I seen that Scan are going to be making a Steam box so I search it, but the specs don't seem up to scratch , I'm not sure if this is accurate Source : http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/01/07/valve-announces-some-stuff/
There were only a couple of <$600 Steamboxes, Scan was not one of them. I'd assumed they'd all be going for small, low-TDP, mid-spec boxes but apparently they see a market for up-cannoned Steamboxes. Not entirely sure I agree with that assessment. A good proportion of them were just mid-tower cases, which I think missed the point entirely. Gigabyte's offering looks pretty good, a black GameCube imo.
I believe that this is the image that is being touted around the internet as scans steam box. Basically a laptop without a screen isn't it? Not much flexibility for upgrading either.
Not having found any evidence to the contrary, I have to assume that it will be, or at least with extremely low overheads from a very lightweight API. Otherwise it'll be a flop imho, it just won't offer any tangible benefit over other options.
I know they're going for an under the telly box, so they'll be targetting 1080p but, unless they are going direct, those are poor specs for a next gen gaming box.
Source http://store.steampowered.com/steamos/ So Steam OS looks to be a Client interface running on a Debian system core. Think of big picture mode. Although it forces you to use 500gb HDD (will not install on less) install requirements : http://store.steampowered.com/steamos/buildyourown
I think like any of these Steam boxes this one won't be cheap. Any box with the OS already installed and configured will be expensive. Much better to build your own
The idea is that without the overheads of an API like Direct X, coding directly to the GPU will return much greater performance. You can only do that with known quantities though - the millions of different possible combinations of GPUs, CPUs, mobos and RAM makes it all but impossible to achieve. If you have a fixed spec like an XBox or Playstation, you can get much more performance out of relatively low power hardware.
Any one else think it's just too much for laptop specs? At 700 pounds its should have a SSD at least, the laptops do at this price, even if it does have a sexy aluminum body.
I think Scan aren't going at gamers, it seems to be more aimed as a HTPC with its small size and "Integrated Creative Sound Blaster Cinema"
The spec of this saddens me greatly, what with the beta boxes showing such promise... The fact that these boxes are going to be synonymous with 'The PC Console' should pushed Valve to have set the baseline at a desktop i3 and GTX 760 or equivalent...
