• 3 min read
Steam Machine charms, then disappoints at $1,050
Valve’s Steam Machine is quiet and easy to use, but $1,050 buys PS5-level performance with too many PC-style living-room compromises.
Image: PCWorld
The Steam Machine is easy to like—and difficult to recommend. Valve’s compact gaming PC delivers an unusually smooth SteamOS setup, near-silent operation, and direct access to a large Steam library. But at $1,050, it offers roughly PS5-level performance for almost twice the price, while retaining enough PC quirks to undermine its living-room ambitions.
SteamOS setup and hardware
The six-inch black cube looks like a gaming PC and a 2001 GameCube merged together. A swappable face plate and a bottom LED bar add personality, while the understated design works equally well in an office or entertainment center. Setup is simple: connect power and HDMI, pair a controller, join Wi-Fi, sign in to Steam, and start downloading games. The process took less than 20 minutes.
The Steam Machine is also exceptionally quiet. Even under demanding games, it was barely audible from a few feet away—a result of a chassis that is “80% cooling by volume.” SteamOS feels polished and approachable, and the Steam Controller adds touchpads and gyro controls, although any Xbox-compatible controller works too.
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Gaming performance at 4K
Performance depends heavily on the game. Absolum and Hades II ran smoothly at 4K, as did less demanding 3D titles. God of Weapons even worked better than on the reviewer’s Windows gaming PC because its controller functioned correctly under SteamOS.
Horizon: Zero Dawn was a stronger test. At 4K with high settings and AMD FSR enabled, it reached 59 FPS on the built-in benchmark and generally held 50–60 FPS during gameplay.
The limits appeared in newer, more demanding games. Dead as Disco, an Unreal Engine 5 title, fell to 30–45 FPS at 4K and required a drop to 1080p for smoother play.
Space Marine 2 managed about 60 FPS on automatic settings at 1080p. At 4K, however, it dropped to 15–20 FPS, reaching only about 30 FPS after manual adjustments. For multiplayer, 1080p is effectively the practical target.
The reviewer says the hardware has also become less attractive since the Steam Machine was announced, including a “disheartening single-channel RAM downgrade.” Compared with the PS5, the Steam Machine costs a little less than double at the base configuration for similar performance, though Steam offers vastly more games.
Living-room compromises and pricing
SteamOS still behaves more like a PC than a console. Surround sound did not map correctly in testing, and services such as Netflix and Disney+ require using a browser. Local streaming from a more powerful PC was also unreliable: Space Marine 2 has a two-year-old bug that prevents remote gamepad inputs from working through Steam streaming.
At $1,050, the Steam Machine is a poor value as either a console or a general-purpose gaming PC. A PlayStation 5 or Switch 2 is cheaper and easier for buyers starting from scratch. The reviewer’s own 7800X3D/5070 Ti PC costs about $2,600 to build today—roughly 2.5 times the price—but delivers approximately four times the Steam Machine’s performance in Space Marine 2.
The stronger argument is SteamOS itself. Valve has turned what was a pipe dream with the original Steam Machines a decade ago into a gaming-focused Linux system that is accessible to mainstream users. Official SteamOS builds are now available for home-built PCs, with Intel and Nvidia support still being developed. Valve also plans to bring SteamOS to Arm-based hardware with the upcoming Steam Frame.
Lenovo has already released a SteamOS version of its Legion Go, suggesting the operating system may spread beyond Valve hardware. The Steam Machine itself, though, remains an appealing showcase for SteamOS—and a disappointing purchase at its price.
Culture Editor
Maya explores gaming, streaming, and the internet as a place where people actually live. From deep-dives into creator economies to the anthropology of digital communities, she tracks platform drama and cultural shifts so you don't have to. She believes the best tech stories are fundamentally about human behavior.
via PCWorld
