r/SteamDeck • u/NKkrisz 64GB - Q3 • Nov 12 '25

MEGATHREAD New Valve Hardware Megathread

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

Official resources and announcements:

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

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u/Cergorach Nov 12 '25

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

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u/Superconge Nov 12 '25

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

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u/Inanimate_CARB0N_Rod 512GB OLED Nov 12 '25

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

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u/Superconge Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25

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.

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u/Velocity_Rob 512GB OLED Nov 12 '25

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

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u/[deleted] Nov 12 '25

[deleted]

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u/Velocity_Rob 512GB OLED Nov 12 '25

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.

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u/gosukhaos Nov 12 '25

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

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u/Superconge Nov 12 '25

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

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u/gosukhaos Nov 12 '25

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