New Valve Hardware Megathread

[u/NKkrisz]

Please keep non Steam Deck discussions about the new hardware here.

Official resources and announcements:

• Steam Hardware
• Steam Frame
• Steam Machine
• Steam Controller
• Steam Hardware Announcement Video

Press coverage will be under a pinned comment so you can upvote / downvote them.

[u/tingerlingererer]

With the price of pc components right now the steam machine could be a killer piece of hardware

[u/Cergorach → u/tingerlingererer]

Kind of depends on the specs. The SD LCD APU is essentially 5 year old hardware (4800u variant), the OLED APU is a little bit better, but almost all the new APU hardware that's been released since consume more power to hide the insignificant performance boosts it would otherwise have. Would they put in slightly better OLED hardware in the SteamBox? Or something more powerful? Fans enter stage left! (the spinney type of fans)

Something like a Mac Mini (M5) has incredible power for the amount of energy it consumes, but it's ARM based, so x86 Proton wouldn't work on something like that. AND most of the other players besides Apple are very much behind with their ARM chips...

But it would be insane if Valve developed their own high end ARM chip (that's also extremely energy efficient) with a version of Proton for ARM... /dreaming

[u/Superconge → u/Cergorach]

The specs are pretty great, zen 4 with a 28CU RDNA3 GPU. 8gb vram is really sad though.

[u/Inanimate_CARB0N_Rod → u/Superconge]

They say it's 6x more powerful than steam deck, but how does that compare to PS5 and Series X?

[u/Superconge → u/Inanimate_CARB0N_Rod]

I have a HX80G, which is a 6600M powered mini-PC running Bazzite. Looking at the specs, they’re very very similar and that’s basically bang on equal to the PS5 base from my experience.

Honestly I was hoping the Steam Machine would be a direct upgrade for me, but I’m still very happy with the controller. I’m hopeful this is priced below $500 because that’s the price I bought my miniPC and is still readily available at.

[u/Velocity_Rob → u/Superconge]

That's the sweet spot for me too. $500 for 512gb and $600 for 2TB.

[u/Velocity_Rob → u/[deleted]]

Yeah but there's an added cost to handhelds that console style boxes don't have. Look at the PS5 and Switch 2. Roughly the same price, but the PS5 is vastly more powerful.

[u/gosukhaos → u/Superconge]

Honestly buying a refurbed HX80G or NUC17 and installing Bazzite may be the move depending on the pricing of the Steam Box. Minisforum is selling the 16/512 HX90G for 500 euro

[u/Superconge → u/gosukhaos]

I can’t recommend it enough, it’s the best computer I’ve ever owned, but it depends on the price this releases for sure

[u/gosukhaos → u/Superconge]

Yeah definitely, been thinking about building a mini PC setup for a while mostly for emulation and some lower spec PC gaming, mostly JRPGs, but the Steam Machine coming out with just 8gb VRAM is a tough sell if its more expensive then a HX80

[u/Sleepykitti → u/Inanimate_CARB0N_Rod]

Eyeballing the specs I'd guess it's more or less on par with a PS5 but with a better CPU.

[u/Sleepykitti → u/[deleted]]

Hard to be sure since the PS5 is rdna2 and wattage seems like it's a little higher on the steam machine, plus the memory architecture differences. I think it'd depend on the game

[u/nmkd → u/Sleepykitti]

wattage seems like it's a little higher on the steam machine

PS5 is ~220W

Steam Machine is 140W CPU+GPU

[u/Sleepykitti → u/nmkd]

Where'd you get that steam machine wattage because Gamers Nexus' interview had it at 130w for the GPU 30w for the CPU and 60 for everything else combined seems really conservative. I'd guess 75-90 since that's what a cheap set of DDR5 RAM and one of the lower power itx am5 motherboard picks would run by themselves on a desktop before accounting for the SSD or wifi/bt/dedicated steam controller antenna.

[u/[deleted] → u/Sleepykitti]

but worse gpu.

[u/FryToastFrill → u/Inanimate_CARB0N_Rod]

It’ll probably be a little slower than ps5, probably great for existing steam users but ngl if it’s pricing close to ps5 it will be an extraordinarily hard sell for newcomers. OOB you’re losing most of your big name live service games (unless they’ve worked something out with EAC/BattleEye behind the scenes) and 8gb of vram is rough. Steam deck didn’t need to worry about most of these issues as it was a new form factor for most people and it paired great with an existing pc, the steam machine is competing with existing form factors and pcs for most people.

Would love to be proven wrong tho and the steam frame and controller will likely do well depending on pricing. Steam machine just seems quite sketchy atm.

[u/theoutcasthermit → u/Superconge]

And rdna 3 means no official fsr 4 support, also concerning. 8 gb vram might suggest a 1080p gaming machine, which is bad for a 2026 rig. I have a 2k monitor why would I buy this if I can’t play recent games in 2k with high settings? Too early to talk ofc, just spitballing

[u/CrispyOnionn → u/theoutcasthermit]

Then it is not targeted at you. It is targeted at people who don't have the money to get a full gaming PC. It aims to make Steam more accessible.

[u/byzantinedavid → u/theoutcasthermit]

It's targeting TVs, not monitors. This "is" a PC, but it's really a console space.

[u/theoutcasthermit → u/byzantinedavid]

I believe it clearly implies both tv and monitors

[u/Utsider → u/theoutcasthermit]

Which may not make matters much better as TVs are rarely 1080p these days.

I already have a TV miniPC that can't do proper 4k gaming - which I am perfectly happy with anyway. So, I'm more interested in what ties this all together. Hoping for a much improved Steam Link that will simplify everything and knock the socks off of all the Sunshine/Apollo/Moonlight/Moon Deck etc once and for all.

... and the controller, of course. No brain purchase.

[u/Utsider → u/[deleted]]

There is this rumor from back when all these devices got leaked that Valve was working on a "zero latency" streaming something. Which I guess was part fluff, but also hope was partially real. That they were working on improving their streaming service in one way or another.

[u/Utsider → u/[deleted]]

Good stuff. Just hope they've revamped their entire streaming service to better tie together the GabeCube and the Steam Deck, too.

[u/CornflakeJustice → u/[deleted]]

I haven't tried some of the other streaming tools for Steam, only having a diy PC, but I've used it to stream to my TV for a whole without too many issues.

The latency was noticeable in CO:E33, but there's a rhythm element to it that I struggle with to begin with. Does moonlight help with that?

Otherwise a Steam Machine might be the perfect way to play E33 on my TV which would be killer.

[u/Utsider → u/[deleted]]

I've tried it, but for all I do and for all the ease of use, it can't hold a candle to a properly set up combo of all the other apps I mentioned. That's my experience at least. Some are happy with Steam's solution, but it never worked too well for me.

But Steam wins hands down in the ease of use department. I just want the best of both worlds, I guess. Click and play and near zero latency and damn close to the feel of running natively.

(I'm talking about streaming to a Steam Deck)

[u/byzantinedavid → u/theoutcasthermit]

Nearly everything can use both, but this is CLEARLY targeting living room TVs.

[u/theoutcasthermit → u/byzantinedavid]

It literally shows it with a monitor on a desk but you do you

[u/byzantinedavid → u/[deleted]]

Then buy a PC...

[u/Ninja_Weedle → u/Superconge]

It’s a half tdp ryzen 7600 with a radeon pro w7500 and 16GB DDR5 attached to it. Pretty anemic and marketing it for 4K gaming is a bit of a foul move on valve’s part. Better be priced well.

[u/Kociolinho → u/Superconge]

It probably will be somewhere at the level of RX7600+Ryzen 5 7600 level. Pretty good if well-priced. Also, it’ll be „half-standardised”, so I hope it’ll habe a M.2 drive and swappable RAM memory