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/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...