Steam Machine Who? Retailers and Modders Are Building More Powerful Compact PCs For the Same Price
The reservations list for Valve’s new Steam Machine might be closed, but its reviews have been middling at best, and downright derogatory at worst. But it turns out that with smart hardware selection, some PC retailers and home modders have been able to build their own systems that are comparably sized and priced, but with much more powerful hardware inside.
The Steam Machine isn’t a weak machine, with Valve claiming that it’s more capable than over 70% of PCs running Steam, according to its own hardware survey. But that doesn’t mean the 6-core Zen 4 CPU and onboard GPU are particularly powerful. Indeed, the graphics cores are roughly equivalent to an RX 7600—an entry-level card from three and a half years ago.
Despite this modest hardware, it still costs over $1,000 with the base storage, and several hundred dollars more with 2TB. But modders and retailers may have a better way.
AMD engineer Jacob Terkelsen posted on X with his alternative. It uses the SFF Mini ITX Steam Machine Case by 3DCatt, a 3D-printable design measuring 167 by 168 by 225 millimeters, and manages to fit a mini-ITX motherboard and an RTX 5060 inside. It has a 400W Flex PSU, but it’s unclear which CPU Terkelsen used; it may need to be quite underpowered to give the GPU what it needs. It’s not clear what the total bill of materials was either, but the suggested figure is around $1,000.
More concrete solutions may come from more official sources. A French retailer called LDLC has released the “Stim Machine,” a small boxy PC based on the Silverstone Sugo SG13B-Q case. It manages to fit in a Ryzen 5 8400F CPU (similar 6-core/12-thread configuration to the Steam Machine), 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and an RX 9060 XT.
It also touts replaceable SSD and memory, a delivery time of less than 48 hours, and options for up to 128GB of memory.
The CPU is the lean component there, but everything else checks out and helps bring the total cost down to under €1,000—cheaper than the Steam Machine in Europe (but sadly not in the US) and with a GPU almost 50% more powerful. The only caveat is that the kit comes unassembled, which does give the Steam machine a significant accessibility advantage.
Still, if I were in the market for a new mini gaming PC, I know what I’d be buying. Although really, I think I’ll try making my own. I’m sure I have some powerful enough kit lying around.
