Join the list any time before June 25th at 10 a.m. PT. On that date, the list will be closed and randomized, and you will receive an email with your results shortly after.
So thats pretty much as expected - 7 months ago it would have been ~$700 as predicted
deleted by creator
Baseline numbers compared to top end numbers don’t make sense. 700 vs 1050.
those numbers are likely aimed to be profitable not just now but for a while. if they raise the price with every manufacturing run people will lose trust.
The sad part is that Valve really did price all the parts for pretty much as low as they could go:
The hardware prices seem competitive. But the important note is hinting at the real form factor tax: It doesn’t have the same cost / performance ratio as a normally sized PC using the same hardware.
Well it’s little, competing in the little guy bracket.
Wtf? The 16g of ram costs almost as much as the gpu. I really hope my ram sticks don’t fail on me anytime soon.
This really reflects the reverse spiral gaming hardware has seen in recent years. The benchmarks are absolutely laughable for what you could get for the same price just a year ago. Go back 2 years and the gap is even larger. Gamers are being priced out by AI slop generators.
Now also consider that the Steam Machine also has a tiny form factor, extremely quiet cooling, and CEC over HDMI that make it exceptionally suited for a living room PC and it more than makes up for that $71 gap. It really is about as good a deal as it could have been in 2026, but most people are still comparing it against 2024 prices. I think the $99 Steam Controller having a bundle price of $79 shows that Valve really are trying to do what they can here.
Honestly the fact that were able to push sub-1.1k prices with the mess we have now, and at the same time they so SteamOS can be used on your own steam machine (as in made by you) makes me think they knew of the corner they walked in for a long time.
Bruh the lenovo desktop I got on ebay got more ram than that (32 gb ddr5)
When did you get it and for how much?
Op is full of shit my bet. I love collecting these refurbished lenovo corporate gadgets and 32gb ddr5 is extremely unlikely as I’ve never seen one. In general lenovo towers are not really usable for gaming but awesome home servers.
Plenty lenovo desktops and thinkpads with 32 gb ddr5 now. But yes, they’re not aimed for gaming
Kinda expensive at 1,000 usd but I guess it’s to be expected with current market conditions. I bought my 16gb refurb for like 250 just 2 years ago. Crazy difference.
I got it like 3 weeks ago I wanna say? Got it for like $900. Understandably, I’m getting downvoted because I’m comparing an office computer to a gaming device. I’m merely pointing out that RAM is incredibly expensive nowadays, to even build one on your own sourcing your own ddr5 ram is a PiTA
AI pushed gaming 10 years back
AI did a number to gaming, but truthfully, gaming technology was probably about to stand still anyway. Barely any studios can afford to make a game that’s so technologically advanced that it pushes our current hardware to its limits.
Oh please, plenty of games push my top tier hardware to its limits!
It’s just that they do it by not bothering to optimize their software.
The handful of companies that can afford to spend $100M+? Sure. There are only so many of those, and plenty of them go bankrupt after spending that much.
Yet AI will actually be good at optimizing software, and might help push devs to do so. Both stifling and assisting.
And the GPU makers were already approaching a plateau around the first RTX cards.
Node shrinks have dried up. Gamers got use to those handing them major leaps.
Gaming isn‘t standing still though, it‘s reverting. You can‘t get the same hardware you got 5 years ago for the same price anymore. Hardware ALWAYS got cheaper until recently. This is truly unprecedented.
You’re probably right…
As an optimist, I really hope this hardware crunch leads to a greater focus on polish and optimization. I feel like a lot of development studios have let specs inflate to cover being unwilling to focus on building their games efficiently. It can feel crazy when you start comparing specs on games from different studios.
As a realist, I imagine we’re just going to have a lot more cloud gaming services and that may just end up being the norm. I’m still waiting for a AAA publisher to start releasing their games exclusively to cloud platforms, probably first as a pre-release or early access bonus of some sort. I have my money on Ubisoft as the first big one if they manage to keep it together as a company.
As an anarchist, I’ve been looking into selling all my electronics and investing in some farmland.
As a realist, I don’t see any way cloud gaming services are an option that customers en masse will be willing to pay what the providers have to charge to make a profit. Stadia was not that long ago, and Google couldn’t make it work under what had to be a softball toss for that business model.
Don’t forget the latency. I can barely tolerate streaming between my PC and Deck witg Sunlight/Moonlight.
There’s a lot of companies thinking about it that are big enough that they don’t have to profit immediately. I think they’re mostly waiting to see Geforce Now raise prices and enshittify more. My prediction is we’ll have the various datacenter providers giving more deals on compute to make use of wasted cycles, maybe leading to various services renting that compute and dynamically tuning quality based on current cost. I.e., high performance gaming during off-peak hours and degraded performance during AI peak hours. Time limits will definitely become more frustrating.
Google might jump back in then if they didn’t have to run the service. For them, I think they exited because they established that they’d have to actually support the product if they wanted it to grow and there is nothing they hate more. Part of me feels like the dystopian future we’re heading to may be publisher based subscription passes similar to xbox game pass but more focused and providing drastically less value.
I think I’m out though, I don’t have to buy a battlepass for the chickens and if support ends I get to make curry.
As did Covid.
I’m not going to post what I almost did, but I’ll just say that I’m mad.
Wait til you hear about all the fucked up shit that isn’t related to video games and is actually consequential
It’s all consequential to me. Nothing is without rhyme or reason and it is all interconnected.
Would be nice if it pushed back 20 years before steam become so popular
Rough timing. My entire gaming PC cost less than this and is much more powerful, judging by the specs. But I built it out with 32 GB RAM and a few terrabytes of SSDs and NVMe before the current silicon panic, and just upgraded the GPU last year before the prices increased.
I don’t see how there was any way of winning for Valve on this with the current market. It’s not worth the cost, but there’s also likely no way they could make it cheaper.
Apparently they were originally intending for it to be around the $750-800 range for the base model.
You do also have to factor in that it’s about a 6 inch cube, though, so it’s no surprise that the specs are underpowered.
My GPU cost that much 3-4 years ago, it’s overkill now but I got it for VR and sold my VR stuff after 2 years. That for an entire system could work depending on performance. I’m betting new consoles would be around the same price if they were released this year.
I got lucky I think. Bought two Sapphire Pulse RX 9070s last year for myself and my wife’s rig, close to or below MSRP. Mine was $600, wife’s was $540. We had 6700XTs previously, only reason we upgraded was because I was having issues with performance on E33. We plan to pick up Solasta II when it drops which is also UE5, and had some existing games with a bit of performance drop (like 40k: Rogue Trader) so decided the upgrade was warranted.
We’re both gaming on Linux, so the performance and stability with AMD was preferred, no question.
How long ago did you buy that? Because things have changed.
Yeah, I’m fully aware. Did I not say I built it out before the current silicon panic?
The build was rolling as I caught sales and I didn’t get all the parts at once. It was up and running from parts bought late 2022 and 2023, but I upgraded my RAM from 16 GB (2x8) to 32 GB (4x8) in 2024, and upgraded my GPU in 2025 (RX 6700XT to RX 9070). The additional SSDs and NVMe were bought between 2023 and 2024 as well (system currently has 4x 1 TB SSD, and a 1 TB NVMe).
It’s not worth the cost.
For those of us with already existing hardware, but Gamer’sNexus showed that a system built today with comparable specs costs about the same.
If you’re building a system today you’re staring down the exact same Sam Altman shaped wall that Valve is.
I literally spec’d out a much more powerful system in another comment here for around $950.
It’s only equivalent if you absolutely need a micro/mini PC.
Yea your spec was about the same as Gamers Nexus, theirs (and yours) DIY spec wasn’t much more powerful than the steam machine:
Here’s the video talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66QzlDewigE
but there’s also likely no way they could make it cheaper.
Valve ceo owns an entire fleet of mega yachts, i’m sure there’s a lot of room to cut profits there and make their products cheaper
I’m still getting one but this is clearly a luxury item now rather than a competitive console. Sucks to be Valve here, the timing really worked against them.
I just really hope the VR headset is not much worse than this as I just want to play No Man’s Sky on linux VR.
Playing No Man’s Sky on VR (PSVR) was my favorite VR experience.
Yeah, I live in a small space so the steam deck is my only gaming device. Never tried VR but was considering the steam frame just for the big screen experience.
The timing here really fucked valve. They announced these products around the same moment that component prices went through the fuckin roof. Hopefully the price will drop in a year or so
I just want to play No Man’s Sky on linux VR.
Should work already https://www.protondb.com/app/275850 if you have a Valve Index and a good gaming Linux desktop.
Yes with recent Steam VR Beta branch I got my Quest 3 to work but it takes like 5 attempts to get it working and you have to restart either pc or vr device every attempt. It’s very close though! By the time the VR device actually drops Valve will probably fix Steam VR on linux.
Give wivrn or alvr a shot. Wivrn doesn’t use steamvr at all but your games will still work, maybe even run better.
Thanks, I’ve tried both with no luck but I’m on an immutable linux distro and there are some fixes but it’s a real time sink.
Very finicky but feasible. Yes I imagine once the Frame is out that’ll be a lot more convenient and reliable.
The foviated rendering is what I’m really excited about. NMS has a lot of menus in inventory management etc and it’s surprisingly tiring in VR.
Ah yes, makes sense. Well overall if there is a lot of text it’s tiring anyway. Maybe if you are already familiar with the content skimming is OK.
Funny, cause whilst its very pricey, i spent more than this on my phone. And most flagship phones cost about the lower end of this. But because i get my phone essentially interest free over a 4 year contract i somehow justify the cost without thinking too much about the fact that i spent 1500 quid on a small slab of glass and metal.
Maybe i need to rethink my grasp on the concept of money.
Most people use their phones far more than their consoles and mid range phones literally exist around 300-400 price point. The SM is optimized but the hardware is not on a ‘flagship’ level.
So IMO the comparison is not totally fair.
I see your point. Do you not think it is fair to say that there are mid range PCs at the 3 to 400 mark? I bought my pc for 500 around 6 or 7 uears ago and its only just showing its age. However most phones dont last 6 or 7 years without being crippled by more intensive software and OS updates or breaking physically or having their battery become useless.
The pc is a better investment in terms of longevity at the same price point and is upgradable part by part. Unlike 99% of mobile phones.
I think its a relatively fair comparison and to be fair to me i was only musing. I hadnt given it more thought than just improving the comparison off the top of my head.
I think it is fair but slightly different. I also have a 1k PC or so that just gets by. But I wouldn’t place it in my living room and you would not have the great integrwtion of steamos.
Honestly the price would have been OK if it wasn’t for the price hikes of RAM. That tipped the scale over.
It could or should have been around 700-800. We must be thankful AI companies that it is how it is now.
I’m glad they are doing a random selection of people who sign up who can order one, way better than the first come first served model that gives all the product to bots/scalpers (like the say in their reasoning).
Price seems reasonable for what you get in this current market ;(
This makes me wonder about the next time we have to buy new phones …
Just buy a cheap Chinese phone.
I might as well save some money since I’m gonna be spied on either way.
chinese phones spying on you is bullshit anyway to encourage you to buy worse value products from western or western aligned manufacturers :D
Even if they are, I think I’d be a little more concerned about what my own (downright fascist) government would be doing with that data than a foreign nation I’ve never been to and have no connection to.
proof: trust me bro
No, moderately expensive fairphone with no google services
They are shit
Should I even try to build a PC for $1000 or just give up at this point?
For $1k you could do quite better than the Steam Machine (though not mini-sized). Just spec’d out a build on Amazon with AM4 and you’ve got options:
-
$55 - Thermaltake 700w PSU
-
$90 - Corsair 4000D case (I have one of these, good airflow and easy build space). This is a place you could skimp to save a few bucks, e.g. - this case is $55
-
$130 - Cheap 1 TB SSD (went with Timetec, apparently Fikwot is okay too, seems to be a SSD parts manufacturer that started selling direct)
-
$85 - B550 ATX mobo
-
$130 - G.Skill 16 GB DDR4 3200
-
$175 - Ryzen 5 5600 XT OR Ryzen 7 5700 (5600 is faster but 6c/12t, 5700 lower core speed, but 8c/16t. I have a 5600x, no complaints)
-
$279 or $290 - RX 7600 GPU, or RTX 5050 (up to preference. The 7600 is generally comparable or slightly better overall, but you will see much better with it on Linux. On Windows the 5050 might be the better choice)
Total cost: About $950 (or $915 with the cheaper case), which leaves a bit of overhead to get a cheap cooler for the CPU (optional since it comes with one), and/or additional case fan(s).
Edit - to be clear, you can probably do better than this. I just browsed prices and parts on Amazon, but you might be able to find parts cheaper on https://pcpartpicker.com/ or by purchasing used parts on eBay.
For example, the Ryzen 5 5600x can be found for around $125 on Ebay, that’s $50 savings. And slower DDR4 RAM (2600 base speed) can be found for as low as $65 on Ebay, though I’m not sure if that’s a compromise I’d make, up for debate.
If you want it to be like a Steam Machine, you should definitely go for the AMD GPU so you can run Steam OS on it.
Good point. Though personally I prefer running EndeavourOS, I like having an up-to-date kernel and mesa improvements. With regard to the 7600 vs 5050, I was recommending the 7600 because of the recent improvements for VRAM prioritization on 8GB GPUs on Linux.
hey, so i suck at picking parts and never know if they’ll fit my build. like, my first job was as a hardware guy back in the 90s and haven’t really kept up. is there a compatibility checker somewhere?
i just don’t want to buy 12 PSUs with the intention of sending 11 back. I know I’m buying from A cOrPoRaTiOn but it still seems dishonest to me
i suck at picking parts and never know if they’ll fit my build
Just use pcpartpicker.com
It’s very good at telling you if parts aren’t compatible.
thanks! i’ll give it a try next upgrade
Avoid any random generic Chinese named stuff. Go with legit brands like Thermaltake, Corsair, Cooler Master, EVGA, Seagate, and so on, and if budget allows, get one that’s at least Bronze rated (Silver or Gold is better, but not necessary). If budget doesn’t allow, white certified is fine, but don’t cheap out near capacity.
Use a PSU calculator for the parts you’re selecting. Power supplies are rated to always provide consistent load of at least 80% of rated spec if they’re rated at least white certified (better for Bronze, Silver, and Gold), so aim for a PSU with at least 20% overhead. So if the system uses 600w peak, you’ll want a 720w PSU or better.
In general, an 800w PSU is generally more than enough for most systems, unless you’re buying really power hungry parts (think Nvidia 5080 or 5090 and the highest end Intel chips or AMD threadrippers).
If in doubt, just buy a bigger PSU than you need, like 1000w. Always better to have more than you need, it only uses what the system requires, it’s not like it’s always actually going to draw that 1kw power.
Thank you for the detailed advice. I cheaped out on my psu on my last build and figured it wouldn’t hurt too much.
Oh, past me, you sweet summer child.
Yeah I was looking at mostly similar parts, but squeezing for a 9060xt. I got to a little less than $1200 on an am5 platform with all new stuff, or $1000 using used ddr4 and ssd on an am4 platform, but still with the 9060xt
Just my $0.02, but my DDR4 system with a 9070XT is doing alright. But I also don’t play competitive FPS, so ymmv
I couldn’t squeeze in the 9060 XT (specifically the 16 GB variant) for under $1k, though if you went with the used parts I mentioned and the cheaper case it should fit the budget. I’m impressed with what you can still do for around $1k today, it’s really just the RAM and SSD prices that hurt the build.
I’d actually be fine with the build I posted, only main difference with mine now is I have a RX 9070 GPU and 32 GB RAM, but I don’t play much that takes advantage of it. I mostly just play indies and retro emulation on my Steam Deck, and only use the rig for the few more intensive games, and for co-op gaming with my wife.
Funny you should post this list. I made a nearly identical spec for my potential upgrade from a 2019 intel pc to a 2021 amd pc in order to keep the ram. Looks like i’ll have to ride these memory sticks until the wheels fall off.
Please don’t buy a Corsair case
Why not? The 4000D is solid.
Ok my bias, sorry shouldn’t have written that. I had very poor experiences with corsaire products, especially while assembling a PC in one of their cases.
Gotcha. The 4000D is easy to build in and very roomy. It’s also got great airflow on the mesh front variant.
I had it running a ESXi server for a while, it’s currently in my closet and planned as my case whenever I eventually upgrade. I currently use a HAF XB Evo it feels like I’ve outgrown, but unless I’m actually changing parts I don’t feel like messing with it.
Sweet!
Ultimately, this will likely be the road I take. I just haven’t owned a PC in like 15 years and building one feels daunting because mistakes would be too costly. I know it’s not that hard though, I’ll just watch a few YouTube tutorials.
You can go up to a 5060Ti 8gb for $370 and get +45% more GPU performance compared to a 5050 (which was already better than a steam machine) and still stay under the budget for a steam machine. The 9060 XT 8gb is also about the same price on the other side of the aisle.
-
You can still build a pretty great pc for a little over $1000, though there are some compromises imo. You can get under the $1000 mark if you’re willing to make some more compromises and/or do a mix of new and used parts. But either way you can get way more performance than the steam machine for the money, though maybe not in as svelte a package.
Can’t wait for ram prices to come down after the crash.
And if something breaks you get a fast and easy response with the steam machine. Not at all fast nor easy if you’re buying from multiple vendors.
The 300 bucks of better parts I could be getting is entirely worth my never having to diagnose or repair parts myself.
This is a fair point, although you’re making an assumption. How has steam’s support been for their hardware thus far?
i promise i’m not sealioning, i’ve never had to deal with their customer support in over a decade. Which is the epitome of the IT paradox, so like, I’m inclined to think it’s good.
I first got my Steam Deck 2-3 weeks after they started shipping. Unfortunately the “Y” button wasn’t triggering consistently. I sent it in to Valve for warranty repairs without issue, though it took 3-4 weeks to get back.
Also fun fact, in the time it took to get back I learned how to juggle because I was bored
That sounds like the kind of customer support that my vape has. And I love my vape company for two reasons. They make great delicious smelling vapes and have excellent customer support. It just takes time to ship your stuff in for repairs.
i’m waiting until either the dollar halves in value so a $1000 PC is worth $500 or the market sanes out, hopefully via blood clot or something
EDIT WAIT THAT’S NOT HOW MONEY WORKS DAMMIT
If you build a PC with DDR4 RAM it does get cheaper, and I think under $1k is very doable.
I wanted one, but not for this much. Glad I got the first gen steam deck when I could. Steam deck + dock is pretty much the same thing.
I’m also glad I got the first Gen SteamDeck for launch pricing but it’s in just about zero ways the same as a Steam Machine, unless you just mean they’re both PCs running SteamOS, as that’s about all they have in common.
I mean, I am comforting myself by saying what I already have is good enough which is why I don’t need the steam machine. I know they are not the same.
Yeah, I’m definitely in the same boat. Would I love a Steam Machine? Sure. For $1050 can I continue plugging the HDMI from my desktop into the TV? Also very much yes.
Well, guess I’m sticking with an old laptop and console for the foreeable future.
I wonder how all the people I know are gonna take this, considering they’ve been rubbing “pc specs at console price” for who knows how long…
Valve has said from the beginning that the Steam Machine would not have a console price. Did they all miss it?
Your guess is as good as mine. I assumed it would be similarly priced to my pre-built laptop cost, which was around 1300-1400.
I’m mildly surprised it hasn’t rise more in the last 2-3 months, but I assume that’s part of why v/ram is a little on the low side. From my understanding, most of the games that would be playable on it don’t need tons of ram, since they’re better optimized on Linux.
I think it has literally only risen with cost of parts.
Honestly cheaper than I thought tbh
Not suprised after seeing the deck’s price hike. Thanks AI…
You can’t blame AI itself like you can’t blame the gun for shooting someone.
Blame Trump. All of this is because of his stupid Stargate Project buying up all the hardware (via OpenAI)
Yeah I’m gonna go ahead and also blame AI.
deleted by creator
Not even close
