Valve Steam Machine roundup -- prices, images, and full specs revealed

I currently have an I5 750 at home . If anything I would want to buy the I7 models they have to offer.

the only people who would want to buy these are people who already have their own pc's. and unfortunately they won't spend money for a second one just for the living room. interesting idea, though. if i were rich i'd buy it in the blink of an eye

saw the zotacs system at ces a few days ago, my money is on these guys.

They had a gaming zbox at their booth that was playing 4k res games and battlefield 4 max settings @1080p with great fps. They didn't have any real working demo of their steam machine, but did say it will be even faster. This thing will be perfect for my to-go lan party beeeeeast! <3

I am unconvinced with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 so far, so this new Steam Box thingy-me-bob had me intrigued to find out more... then I saw the prices. :(

Nah I'll pass.

Alienware is so small it will be as powerful as a XBOX and PS4, maybe... Have fun playing games in medium to low setting. With an Intel you have to have at least I5.

Valve you really think you can compete with hybrids PC/Consoles priced at $1000-2000??? Unless your aim is not to compete at all, then I don't know what your goal is with these boxes.

You know, i can also make a nice metal case, drop in some components and double the price on them. What they should have done is used their purchasing power to make a simpler low priced, semi portable gaming pc. That would sell, this is just no different then buying a regular pc.

Overpriced and gimmicky. Pretty much as expected.

Like << LINK REMOVED >> said, the part that everyone here is overlooking is the fact that Valve is basically making this rig to circumvent Windows for PC gaming. They are already in the process of converting their entire library over to run on this OS.

If in the future they can get developers to write games in this Linux format it will be a real coup. Yes, you can still have a pc that runs both Linux and Windows, they arent expecting already established pc gamers to abandon their rigs. But in reality the majority of PC gamers 1) arent that tech savvy; 2) dont use their gaming rigs for many other things besides gaming and web browsing/music.

This box is basically a living room console that can do both (game/browse), with more power than even next gen consoles, but the ease of use of a console that is pre-built.

The final piece is the huge Steam library itself. Next gen console games are retailing for $70 now. $70 can get you a cart full of games in one of the Steam sales. Now combine this with the ability to share your entire steam library with friends for free (which exists right now) and the benefits of this system start to show thru.

All the people that already have rigs, they arent marketing this to you. Its for people that are looking to get into pc gaming (every year theres a new batch of people joining the fold) or people with old rigs with disposable income looking to upgrade.
As more time goes by the pricing will go down on the hardware as well.

Look at it this way...people were saying Steam was stupid when it first came out too now look at it. People said the same thing about iTunes.

Can we get over the "building a PC is cheaper" stuff and realize this is aimed at console lazy-fucks who probably wouldn't be bothered to build a PC from scratch?

I wonder the amount of days in which this would be hacked...then theyll be totally worth it....

Also all these new consoles are fucking ugly,...even ps4....why cant they make consoles look like Vita TV.

I can't see who these things want to appeal to. Console Gamers won't be intrested becuase form the hardware point of view it's just the same as a PC. Meaning you have to know what's in the box to make sure you can play your games at optimal settings and that's actually the exact opposite of a conventual gaming console where you just buy the game, slap it in and play. Folks who play PC games probably know one or two things about building and upgrading a PC efficently and will have similar specs for less money. I could ramble on about the steam exclusiv game library but to cut this short, in my humble opinion as both a console and pc owner these machines are completely pointless.

I don't think the Steam machine has a clear market.
What IS it? A PC, or a console?
It won't appeal to console gamers because 99% of console gamers already have their minds made up, they aren't going to go in a whole new direction, ESPECIALLY when it's a brand new gaming device.

It won't appeal to PC gamers, because they consider themselves too good for anything less than a gaming PC. The Steam machine will be seen as INFERIOR to a full blown gaming PC, much the same way consoles are viewed by the "master PC race", as they like to call themselves.

The pricing is ridiculously in direct contrast to what most people claim a gaming PC can be built for.

zotac, CyberPowerPC, and i buypower ones look awesome, nice small and cheaper.

Too early for this, some of those machines have missing specs/prices ;).

Waste of cash anyway, id rather improve the PC than buy one of those. Could do alot with that kinda cash :P

These things are ridiculously expensive! It is kind of cool bringing Steam into the console realm (as I am a console gamer), but I agree with Lambchopzin, they're going to be a very hard sell.

Most of these are too expensive. People who are already PC gaming are just going to build their own, or just buy a normal PC. Both options are significantly cheaper as it stands. And lord knows console gamers aren't going to drop 1k+ on a Steambox. I thought Valve was maybe going to subsidize these to make them more appealing, but I guess I was wrong. With prices like this these things are not going to sell.

The only boxes that are reasonably priced are the iBuyPower and CyberPowerPC boxes, which granted are decent enough for gaming rigs but still. I don't get the point in the more expensive ones. They just aren't going to sell.

Holy shit, that Origin PC Chronos. 2 Titans with 6GB of RAM? Is that 6GB each or 6GB total?

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but most of these cases look pretty unsightly. The few that look "cool" seem like they would eventually get annoying (because of the lights) and I would end up trying to block them with furniture.

I like the general idea of a SteamBox but the biggest hurdle will be the price. CyberPower and iBuyPower have the right idea with starting "low" and letting the user scale up but even then it's on the expensive side. Falcon Northwest seems to have fallen off the deep end with their "up to $6,000" quote. Why not just get a full PC if you're going to throw away that much money on a computer? I'd expect 4 GPUs and a top-tier overclocked CPU and like 64GB RAM. Can't fit that into a small form factor. And what's with that marble slab base?? Anyway, when can I buy one of those Steam Controllers for my PC?

This is one way to re-energize the PC market. All of these are just standard PC's packaged into a different box. Uninstall SteamOS and install Windows and you got a typical gaming rig in a nicer package.

This seems stupid.. its a PC that runs 2-5x the price of building your own, running a steam OS. Can't you just use the big picture button in steam if you really need to play it on your TV? Or buy a prebuilt computer, connect it to your tv with HDMI and install steam OS? Maybe i'm missing something

I know Sony and Japan are very conservative. But MS Should have released xboxOS years ago.

HW is where Sony and MS make least money. Now they both make bets on streaming, but Steam has the right solution. Want to see Steam overcome compatibility issues, though

Hope Maingear makes one

The Origin PC - Chronos uses a case that looks exactly like my Silverstone HTPC case (I'm sure it's been mentioned below, I just haven't read the comments yet). That is a disappointment to me. I may as well build my own...

Personally I think the Steam Machines are cool. Yes, you can build for cheaper, but I like that Valve is throwing their hat into the console ring.

Now for the negative...If Valve doesn't put some financial backing into getting software onto the Steam Machine (paying for some console exclusives, releasing Half-life 3 as an exclusive, etc...) then it will fail. It's hard to justify spending extra money on a Steam Machine when a PC is easily built for less, and the OS is free (not to mention most PC games require Windows anyway); and it's even harder to justify it when the Microsoft/Sony offerings will have more titles, access to exclusives, and in many cases, a reduced cost of entry.

Without developer support the Steam Machine will fail. Sure, you can put windows on it and play your PC games that way, but that defeats the purpose of Valve building an OS for a console, and then pushing for hardware manufacturers to build consoles.

All-in-all a great idea, but development for the system is the critical piece that will ultimately decide if this concept is a success, or failure.

Honestly I've never heard of CyberPower but so far out of this list this is the ideal one. Its priced similarly to consoles with better processing power, graphics card can play most games on max and a decent amount of hard-drive space which can easily be switched out.

The ones that are $1000+ are ridiculous and i think they fail to see the intended audience. Overall it seems like most of these are overcharging like crazy.

The customizable PC's may be the ultimate way to go but as for people who don't know how to build a PC, i think the idea that CyberPower is going with makes the most sense (being that its the price of an XB but better and with no kinect).

Hopefully more manufacturers will not go the route of $1000+ PC's since i personally can't see most PC enthusiast buying them and can't imagine newbies looking at the price tag as a good deal.

Rise of The Steam Machines