Following Valve's trio of hardware announcements (the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame, and the Steam Controller), the biggest question users were left with was pricing. However, speaking to IGN, Valve's Hardware Engineer Yazan Aldehayyat did not shy from sharing a few things about the pricing of the Steam Machine, stating that it will be very competitive with building a PC with similar hardware.
If you're trying to make a PC that has similar features and similar performance, I think the Steam Machine is going to be a really competitive price to that and provide really good value to it. The affordability piece you mentioned is one of the reasons why we think a Steam Machine makes a lot of sense right now. So it's just something that we thought about every time we made a hardware decision, a feature decision, is to make sure that we keep it as approachable, as affordable as possible.
Let's take another look at the specifications, then.
| Category | Specification |
|---|---|
| I/O | |
| Displays | DisplayPort 1.4: - Up to 4K @ 240Hz or 8K@60Hz - Supports HDR, FreeSync, daisy-chaining HDMI 2.0: - Up to 4K @ 120Hz - Supports HDR, FreeSync, CEC |
| USB | - Two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (front) - Two USB-A 2.0 High speed (back) - One USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (back) |
| Networking | Gigabit ethernet |
| LED Strip | 17 individually addressable RGB LEDs for system status and customization |
| Size & Weight | |
| Size | 152 mm tall (148 mm without feet), 162.4 mm deep, 156 mm wide |
| Weight | 2.6 kg |
| Software | |
| Operating System | SteamOS 3 (Arch-based) |
| Desktop | KDE Plasma |
| General | |
| CPU | Semi-custom AMD Zen 4 6 Cores /12 Threads - Up to 4.8 GHz, 30W TDP |
| GPU | Semi-custom AMD RDNA3 28 Compute Units - 2.45GHz max sustained clock, 110W TDP |
| RAM | 16GB DDR5 + 8GB GDDR6 VRAM |
| Power | Internal power supply, AC 110-240V |
| Storage | Two models, both with a high-speed microSD slot: - 512GB NVMe SSD - 2TB NVMe SSD |
| Connectivity | |
| Wi-Fi | 2x2 Wi-Fi 6E |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.3 with a dedicated antenna |
| Steam Controller | Integrated 2.4 GHz Steam Controller wireless adapter |
Valve claims it arrived at these hardware specifications after carefully analyzing the Steam hardware survey, with the goal of enabling 4K@60Hz performance in all Steam games (through upscaling). However, Digital Foundry noted that in their early test at Valve, Cyberpunk 2077 ran at 1440p@60FPS upscaled to 4K, but dropped to 30 frames per second as soon as they enabled ray traced reflections and sun shadows. The folks at DF estimate the performance of the Steam Machine to be positioned somewhere between an Xbox Series S and a PlayStation 5, possibly closer to the latter.
The Xbox Series S is now priced at $379.99 (in its 512GB model), while the PlayStation 5 (digital edition) costs $499.99. Both consoles received price hikes this year, mainly due to the tariffs. Still, if Valve really wants to break into the living room this time around, it needs to be competitive with them, not just with a PC, which is notoriously more expensive. At the very least, it should cost less than the PlayStation 5 Pro (currently priced at $749.99), being far less powerful on paper.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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