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[Poll] Steam Machine 2026 = Build / Buy / Pass + SURVEY

Do you want a "Living Room PC" & are you...

  • Building Custom SFF (Can build faster Mini-ITX for less money)

    Votes: 15 14.9%

  • Building Standard ATX (Size doesn't matter; max performance/dollar)

    Votes: 13 12.9%

  • Buying Steam Machine (Value convenience/SteamOS over raw specs)

    Votes: 6 5.9%

  • Waiting/Upgrading Existing (Current PC/Deck is enough)

    Votes: 21 20.8%

  • Hard Pass (Price-to-performance is unacceptable)

    Votes: 40 39.6%

  • Writing a better POLL

    Votes: 6 5.9%
  • Total voters
    101
MavericK said:
I already have a living room PC with a 5070 Ti, so...no need for this.
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Our HTPC is a Core i9, 64GB, and a 2080 Super 8GB. I still want the Steam Machine to replace it.

goals.jpg
 
kram182 said:
I think in terms of people's actual/foremost gaming rig - their Steam Survey HW goal/metrics got dragged down by third-worlders in countries the Steam Machine isn't even for sale in now
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I guess it's possible that Valve never looked at or considered foreign markets... :ROFLMAO:
 
Tomorrow I will probably work on the Minisforum box I have and see where it stands. I personally feel the Steam box can be done for far cheaper, and perhaps smaller.
Depends on Steam OS I suppose. I would think an AMD mobile processor and chipset shouldn't be an issue to setup...... I hope.

May try it out with an egpu with a 7800xt if I can get the OS loaded ok. Not sure how far a 680M will go compared to a Steam Box "GPU".


I am of a mind, a Steam box can be replicated for cheaper. Though I do see it's appeal, if I felt like $1000 was an acceptable price.
 
Steam OS having Nvidia support would be nice, but there are some decent AMD options out there for less.
9070xt for $500ish is pretty worth while, 9060xt for $350 to $460. Or a 7000 series
 
DogsofJune said:
Steam OS having Nvidia support would be nice, but there are some decent AMD options out there for less.
9070xt for $500ish is pretty worth while, 9060xt for $350 to $460. Or a 7000 series
Click to expand...
I only want Nvidia support because my GTX-1070 is still plenty for what we play on it with our old plasma TV. I would rather not have to buy another video card just for the privilege of running the OS. That all being said, I'm more than happy to just wait it out. The fact that the newest Steam OS is publicly downloadable is a huge win, and I'll celebrate that.
 
My consoles do well enough in my living room, I don't need a steam machine to replace it.
 
1: Hard no, I'm not the target audience, I already have multiple PCs that are more powerful than the Steam machine. Also building my own PC is half the fun, so pre-built is actually a negative for me.
2: Yes, if it's not upgradeable it's a throwaway item, it's more console than PC at that point I'd rather buy a PS5 to get access to exclusives.
3: ALL of the above. It barely plays current titles let alone future ones
4: Irrelevant, I can put any OS on it if I want to.
5: Wouldn't buy at any price

I think it is not the right time to buy or build any PC, especially a budget build. There is no budget build anymore. I'd hate having to build a new PC right now. I have zero intention to upgrade any time soon. PC building as a hobby is over unless something significantly changes.
 
"Do you want a living room PC?" Where is the simple "no" response? Regardless of price.
 
usa all day said:
I guess it's possible that Valve never looked at or considered foreign markets... :ROFLMAO:
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Why bother? This is going to be such a limited production product. They are such a small player in the hardware space they can barely get the components they need and they certainly aren’t getting any discounts on memory or storage.
I’ll be shocked if they are still selling the Steambox a year from now and they’ll sell every one they make in the meantime- the pricing might look shitty right now but in 6 months it will likely be a completely different story and they will be sold out and possibly unable to make more and if they can manage to make more the price will be even higher.

This AI induced demand in so many sectors of the economy that are production limited is going to make pricing get ugly. If you can’t make more, all you can do is jack up the price to the point that you are selling everything you make for the highest price possible.
 
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gtrguy said:
Why bother?
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The green smiley means I was joking.

I think Valve has a wee bit of business acumen & expects the aftermarket to pick up the slack.

There are plenty of people with more money than time or skill to DIY.

The real "product" win here may end up being the spread of SteamOS & Bazzite which all lead to the Steam Store & increased sales.

I'm playing less KB/MS shooters and while I dislike gamepads in general, they work well for so many games my focus has shifted to different genres.
 
usa all day said:
I think Valve has a wee bit of business acumen & expects the aftermarket to pick up the slack.

I'm playing less KB/MS shooters and while I dislike gamepads in general, they work well for so many games my focus has shifted to different genres.
Click to expand...
Yes.

I should fire up Civ V, it works well with Steam Input.

p.s. While they would have loved to sell many more Steam Machines, they still win if sTeAm MaChInEs happen via aftermarket and DIY. They also win with Steam on Windows even if I think it sucks over there now.
 
Highwind said:
Ironically, this thing has preempted any want or need for a living room PC
View attachment 811667
Click to expand...
My link took an update a few months ago, since then it will shows the red wifi antenna (even when wired) then the game lags for a few seconds a few times in 30 minutes. Worried this would remove my wife's desire to play couch Co-Ops, I took a mini and installed bazzite. It plays some local like a gabecube and some remote like the link, and you know what, I am OK with that. I hope my link takes a new update but I am not holding my breath.

Edit to be fair 3 different days it lagged, it was replaced before it could do it a 4th time, it could be fixed by now for all I know.
 
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CaffeineMan said:
My link took an update a few months ago, since then it will shows the red wifi antenna (even when wired) then the game lags for a few seconds a few times in 30 minutes. Worried this would remove my wife's desire to play couch Co-Ops, I took a mini and installed bazzite. It plays some local like a gabecube and some remote like the link, and you know what, I am OK with that. I hope my link takes a new update but I am not holding my breath.
Click to expand...
Huh. I know the icon from playing FF7 Rebirth recently, but apparently that was just due to the game being horribly stuttery and hitchy, and it (mostly) went away after finding some optimization mod. I am also wired. Haven't seen it aside from that, but I also blocked the Link from accessing WAN after I last updated it. What software version is yours on?
 
MikeTrike said:

View: https://youtu.be/BVKfQxnO3HI
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Sad.

Buy a console then.

Back when I had a kid in the house, I did all of my tinkering and playing after the kid was in bed for the night.

Tinkering with hardware is the reason I am into this shit. I honestly rarely care about the games themselves at all.

I only ever played games because I had a capable PC, but the capable PC was the whole reason I was into this shit in the first place.

If it weren't for tinkering with a high end PC I probably wouldn't play games at all. I would probably have stopped when I retired my NES when I was 11-12 years old in 1991.

For me this hobby is not really about the games. Never has been. With some extremely rare exceptions over the last 30-35 years the games are merely a side effect.

For a good 5 years of my life when I was busy with family stuff (~2004 - 2009) I dropped out of the hobby all together and never played any games at all.

I wasn't tinkering with high end PC's and didn't have a place to put a PC so I just didn't bother with games.

The hardware itself, challenging yourself by building a great custom build, is the end goal. The games are just another thing you can do with that hardware once you have built it.

Worrying about getting a cheap and easy consumer electronics product in order to play games is just kind of putting the cart before the horse to me.

I'll have gaming on my terms. In my proper office, in the dark, late at night when I can be alone, at a proper desk, on a proper chair with a proper custom build that I have tweaked the most out of, or I won't have it at all.

It's not social. I don't want it in the living room. I don't want to ever use a controller.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Sad.

Buy a console then.
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Pretty much. This is the issue I see with the Steam Machine fanboy cope: It fails to be a good buy for BOTH markets you can argue.

If you want to argue "It's a gaming PC bro, that's what makes it great!" Ok, well then it is going to get compared to gaming PCs. Hardware Unboxed did just that and ya, you can get a whole lot better for your money from other vendors, including pre-builts. They also argue, correctly in my opinion, that you want to get an upgradable system if you get a PC because that is part of what makes PC gaming compelling is the ability to upgrade your system. So on the "But it is a gaming PC bro!" argument, it fails to be compelling.

If you want to argue "It's a console bro, it is small and simple!" Well then now it's competition is the PS5 and PS5 Pro. You can argue if it is more powerful than a PS5, seems to be about the same but that is WAY cheaper. The PS5 Pro though, it is unquestionably faster AND it is cheaper. People buy consoles not only because of the ease of use, but the price. So the fact that it is more expensive is a big mark against it.

The cope arguments all seem to be acting like you HAVE to want a gaming PC but that it HAS to be in a console form factor (as though MiniITX doesn't exist) and thus the Steam Machine is great because it is the only real option there. It is saying it is good because you should want all the things that it has, and not care about the things it doesn't, and that's pretty silly.

I'm not saying there's nobody who wants one, but it really doesn't hold up well for its main two use cases. Only some hybrid use case where it has to be small and simple like a console but it ALSO has to be a PC.
 
If modern games have taught me anything, it's that chasing the highest graphical fidelity yields the best gaming experience.
 
Sycraft said:
Pretty much. This is the issue I see with the Steam Machine fanboy cope: It fails to be a good buy for BOTH markets you can argue.

If you want to argue "It's a gaming PC bro, that's what makes it great!" Ok, well then it is going to get compared to gaming PCs. Hardware Unboxed did just that and ya, you can get a whole lot better for your money from other vendors, including pre-builts. They also argue, correctly in my opinion, that you want to get an upgradable system if you get a PC because that is part of what makes PC gaming compelling is the ability to upgrade your system. So on the "But it is a gaming PC bro!" argument, it fails to be compelling.

If you want to argue "It's a console bro, it is small and simple!" Well then now it's competition is the PS5 and PS5 Pro. You can argue if it is more powerful than a PS5, seems to be about the same but that is WAY cheaper. The PS5 Pro though, it is unquestionably faster AND it is cheaper. People buy consoles not only because of the ease of use, but the price. So the fact that it is more expensive is a big mark against it.

The cope arguments all seem to be acting like you HAVE to want a gaming PC but that it HAS to be in a console form factor (as though MiniITX doesn't exist) and thus the Steam Machine is great because it is the only real option there. It is saying it is good because you should want all the things that it has, and not care about the things it doesn't, and that's pretty silly.

I'm not saying there's nobody who wants one, but it really doesn't hold up well for its main two use cases. Only some hybrid use case where it has to be small and simple like a console but it ALSO has to be a PC.
Click to expand...

Yep.

I mean, part of why it is more expensive than a PS5 is that Sony discounts the hardware expecting to make it back on game sales later, and Valve doesn't.

One could argue that one could turn it into a better deal over time by buying games on Sale on Steam, compared to perennially full price PS5 titles, it even that seems a little bit like a stretch...
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yep.

I mean, part of why it is more expensive than a PS5 is that Sony discounts the hardware expecting to make it back on game sales later, and Valve doesn't.

One could argue that one could turn it into a better deal over time by buying games on Sale on Steam, compared to perennially full price PS5 titles, it even that seems a little bit like a stretch...
Click to expand...
And PS+

They also need more time to catch up to Valve's pricing.

Screenshot_20260629-192426.png
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yep.

I mean, part of why it is more expensive than a PS5 is that Sony discounts the hardware expecting to make it back on game sales later, and Valve doesn't.
Click to expand...
See the problem there is Valve DOES. The make, by far, the most of their money on the Steam Store. They take a 30% cut of basically all sales. So the console argument holds up here too: You take a cut on software, subsidize the hardwaree.

But ok, you are worried that because it is unlocked, normal, OC hardware if you do that people will just buy them and use them as PCs and you'll lose money. Fair, could happen in this environment. You still shouldn't be making much on them. If they can't beat Best Buy pricing, and the HUB Aussies literally found better deals at Best Buy, and not specials, returns, or the like, normal systems, then you are charging TOO MUCH.

That said... the reasons don't really matter to the end user. If someone I know wants a game console because they want the easy videogame experience, I'm recommending the best value. I'm not going to say "You should totally spend more because Valve."

Zarathustra[H] said:
One could argue that one could turn it into a better deal over time by buying games on Sale on Steam, compared to perennially full price PS5 titles, it even that seems a little bit like a stretch...
Click to expand...
That one also falls apart as it turns out the Playstation Store has lots of sales too. Are they as good, as deep, whatever as Steam sales? Probably not but they aren't bad so if you are a sale shopper, the same argument applies to PS5: Wait for sales. Likewise it actually has an additional potential advantage for the ultra-value shopper: Used physical games. Steam permits no reselling, but you still can do that with PS5 discs. The market is fairly small, most people have gone all digital, but it exists and is something you can argue for value shoppers.

Realistically, I don't think either one is a big win. Both stores have sales, both stores charge full price on launch day if you want to play then, as many people do. It was an argument back in the day when consoles didn't do digital sales, and before Steam refunds when you sometimes got popup specials that were REALLY deep, but these days sales on digital games is something you get from everyone. Even Nintendo, just not on their own exclusives.


Either way, just not compelling. If it at least matched Best Buy pricing there'd be a slight argument, but only a slight one. Another elephant in the room is that it is old hardware. It is Zen 4 and RDNA 3. That makes it less competitive vs other systems out there often offering Zen 5 and RNDA 4. Zen 5 you can argue doesn't matter much but RDNA 4? That's a non-trivial upgrade. It is just a very uncompelling system for either use case.
 
Lets go back in time to the development of the GabeCube, the PC industry was not on fire. A Valve road map could have been an attempted path make Linux gaming being the norm.
Could it be the GabeCube is intended to increase the number of Linux gamers, like the Steam Handheld did. Making Linux more popular. If there is enough market share of Linux gamers it may make the some devs develop/optimize for Linux. Creating a snowball of linux devs/gamers.
If this sounds impossible there are (per a 5 second google search) 84.2 million PS5s sold. There are 1.75 billion PC gamers it would not take a very big percentage of us to beat the PS5 that has dedicated game developers.

Who knows with that many users mabey new silicone gettting rid of the old x86 at the very end of the roadmap.
 
I REALLY want one but its a big NO at the current prices. It makes far more sense to grab a dock for a steamdeck, if you have one, and just use that for the living room. And if you need more HP, use moonlight to stream from a beefier machine.
 
CaffeineMan said:
Lets go back in time to the development of the GabeCube, the PC industry was not on fire. A Valve road map could have been an attempted path make Linux gaming being the norm.
Could it be the GabeCube is intended to increase the number of Linux gamers, like the Steam Handheld did. Making Linux more popular. If there is enough market share of Linux gamers it may make the some devs develop/optimize for Linux. Creating a snowball of linux devs/gamers.
If this sounds impossible there are (per a 5 second google search) 84.2 million PS5s sold. There are 1.75 billion PC gamers it would not take a very big percentage of us to beat the PS5 that has dedicated game developers.

Who knows with that many users mabey new silicone gettting rid of the old x86 at the very end of the roadmap.
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That's not a like-for-like comparison, though.

The same data you cite whittles that down to 908-936 million active PC gamers, and of course that doesn't mean they're Steam gamers or even the sort to play the titles that would reel them in. The data notes that "they primarily gravitate toward established live-service games, with nearly 67% of all PC playtime spent on titles that are six or more years old." Not exactly the sort of person who's going to drop $1,049-plus on a living room PC they don't need.

While there are far fewer PS5s sold and in use, their owners are much more likely to be invested in newer or non-live games. They not only bought the console, but multiple games and likely

Could the Steam Machine boost Linux adoption? Quite possibly. But it's appealing to a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the gaming market, and it's expected to have less adoption than the Steam Deck. There's enough of an audience that Valve will likely be happy to keep selling and developing it; I just don't think there will be a full-on market upheaval.
 
dr.stevil said:
I REALLY want one but its a big NO at the current prices.
It makes far more sense to grab a dock for a steamdeck, if you have one, and just use that for the living room.
Click to expand...
When I win the lottery, I'll buy both but it's - all about your use cases...

I live with a slob roommate & avoid the food & beer-stained couch & living room floor, so the Steam Box isn't what I NEED, but if I lived alone - I'd want one - but probably build a better one for fun.

I'd also love to have a steam deck to play in bed & dock or cast or whatever to my bedroom big screen for gamepad / sleepy time story games.

Some dudes above said - I LOCK MYSELF IN MY ROOM TO PLAY NAUGHTY GAMES I can't play in the living room - or - games suck, I just like building boxes.

Different use cases for different head cases...
~ do I have to explain different strokes for different folks? Yeah...

Ai says: The best Steam Deck configuration currently available is the Steam Deck OLED (1TB model).
Following Valve's price adjustments due to rising global component and memory costs, a complete setup consisting of the top-tier console & paired with a high-performing television dock
~ will cost you ~ between $969 and $1,039, depending on your choice of docking station. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
 
usa all day said:
When I win the lottery, I'll buy both but it's - all about your use cases...

I live with a slob roommate & avoid the food & beer-stained couch & living room floor, so the Steam Box isn't what I NEED, but if I lived alone - I'd want one - but probably build a better one for fun.
Click to expand...

Nah. If you lived alone you'd probably do what I do and just setup a gaming computer next to the TV and just run it all directly. No need for a steam box. Just put the gaming computer where you want it. Who cares how big the case is? This isn't a fashion show.
 
Ididar said:
Nah. If you lived alone you'd probably do what I do and just setup a gaming computer next to the TV and just run it all directly. No need for a steam box. Just put the gaming computer where you want it. Who cares how big the case is? This isn't a fashion show.
Click to expand...
I have lived alone a lot & would love to have a very quiet box vs the wind machine / heater that I currently have (the covid parts box).

However, if I won the LOTTO, I'd build a quiet low heat box for casual gaming in the living room like I never did before.

I've had a race sim / cockpit rig (dining room), FPS rig (bedroom desk), office / work from home rig (guest room) at the same time & LOVED that separation of PC purpose & seating & controls.
 
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usa all day said:
I have lived alone a lot & would love to have a very quiet box vs the wind machine / heater that I currently have (the covid parts box).
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I've mentioned this on other threads, but: I bought a Minisforum NUC a few months ago. It has an OCuLink port. Last month I got a eGPU dock, dropped an old RX6800 in it, and used it for AI inferencing. It ran pretty well, and it's quiet. It also games at about 90-95% the speed the 6800 would if it were sitting in a PCIe slot, and it's a lot quieter than my desktop.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
My option is... waiting for native Nvidia support. I want to convert my existing desktop living room PC to Steam OS. Tired of Windows and its bullshit. I moved on to Mac for personal use.
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You can pretty much already do this with Bazzite. It is a pre-assembled "easy mode" linux image specifically for gaming, with all the tricky to configure stuff already set up. Essentially, SteamOS but an enthusiast open source initiative.

In the past AMD GPU's had good ipen source driver support, but Nvidia relied upon the binary blob closed source driver which was great for desktop and compute work, but kind of stunk for gaming. That has changed recently. Recent Nvidia GPU's now have an open source driver which is pretty much as good as the AMD driver. This is what has convinced me to switch over to Linux for games (when I finally finish my hilariously delayed build)
 
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I tried Bazzite on a USB stick, and it was "comfortable" to just use as a browser.
 
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