Cyberpunkd
Member
Steam doesn't have a relevance in the gaming market? Because Steam Deck is just Steam in portable form.
Steam Frame, Steam controller and Steam Machine Revealed
- Thread starter Topher
- Start date
Topher
Identifies as young
Valve made a significant mistake by going with what is essentially a Radeon 7600 8GB.
AMD already is selling to AIBs the Radeon 9060 8GB, non-XT.
And this GPU has so many advantages. Two of which are very important. One is the ability to use FSR4 FP8. Which results in better performance and better image quality.
The other is that it has 16 lanes of PCIe Gen5, compared to only 8X on the 7600. Which helps a lot in mitigating the lack of vram, resulting in much better performance an fewer issues with stutters.
And then it has better RT performance, better delta color compression, much better AI cores, etc.
It could be slightly more expensive, but it would be a more future proof GPU.
Bet ram prices are making them cut back the gpu. Going to be interesting to see benchmarks next year. If it doesn't hit 4k 60 on games like God of War then the appeal is going to be limited to desktop PC use where 1080p is more common. This thing wasn't going to get a lot of living room converts anyway, but if there is no price advantage then not sure what the point is at all.
roosnam1980
Gold Member
why did they bother with ddr5 based am5 CPU ? should have been am4 based with ddr4 and a beefier GPU imo
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The Mad Draklor
Member
Maybe Valve inquired to AMD about putting a Radeon 9060 8G in the Steam Machine, but found out that it would be too expensive. The GPU in the Steam Machine is a cut-down Radeon 7600 that would have never seen the light of day, so I assume AMD offered it for a nice discount.Valve made a significant mistake by going with what is essentially a Radeon 7600 8GB.
AMD already is selling to AIBs the Radeon 9060 8GB, non-XT.
And this GPU has so many advantages. Two of which are very important. One is the ability to use FSR4 FP8. Which results in better performance and better image quality.
The other is that it has 16 lanes of PCIe Gen5, compared to only 8X on the 7600. Which helps a lot in mitigating the lack of vram, resulting in much better performance an fewer issues with stutters.
And then it has better RT performance, better delta color compression, much better AI cores, etc.
It could be slightly more expensive, but it would be a more future proof GPU.
Maybe down the line, once there are plenty of failed Radeon 9060 chips, Valve can use those for a Steam Machine "Pro".
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Own own
VGEsoterica
:
-CPU wise punches above PS5, Series S and Series X (well he specifically says PS5 in the vid but the Xbox CPUs are marginally faster at best and Steam Machine's CPU should clear all)
-Would've hoped for at least 12 GB VRAM but feels 8 GB is perfectly fine for what Valve are aiming for
-Feels it'll be the perfect emulation box thanks both to the specs and it being fully optimized for SteamOS; feels very confident in this as he's tested many emulation setups (including CPU-intensive stuff like Hyper Neo Geo 64) on various Linux boxes over the years
Very optimistic overall; like the rest of us just waiting on that price reveal.
VGEsoterica
: -CPU wise punches above PS5, Series S and Series X (well he specifically says PS5 in the vid but the Xbox CPUs are marginally faster at best and Steam Machine's CPU should clear all)
-Would've hoped for at least 12 GB VRAM but feels 8 GB is perfectly fine for what Valve are aiming for
-Feels it'll be the perfect emulation box thanks both to the specs and it being fully optimized for SteamOS; feels very confident in this as he's tested many emulation setups (including CPU-intensive stuff like Hyper Neo Geo 64) on various Linux boxes over the years
Very optimistic overall; like the rest of us just waiting on that price reveal.
Bry0
Member
Yes it's cost. These are the parts bin last gen laptop parts. Bad yields of cheap laptop parts that AMD would like to move. It's 100% about cost. Valve is not doing any of the type of volume to justify custom silicon development.
Valve got a good deal on last gen stuff AMD couldn't sell anymore, Navi44 still has a lot of demand.Valve made a significant mistake by going with what is essentially a Radeon 7600 8GB.
AMD already is selling to AIBs the Radeon 9060 8GB, non-XT.
And this GPU has so many advantages. Two of which are very important. One is the ability to use FSR4 FP8. Which results in better performance and better image quality.
The other is that it has 16 lanes of PCIe Gen5, compared to only 8X on the 7600. Which helps a lot in mitigating the lack of vram, resulting in much better performance an fewer issues with stutters.
And then it has better RT performance, better delta color compression, much better AI cores, etc.
It could be slightly more expensive, but it would be a more future proof GPU.
Also HPT2 (CPU on Steam Machine) only has 4x PCIe lanes for the GPU so that advantage wouldn't matter.
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winjer
Member
If this Steam machine ends up only having 4 PICe lanes for the GPU, that will make those 8GB so much worse.
This thing will run like a pig when it's out of vram, which will be most of the time.
viveks86
Member
Do we know anything about their OEM plans? I'm hoping to see higher end variants. Not that I'll buy one, but it makes next gen much more interesting as an observer.
Physiognomonics
Member
If Sony don't stop releasing their games on Steam, Playstation will eventually be eaten alive by those Steam consoles. Not with that first console, but by the others that will follow.
One day there will be mobiles, Steam and Nintendo hardware. Playstation and Xbox will become like Sega or Atari before.
One day there will be mobiles, Steam and Nintendo hardware. Playstation and Xbox will become like Sega or Atari before.
Lucifers Beard
Member
Nonsense. Games are still being released for PS4 and Xbox One and those systems are around 12 years old now. I think the vast majority of people that play games outside of these forums couldn't give a shit about 60fps or state of the art graphics.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Do not need it to last that long. It gives access to the same game that work on Steam Deck but now can be played at a higher framerate and resolution and to games that launch on PS5 at a bit of a resolution hit. The worst thing is the HDMI port situation because of HDMI certification on Linux is such b2&£4t, but the rest is great really.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
FSR4 is coming. No need of native 4K on this device. Still, I expect good things from it
.
Durin
Member
Even the people in these forums remark about the lowered quality of AAA releases, and typically the games of better quality in that category also tend to be better made on the technical side to scale well. This gen has been filled with cross-gen support for older hardware, so the idea this device is going to be unusable in a few years is ridiculous, especially with the Switch 2 existing.
When the PS5 Pro got revealed, social media that has more people who would be core gamers, still responded with squinting memes when they showed comparison footage of the Last of Us 2 running on PS5 base vs Pro. It's just the price that matters for the Gabecube.
Lucifers Beard
Member
I agree. The only real problem I think this device is going to have is with multiplayer games that require some form of anticheat that isn't compatible with Linux.
For the average Joe, they might not be aware of these issues and might expect to be playing Call of Duty, Battlefield or other big MP titles. Although I'm hopeful that with Steam going all in with Steam OS, developers figure out ways of making their anticheat software compatible with the OS. Time will tell on this front though.
Durin
Member
Yeah, the anti-cheat is an issue, and that's why I want them to price this thing well. Best way to push adoption of Linux getting support is enough people are on it that the marketshare isn't worth losing. At least initially this will probably sell first to the existing Steam crowd, because Valve will still only sell it on their store. Hoping it can move the need towards support, or another non-kernal method that's effective gets developed. At least if you're a Marvel Rivals fan, you'll be okay.
Poppinfresh
Gold Member
Valve could "solve" the anti-cheat problem easily today by simply requiring any game sold on Steam to have an anti-cheat system that is compatible with Linux.
If you want to sell Battlefield or COD on the largest PC gaming store, even to Windows users, you have to make sure your anti-cheat works on Linux. Otherwise, no ticky, no laundry.
Developers would figure it out pretty quickly because they absolutely wouldn't want to lose the revenue from Steam.
Lucifers Beard
Member
This sounds like a great idea, although I imagine they'll just use the verification scheme and anything where the multiplayer isn't supported won't get verified.
nial
Member
It's not nonsense, the initial post claimed that it would run "any AAA game for the next 8-10 years", and it won't. PS4 and Xbox One don't run the vast majority of AAA games nowadays, let alone in 2026 to 2028, which will be the equivalent of 2033 to 2035 for PS5 (i.e. the next 8-10 years). The Steam Machine is also weaker than base PS5, on top of not being a fixed, dedicated platform to optimize for, and not having nowhere near the sales that PS5 has or PS6 will have.
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Hawk Point 2 has 20 PCIe lanes, 16 for external GPU, 4 NVME. Why do you say it's only four for GPU?
HPT1 has 20 PCIe lanes (8x GPU, 4x NVMe, 8x general purpose), HPT2 has 14 (4x GPU, 4x NVMe, 6x general purpose).
Is the 8540U considered Hawk Point 2? That's the only 2x Zen 4, 4x Zen 4C APU I can find with 14 PCIe lanes.
The rest of the six core and up 8040s have 20 lanes, as well as the AI 200 series.
Why couldn't general purpose PCIe lanes be usable for GPU connections?
The Mad Draklor
Member
This is from 2023, but about 75% of the Xbox Series userbase own the Series S and it likely still holds true today. With the GabeCube just being a tad weaker than the PS5 (or "stronger" when you take FSR4 into account), it outperforms the Series S by a significant margin.
Yeah that's the one
Idk if it's possible + they might need those lanes for all the other I/O
MisterXDTV
Member
Good luck with FSR4 on a 35 TOPS GPU
There's a reason why AMD keeps it exclusive to RDNA4
RDNA3 doesn't have the hardware for it, let alone this 7600M laptop GPU
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Buggy Loop
Gold Member
Then they need to optimize this because Nvidia's solution works all the way down on Turing's lowest hardware.
mèx
Gold Member
FSR4 on the Steam Machine won't be the silver bullet that many are hoping for.
What's the cost in ms to run this on RDNA3, specifically the underpowered Steam Machine's GPU? That GPU is strapped for power, I'm doubtful it will run decently.
The HDMI and DisplayPort along with the associated audio should be handled by the GPU.
The thing I'm not sure of is USB4 is native and doesn't consume PCIe lanes. Yet there are no USB4 ports in the specs for the Steam Machine. It's possible they are taking that full 40Gbps interfaces and dividing it up for the other IO. The USB-C is USB 3 Gen 2 (10Gbps), two USB 3 Gen 1 ports (5Gbps), two USB 2 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, the SD Reader, and finally WiFi 6E and Bluetooth ~2.5Gbps.
But all the USB ports, and the gigabit Ethernet use up just over 21Gbps of the 40Gbps budget. Which means the SD reader could very well also be attached, likely with a USB 3 Gen 1 interface. And finally the RGB strip is basically nothing in terms of bandwidth.
The 8540U however, is listed at 2x USB4 (40Gbps), 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps), 4x USB 2.0 (480Mbps) all native. As this is custom silicon, I guess it could be even more different from a 8540U. The APU's package integrates what would be a motherboard's southbridge. But for cost reasons maybe they have an older IO part, while is why USB4 isn't in the picture.
Durin
Member
That could work, but I don't think Valve tends to do restrictions that large unless they are forced to. They'd rather influence devs to want to do it themselves or help an alternative solution to anti-cheat become a thing.
It's never been a silver bullet, FSR4'S just going to offer better performance still than native res, and better image clarity. The lack of dedicated hardware like in RDNA 4 will mean that a 9-13% performance loss on FSR4 vs FSR3, based on unofficial modded versions of this already running on RDNA 3 cards. AMD's own official driver might yield some improvement, but it's not that big a loss, and the additional processing will be on the CPU to do...which at least they put in a stronger one than the PS5's. The 8GB vram limit will be a bigger impediment vs PS5/Series X hardware where the unified memory pool lets allocate more VRAM to stuff like textures, unless the game is CPU-heavy like Dragon's Dogma 2.
The Mad Draklor
Member
I much rather use FSR4 on performance mode than FSR3.1 on quality mode.
And if you can get significantly better performance with an unofficial version of FSR4 over native resolution on a RDNA2 card, then I don't see much issue with an RDNA3 card running an official version of FSR4.
TrebleShot
Member
Starting to think this thing sounds better than it actually will be.
Releasing more expensive and less capable than a ps5 is quite the strategy no one gives a fuck if you call it a pc or a console the facts are it plays games worse than the consoles and could cost 50% more. Its an under TV box after all whether its a pc or console is completely irrelevant youll be playing games on it on your TV.
Not really the most sound strategy.
Maybe would have been worth releasing at 2k and having a 9070 in it.
Releasing more expensive and less capable than a ps5 is quite the strategy no one gives a fuck if you call it a pc or a console the facts are it plays games worse than the consoles and could cost 50% more. Its an under TV box after all whether its a pc or console is completely irrelevant youll be playing games on it on your TV.
Not really the most sound strategy.
Maybe would have been worth releasing at 2k and having a 9070 in it.
lastmessiah
Member
It isn't less capable than a PS5, in fact it is far more capable and the facts are that it is a PC and there's no reason why it must be played on a TV at all. So yeah you're just wrong about absolutely everything.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
I dont think Valve is going to spend $100M+ in marketing for this machine. I think the strategy is just to release a financially sustainable product and play the long game (they have the luxury of time, something that xbox dosent have). If they sell 10-14 million steamcubes, it will be a massive success for them.
Durin
Member
It is valid criticism if they price it too high, because they are primarily showing it in a living room setup, with at a desk being secondary. Makes sense too given the smaller size for a living room media center setup, having a gamepad marketed with it for couch use, and console features like suspend state, background updates, etc.
If they price it higher than a console, then it will have to bank on the PC features, cheaper games, no cost online, emulation, etc. Not everyone cares about that vs the upfront cost, so it will limit its reach than if they hit $500-650. Valve might not even care, since they don't even have the manufacturing capacity to get hardware into online retail stores like Amazon or Best Buy, and just be about providing the PC audience another form-factor option.
lastmessiah
Member
You guys don't get it. No one wants to be the "cheap hardware for the masses" company. Do you think Apple would swap places with Acer? Valve isn't interested in churning units at scale. They aren't even selling it anywhere but their own site, direct to consumer. And even if they didn't sell a single Steam Machine it wouldn't harm their bottom line.
Durin
Member
Valve does want to keep growing their storefront though, and offering a cheap option helps at doing that.
The Steam Deck for example is the "cheap hardware for the masses"...literally nothing with its horsepower exists at its price point or lower in the PC handheld space unless you get lucky with used stuff. They're all either more expensive for diminished returns in extra power, or cheaper and weaker. They've also not raised its price, and even offered the mid-tier 256gb LCD model at original entry price of the 64gb LCD, when everyone else has gotten more expensive. I think people want them to do that with a living room form-factor, and like a Deck it's also a PC.
I also think if Valve could churn these units out at scale, they would, because why not? They might not have that capacity yet, but I think if they keep going the way they are they could achieve that. Maybe this will be priced higher, be more niche, and they'll iterate until they get to a console-priced box...but I think it's fair for people to want that. I'm not even the target audience for this thing, and I want them to hit $400-600, because it would disrupt the market, push Linux more, offer some ease of use conveniences, get more people on an open ecosystem, and force the console makers to compete more.
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Kacho
Gold Member
What would Xbox gain from pushing SteamOS?
Bry0
Member
They already do this. It's not valve, it's the OEMS not taking them up on it, aside from Lenovo.
Topher
Identifies as young
For the handhelds, that's true, but I don't think Valve is ready for desktops.
dcx4610
Member
I'm excited and think it'll be able to run things as well a console but yeah, 2026 and getting 7+ year old tech is disappointing. It won't be disappointing if it's $500 dollar though but I'm expecting to be overpriced.
Mobilemofo
Member
Yeah..at 750 dollars, or there about, valve can get bent. Why would I pay that amount for a small mid pc?
Poppinfresh
Gold Member
When the Steam Deck was first released, Valve indicated that they were going to release a desktop installable SteamOS to replace their years-outdated desktop OS from the original Steam Machines. That never happened, and Bazzite and others filled the void. At this point, I'm not even sure that a desktop version of SteamOS is necessary.
Topher
Identifies as young
They have to solve the Nvidia problem first, which even Bazzite doesn't do well enough. Nvidia makes up the vast majority of the market and right now you have no chance of making Steam OS appealing to them.
Poppinfresh
Gold Member
The NVIDIA problem is more solved than not at this point.
I'm using a 5090 with CachyOS right now and see no real performance difference between Cachy and Windows. HDR is still hit or miss, but it's not like it was perfect on Windows.
I've heard some people complain about performance with UE5 games, but I haven't seen it. Then again, that could be because I'm using a 5090. I don't see (or notice) the hiccups with UE5 on Windows either.
The bigger issue is anti-cheat, but as I said above, Valve could easily "solve" that problem by requiring every game sold via Steam that uses anti-cheat to use an anti-cheat that is compatible with Linux. One of the benefits of having a monopoly on PC game sales is being able to throw your weight around and force developers to do things your way. It's time for Valve to do that with anti-cheat.
Topher
Identifies as young
It isn't stable enough yet. I tried loading a game in bazzite just a couple of days ago and it crashed. They do seem to be making progress, but I just don't think it is there yet
pudel
Gold Member
Nah man! The whole success of Valve is NOT forcing shit on anyone. If devs/publishers think its a great idea to block linux users....thats a message I clearly understand. Its says: "Dont buy my game!"
geary
Gold Member
And the PS6 and next Xbox will still get blown away by even by 4xxx/5xxx series GPUs. Plus, we're stuck with games that have to run on PS5 and Series X well into 2030… By the time that's over, a second wave of Steam Machines will probably be rolling in.
CentralScrutinizer
Member
Gabe should invite Trump on his mega yaucht to get tarrif exemptions to get this thing to be as cheap as possible. Hell, I am surpised microsoft hasn't done the same yet.
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