Hardware Steam Machines specs and prices: Which one is for you?

I'm dissapointed. Most of these are boutique manufacturers that just used one of their old designs and called it a "Steam machine". Only some actually deserve to be called that.
And none of them get even close to Valve's original prototype design that beta testers got to play with.

I just don't understand Valve. They seem to have made some really loose design guidelines here.

Can we go back to calling a spade a spade and say "gaming computer"?

 

I don't think Valve get a say in how the Steam machines look, only what the tech specs are to be able to carry the SteamBox certification. As far as I'm aware.

 

Great news!

For an additional £85, you can opt to upgrade any one of thise machines, adding compatibility with the entire Steam catalogue and boosting gaming performance by large margins across the board!

...

I'm just going to assume you can see where I'm going with this

 

Just a thought: If Sony would let me play my Steam catalogue on the PS4 ..... I might buy a PS4. And if I could then have PS4 games play independently on a SteamBox (and/or my main PC gaming machine) - I would definitely buy PS4's for the house.

Any Valve/Sony execs listening?

 

scan is doing it right using the mobile GPU. the rest are hmmm average.

 

No. You would see performance on par with 8.1, in some cases SteamOS beats 8.1 and in some 8.1 beats SteamOS. Not bad seeing as we are talking about a beta OS versus an OS that has had almost two decades to develop the API for gaming.

And while you could get access to the entire Steam catalog you would be paying £85 for a proprietary (locked down) system versus an open source one.

 

Do you honestly think all of us care about Origin or UPlay? Do you think we all want to continue using Windows when Valve will be offering a great alternative?

 

Yes and Yes. EA and Ubisoft have exclusive games that most people here enjoy on their network. DirectX is the prefer choice by devs, and in many regards better than OpenGL, and is developed at a faster paste than OpenGL, allowing gorgeous games to be made.

Linux based OS, have very limited programs and for many of them, are not remotely as polished as the Windows version.

People do more than gaming on their PC's

 

I was going on my experience of gaming in Ubuntu, which I believe SteamOS is built on? The benchmarks you're quoting are synthetic, with the exception of an open-source game which I've never heard of.

Running the Source engine, which is used for a number of high-profile SteamOS games, Windows 8 is faster across the board.

As for the argument of Window being 'locked down', it rings a little hollow when using Linux restricts you to ~10% of available games.

Anyway, my comment was for the most part intended as a joke, sorry for coming across as argumentative. For those of you determined to game on SteamOS, go for it. Hopefully it will lead to something amazing like an efficient cross-platform API a few years down the line...

...just don't expect me not to poke fun at your gimped, linux-based gaming PCs

 

I think some of you are missing some points here. There are 12+ Vendors with a variety of machines. The $500 machines will beat any of the current consoles. The Bolt II is specifically for people who want a 4k gaming experience on their couches. It's the high end. If you guys want to play your console games at 4k, you'd just have to wait. Valve is at least tying to give people the option to game at 4k in the living room.

Again, most people who care that much will . . . just do it themselves, but if you can afford a nice 4k setup then odds are your time is worth enough to justify just buying a plug-and-play solution . . . or they are compensating by getting the most expensive things they can.

 

Those benchmarks mean diddly as they compared a Windows driver version of 306.97 with a Linux version of 310.19 and it was done over a year ago, or do you think Nvidia have been sitting around for a year twiddling their thumbs ?

Just because phoronix has used synthetic benchmarks doesn't invalidate their findings, unless you are saying any web site that uses the Unigine benchmark and any of the 100+ licensees of the Unigine engine are also invalid ? Or are we to believe differences show in synthetic benchmarks wont also be reflected in real world situations ?

And hey im all for jokes, does this mean i can poke fun at your touchy feely phone OS running on your desktop that will be so locked down in 10 years you wont even be able to save your own files to it because its all going to be based in the ohh so secure cloud.

 

One major selling point to me is being able to stream games around the house. I reckon most of the guys on this tech site have gaming PCs. We will not need to buy mega expensive SteamBox's to put in the rooms (unless we really need dedicated room machines) - all we really need are the SteamBox streaming receivers, which I expect to be very low spec, small form, and extremely affordable. I think.

 

But won't play any of the games....so how exactly does that "beat" the current console generation?

Like I said...I don't see who the market is for this product.

Now, streaming from your main gaming rig to your big TV.....that's a product worth a small investment.

 

As I posted in another topic

80million + people play 6 games that steam os wont support.

League of legends, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, World of warcraft, BF3/BF4. ( That also misses out the likes of Fifa, Heros of Might and magic, Guild wars 2. And a whole host of other mmos that Steam OS will not support ) All MMOs on steam are just downloaders that install the client for the real game.

Dota 2 which does not even work well with the controller btw ( Since its fully optimised for mouse and keyboard, Valve even admitted this themselves that Dota 2 would not work well under it.) gets about 5mil dif users a month and is the highest played game on steam as of today.

So anyone who plays those games wont be installing steam os anytime soon.

$500 machines all look pretty much junk onboard APU graphics that are slower than current consoles. PS4 gpu is effectively a 7870 in terms of its performance metrics.

Would cost me about £1500 to get a similar performing gaming pc to what I already own.

Will Oculus Rift or Star Citizen support Steam OS I wonder as thats the 2 major things most are looking forward too.

Current Peak
503,968 572,672 Dota 2
57,772 66,173 Team Fortress 2
53,438 95,047 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
42,226 64,689 Football Manager 2014
37,785 51,171 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
34,351 52,601 Sid Meier's Civilization V
27,253 41,284 Counter-Strike
24,858 34,689 Left 4 Dead 2
24,307 40,030 Garry's Mod
21,268 30,310 Counter-Strike: Source

This is today right now playing.

League of legends in just EUW has 3mil currently online playing.

 

Yet.

And some of those game aren't available on the PS4 or Xbox One so does that mean no one should buy them ?

IIRC Valve said "we're probably not going to be able to match it perfectly, not that it wont work well. They are not trying to replace peoples beloved M+K "What we're trying to do is find a way to get close to that performance, but kick back on your couch. That's the goal, to get close to that performance level."

 

If you buy one I'll give you a game, your controller vs m & k in Dota 2. Dota is not the sort of kick back on couch game. Even using a mouse and keyboard on a 40 inch tv is pain in those sort of games.

Steam os is based on pc games so I'd say it matters more than if a console supports a game.

Diablo 3 has done well on consoles that's for sure.

Would also not say the ps4 or Xbox one have set the world alight yet, how it does in the next 6 months will be the deciding factor on if its a success or failure. None of them yet have a game I'd buy.

So is steam OS free to aquire? Or is it only avail via these steam boxes? If I can download it I can test it i guess if I must buy a steam box its a none starter for most.

 

Yes SteamOS is free, although i wouldn't recommended installing it in its current beta state unless you like testing these things.

So far all we have seen are the Steam machines intended for people who don't own a PC able to run modern games. I think its fair to say most people are waiting to see what the boxes meant for streaming are going to cost and look like.

 

The examples are quite powerful just seems a bit of a waste sitting under the living room tv.

A good windows pc can be used for so many things.

And pc games can be buggy I don't think console gamers are going to like that..a game on a console has been played on that exact hardware it should be 100% sound.

The fiasco of the tombraider and bf4 launch won't go down well with non tech savvy people that might buy one of these.

I tolerate it but as a kid I would take toys apart and then could not put them back together again...if it's not broken, break it!

 

I'm skeptical of the performance difference of linux/steam OS compared to windows 8. 8 might be hated by many but of all the various OS, it's the one that runs fastest on my GF's single core 1.5ghz celeron laptop with 2gb ram. It was a vista era Packard Bell and has run win 7, linux mint and now win 8. Nevertheless, linux should be valued for a number of reasons over the grossly overpriced microsoft OS>

 

I think people should forget about HL3 for now. Value has so much in their hands with this new project "Steam Machines" they've embarked upon. If you ask me when I think HL3 will be released. We looking at 2016 or 2017.