and company store for my tastes.
- geetee 13y agoDoes anyone remember Infinium Labs and the Phantom[1]? I'm not at all trying to make vaporware accusations. I just can't believe it's been 10 years. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Entertainment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Entertainment
- pekk 13y agoWhat is the point of bringing that up here?
- geetee 13y agoThe Phantom was taking the same approach pretty much. Off the shelf PC parts and digital copies of games. Just interesting to see how much and how little changes in a decade.
- bicknergseng 13y agoOr how different doing the same approach can be with a successful, multibillion dollar company driving it.
- svantana 13y agoI don't care too much for gaming, but I'm in the market for a CUDA box, and this looks pretty much ideal...
- woodson 13y agoSame, but since I care mostly about double precision performance I won't be having much fun with the GTX 780.
- viggity 13y agoa coworker got into the beta and I got to play with the controller for a little bit yesterday. I really like the concept of the touch pads, especially as a big FPS person. Analog sticks just can't compare to a mouse, but the touch pad will make me consider switching some gaming to the living room. http://twitpic.com/dp50dp http://twitpic.com/dp50dp
- deletes 13y agoMake a video/report and post it on Hacker News!
- selectodude 13y agoWhy would ifixit knock off a point due to a full PC in a small form factor being a tight fit? Doesn't seem to make any sense.
- dnissley 13y agoIt's not just the tight fit, it's that without knowing/remembering the proper cable routing you might not be able to get everything to fit back in the case after taking it apart.
- Guvante 13y agoIf you do a small form factor PC yourself you will have extra lengths in your cables to make perfect cable routing not necessary. They provide shorter cables and thus require figuring out how to get it back together.
- vacri 13y agoThe cabling, cowling, and RAM were mentioned as being a little difficult. To me, 'a little difficult' would suggest that it can't actually get perfect marks for 'easy to do'.
- MartinCron 13y agoMy goodness, that thing has a PS/2 keyboard port. Maybe I can drag my first-generation Microsoft natural keyboard out of retirement.
- Zr40 13y agoSome gamers still prefer PS/2 if given the choice, even though there's little technical advantage. Although their most cited reason (key rollover) isn't valid; the keyboard determines how many simultaneous key presses it will transmit over USB.
- jksmith 13y agoHuge advantage. Whip out that 5lb Model M and get to clicking. Typing on an original right now.
- indlebe 13y agon key rollover is determined by the keyboard and the connector, if the keyboard supports it and your interface is PS/2 you do get full rollover.
- bri3d 13y agohttp://superuser.com/questions/16893/do-usb-or-ps-2-keyboards-respond-faster http://superuser.com/questions/16893/do-usb-or-ps-2-keyboard... PS/2 keyboards observationally are known to have a bit less latency. Since there are a ton of variables at play (keyboard controller, USB poll rate, PS/2 interrupt queuing, etc.) it's hard to evaluate just how much the difference will be with any given setup.
- falcolas 13y agoIt seems it's less about what the keyboard sends, and what the standard protocol allows: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=5572.msg85020#msg85020 http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=5572.msg85020#msg85020 I'm sure a keyboard could set up their own driver that allows more key presses, but that's certainly not the standard.
- tree6014 13y ago
- lambda 13y agoThis is the first console I've ever been interested in actually buying. I've always refused to buy devices that don't allow you to write and install your own software (I don't count hacks on them, so this is the first console that's actually open enough to meet my criteria. The nice thing is that this makes a pretty good off the shelf home theater PC even if I never actually use it for gaming.
- chroem 13y agoI'm curious, what phone do you use?
- freehunter 13y agoAndroid fits the bill for what he's described. It's doubtful that everything in a SteamBox is completely open source (including graphics drivers and firmware on various hardware), so even though Android isn't 100% open source, it's roughly on par with the openness of a common Linux desktop.
- Arelius 13y agoAndroid may be roughly on par with the openness of SteamOS. But you'd be hard pressed to argue that Android is roughly on par with the openness of the common Linux desktop.
- freehunter 13y agoOpen source Linux core where installed software may or may not be open source, with an increasing reliance on closed-source cloud applications? Closed source graphics drivers, network firmware, etc? I don't have any statistics obviously, but I would be willing to wager at least 50% of Linux desktops have some closed source installed or some reliance on a cloud provider. Even if it's Flash for watching YouTube videos.
- chongli 13y ago
- revelation 13y agoWhat the hell is a 32 bit processor doing on a simple button/light daughterboard?
- realo 13y ago"Steam Operations" did not have a chance to have a good Father-Son conversation with "Steam Engineering" yet. Don't worry... it will come.
- bri3d 13y agoCortex-M0 is often cheaper in volume than the 8-bit stalwarts, so why not?
- hahainternet 13y agoIt's not exactly 32 bit and comes with an onboard USB controller so it was probably a pretty economical option.
- jrockway 13y agoThey're dirt fucking cheap, is why. Last I looked, $0.80 a piece. Why screw around with an 8-bit AVR when it's more expensive and you're plugged into the wall and don't care about power? (Oh, and I'll add a tradeoff: the chips are cheap, but they are not as easy to get up and running as an AVR. Programmers and a bunch of Windows software seems to be required; I've given up every time I've tried to use one :)
- AmVess 13y agoVery nice little box, considering it's all COTS stuff save for the chassis, LED button and controller. I imagine these will be available with a range of CPU's and GPU's come release day.
- knodi 13y agoSo based on those off the self component whats the total value of the box? about 1000$?
- abrahamsen 13y agoRoughly $1300 according to the article.
- AmVess 13y agoHard to say, since each beta box comes with different goodies: "The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components: GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660 CPU: some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3 RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU) Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high"
- Guvante 13y agoThe GPU RAM almost certainly varies with what GPU you end up with. Titan 6GB, 780 3GB, 760 2GB, 660 2GB.
- Zarathust 13y agoThis is a very important question. I routinely build gaming PCs for friends and relatives and all this stuff is pretty hard to come by for less than 1000$. Especially this huge GTX 780 which is pretty high end.
- wnevets 13y agoThe pc hardware is the least interesting part. What really matters is how well the controller works with PC gamers and is the OS good enough for a TV.
- lectrick 13y agoI hope 3 things happen 1) SteamOS is very successful along with Steam Machine 2) Windows is knocked out as a gaming platform 3) SteamOS users will be less annoying than Xbox and PS3 users
- wcfields 13y ago"3) SteamOS users will be less annoying than Xbox and PS3 users" If I wasn't at work right now I'd bet the farm that there's a page 1 post on /g/ with "SteamOS Master Race".
- gambler 13y ago2) Windows is knocked out as a gaming platform I will cheer for Windows demise only when GOG starts selling their games for Steam OS.
- yaeger 13y agoA good chunk on GOG re DosBox games so shouldn't these run in SteamOS already? There is a DosBox for Linux, isn't there?
- Ygg2 13y agoNumber 3) is impossible to be any different if people from Xbox PS3 migrate to it, which should happen if 2) happens and consecutively Xbox fails.
- zerohm 13y agoIf Valve really wants to compete with consoles, they need a wireless controller. I go back and play the old PS1/2 and Gamecube occasionally, and the toughest adjustment is going back to a wired controller.
- voltagex_ 13y ago"The board is wrangled by an NXP LCP11U24F 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 microcontroller." I wonder if this could be re-purposed (just for interest's sake).
- pjc50 13y agoAlmost certainly; that's the same processor as used in one model of the mbed, all you have to do is find the JTAG/SWD on the board. The default firmware may be code-protected, but there are ways round that.
- hershel 13y agoI wonder if it's coded using the mbed, since the controller might be going to be sold in volumes?
- dominicgs 13y agoThere is an ISP switch on the board and the pins for programming may be on the header labeled "debug", although it's likely that those are JTAG. Either way, it should be easy to reprogram it. Not sure what you would do with 12 LEDs and a power button, but it's certainly possible. The LPC11U37F in the controller could be worth a look too.