Building Your Own Steam Machine? Now You Can Use Discrete AMD GPUs

Valve has updated its SteamOS compatibility list to include AMD discrete GPUs, enabling the use of any AMD Radeon graphics card to power homebrew SteamOS builds. With the limited availability of Steam Machines and their high price tag, this feels like a great way for DIY PC builders to get their hands on a SteamOS PC by building one themselves.

I know I’ll be giving it a go with the spare Zen 3 system I have lying around.

Valve just launched the Steam Machine, and though reviews are middling due to the high price tag, the limitation to one RAM stick, and the limited number of systems on launch day, it’s still proving extremely popular.

Credit: Valve

But Valve’s also expanded beta support for SteamOS beyond a handful of AMD-powered handheld gaming devices and the Lenovo Legion Go. Now it’s added discrete GPUs, which effectively means anyone can build a Steam Machine using SteamOS and any AMD graphics card.

It was already possible to do this in an unofficial, unsupported manner, and Bazzite is a more established platform than SteamOS, enabling homebrew hackers to build their own “Steam Machines” for the past few years. But with official support and planned future updates improving compatibility and access to features like dynamic upscaling, Steam Machines are about to go mainstream in a way that could extend well beyond Valve’s own first-party hardware.

Indeed, many gamers have been finding that SteamOS delivers better performance than Windows 11, making it an attractive alternative for gamers building new gaming systems in 2026. Especially given that getting any hardware is prohibitively expensive, reusing old AMD GPUs could be a great way to keep people gaming while we wait out the worst of the price increases.