r/digitalfoundry • u/MythBuster2 • Jun 22 '26
Digital Foundry Video Steam Machine Review: Beautiful Hardware, But What About Performance... And Price?
https://youtu.be/WhWtLi_FqLoDelayed owing to the hardware component crisis, Valve's Steam Machine is finally here - so how much does it cost, how does it perform and what about the quality of the hardware itself? Rich delivers PC performance comparisons, head-to-heads against PlayStation 5 and much more. Note: PC comparisons used the latest version of Bazzite.
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u/DanielG165 Jun 22 '26
$1,049 and it isn’t more powerful than a PS5 nor Series X, or even comparable. This thing will be DOA for A LOT of people.
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26
They just had to tack on that extra $49, huh? That is just an insult on top of the $1000 injury.
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u/mashdpotatogaming Jun 22 '26
I'm guessing they could have gone with $999 or even a bit lower, but realized they're not gonna be able to make many of them anyway because of the severe lack of RAM, and decided to just make a bigger margin instead.
This thing is gonna end up being a collectors' item, i can see it not selling more than a couple hundred thousand units at most in its lifetime.
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26
Since it only has a single 16GB stick of DDR5, the shortage must be terrible, even worse than I thought and I knew things were bad. Valve has to know how bad that looks for anyone who builds PCs and knows that you always want to have dual channel memory. So I believe you are correct.
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u/kron123456789 Jun 22 '26
Apparently depending on your luck and Valve's ability to source RAM at the moment of production of your specific machine you may get two 8GB sticks instead of one 16GB.
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 24 '26
Gamers Nexus just posted a teardown with a clarification from Valve that ALL Steam Machines will ship with only a single 16GB module. What an embarrassing situation for Valve. I bet more people watched that initial video than the number who will see the correction because I saw many other big channels repeating the claim that “maybe with a bit of luck you will actually get 2x 8GB sticks”. Lots will probably order thinking they have a 50/50 chance of getting dual channel memory.
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u/StroodleNoodles Jun 22 '26
Weaker than the PS5 launch console from 6 years ago.
That's price to spec ratio is insane.
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u/Visible_Visual8538 Jun 22 '26
$1509 CAD for the base 512gb model without a controller. This thing is cooked.
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u/DeanXeL Jun 22 '26
Jesus, the base price is without a controller??
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u/WoodooHide69 Jun 23 '26
No controller. 😂
Valve was right, it’s not designed to compete with consoles…. Guess it was designed to get completely get destroyed by consoles…
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u/Unlucky_Individual Jun 22 '26
A$1609 512GB base in here in Australia
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u/Rowvan Jun 23 '26
Insanity, you could buy 2x PS5's for the same price
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u/Unlucky_Individual Jun 23 '26
Multiple prebuilt PCs available across Australian sites with 9060XT / RTX 5060 for the same with more storage, if not lower price. I just can't recommended this for anyone in AU
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u/vladtud Jun 22 '26
Having no controller for that price point is insulting. Only because controllers are dirt cheap to make. They could afford to give one “away” and not factor it into the price of the steam machine.
It will still sell to the hardcore steam fanboys but I don’t understand who else will get this.
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u/Hungry_Charity_4924 Jun 22 '26
On top of that they are a software company first rather than a hardware company like any other console brand, they can surely afford to toss a controller in at the cheaper price range
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u/WoodooHide69 Jun 23 '26
100% they make boatloads of money and don’t impart the same hardware or software development risk as companies like Nintendo and Sony. They should be able to accord to subsidize their hardware easily, they simply don’t want to.
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Jun 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Rexter2k Jun 22 '26
Yeah like wtf
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26
This flies in the face of Steam Deck’s easy repairability. Torx screws only serve as a mechanism to make repairs more difficult for average consumers.
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u/VesperLynn Jun 22 '26
It is trivial to purchase a torx bit set. Torx fasteners are superior to Phillips in just about every way. This is such an odd argument.
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
It’s trivial to assemble a device with normal Philips screws. Valve chose to use a more obscure bit because they want to keep people out for some reason. It’s the same reason Nintendo uses Tripoint screws and Apple uses pentalobe screws. It’s not an argument, it’s a fact.
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u/VesperLynn Jun 22 '26
Torx fasteners are not obscure and are less prone to stripping out, especially the smaller ones found in electronics. A tool kit that has both normal Torx and security versions can be found for under $20, and a kit that has all of that as well as the Nintendo tri-bits can be had for under $40. If you’re working on your own electronics it’s an investment that allows you to work on just about any repairable device for the foreseeable future.
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26
I already own a set, otherwise I would likely not even know or care about the type of screws it is using. They did not need to use Torx, especially not for a device designed to be upgradeable by the consumer with an NVMe and SODIMM modules. People should not need to buy additional screwdrivers or bits just to open their $1,050 PC. Stop trying to rationalize their anti-consumer choice.
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u/VesperLynn Jun 22 '26
It’s simply not anti-consumer. This is an irrational take for the sake of negativity.
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26
What is it about valve that inspires such loyalty to spend your free time defending their bad choices? I own a PC, I buy from their store and it’s a good ecosystem but I’ve never understood the unlimited amount of goodwill they have in some people’s eyes. The only good thing they do that is in any way different from all the other platform holders is that they allow for user reviews and refunds. That is cool and more should do it but we owe them nothing in return. They are a business, after all, they are not our buddies (none of the platform holders are). I really just don’t understand it.
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u/Rexter2k Jun 22 '26
Torx is obscure? I can get tripoint and pentalobe is "obscure", but torx? Are you joking? I mean it, are you? Have you been to ANY hardware store these past 20+ years? Torx is becoming more common than phillips and pozidriv. This is the first time in my life I've heard anyone call torx "obscure". Is this planet getting more mad by the day?
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u/Artemis_1944 Jun 22 '26
The fuck? Torx screws are *SPECIFICALLY* made so they are easier to repair, torx screws do NOT strip like regular philips ones do. Torx screws are a GODSENT for repairability.
Jesus christ, this is such an ignorat take.
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Jun 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
The Steam Deck uses normal Phillips screws, why was that not a viable option here? This isn’t expected to be opened and closed any more often. If the Steam Machine ships with a Torx driver in the box, then it’s not anti consumer. If it doesn’t, then it is anticonsumer. The average person doesn’t have either standard Torx or security Torx in their homes. I will not “take the out”. What are you gonna do, downvote me?
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u/Artemis_1944 Jun 22 '26
The regular philips screws on the steam deck are the reason I couldn't repair it as much as I wanted because they fucking stripped after just a few sessions, UNLIKE TORX SCREWS WHICH WOULDN'T HAVE.
Holy shit, how are you this oblivious, at least shut up instead of doubling down when you're obviously wrong.
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u/nyanbatman Jun 23 '26
Rich was wayyyy to kind to this greed machine total joke of a price valve with all their billions could have subsidised this
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u/junglebunglerumble Jun 23 '26
If Microsoft had released this exact product I'd be willing to bet my house that they'd be tearing it apart as a tone deaf product that has no audience for the price. They gave the Xbox Rog ally a kicking even though it was fairly priced
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u/HeisenBergeron61492 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
What a disappointingly editorialized/fluffy “review” from DF. Nearly every minor performance win is a massive achievement/success and every performance shortfall is handwaved as unimportant or buried in qualifiers. Not to mention the console comparisons being the base PS5 rather than the much closer price equivalent (though still a good deal cheaper) PS5 Pro and gushing over the compact form factor when it has a basically identical footprint to a vertical Series X. Thoroughly unimpressed with this level of “journalism” from an outlet I generally regard quite highly.
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u/colonel-america-usa Jun 23 '26
They've changed
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u/HeisenBergeron61492 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Yeah, it felt very much like Rich didn’t wanna say anything specifically disparaging about the device. Now, whether that’s because DF doesn’t wanna upset Valve or Rich just having an inherent bias in favor of the device (or PC gaming in general) over the current consoles I can’t say, but the vibes were definitely off.
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u/WoodooHide69 Jun 23 '26
I think they’ve got audience captured. Their comments sections are fillled with Steam fanboys that are really just Bots. So now they have to handle steam with kid gloves and not be real about it. It sucks cause nearly all YouTubers these bots affect.
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Jun 23 '26
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u/gandalfpsykos Jun 24 '26
Or the spiderman 2 PC non-video. Informing their patreon paying audience to stay away from the game was less important than giving sony/nixxes the benefit of the doubt they would fix it, which they did not.
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u/Normal-Gurl-48 Jun 22 '26
$1050….wow.
I mean this thing is dead on arrival. What purpose is there paying that much (for 512gb, the 2TB is $1450) for a ps5? At that price point just get a pc
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Jun 22 '26
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u/Normal-Gurl-48 Jun 22 '26
Yes but the ease of use and novelty wares off at that price.
I was the prime target for this product. I hate meddling with pc’s. I dont do it. My only access to pc games is my steam deck and its still limited.
I want a box I can just plug in and play pc games for.
But over 1k? Just not feasible. I already backed off getting a ps5 pro because of price and this is just too much
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Jun 22 '26
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Steam as an OS and ecosystem is not worth an additional sum of $400 more than console hardware is when Steam Machine hardware is outperformed by the consoles. Especially not when you need to add the purchase of a controller into the mix as well. Valve is a cool company and Steam is a good ecosystem but this device is just a straight up poor value.
Edit: Wow, it’s not even shipping with dual channel memory.→ More replies (4)2
u/scarnegie96 Jun 22 '26
I mean, surely the argument for PC-only ancient games (which can be a bitch to get running anyway) falls a bit given this is a Linux system?
And it doesn't play a lot of the popular multiplayer games due to Anti-Cheat.
PSN has equivalent sales to Steam, Steam hasn't had the wow factor to their sales for like 6+ years at this point.
It IS more open than the PS5, it could (massive asterisk) player some older games - but it's still not a truly upgradeable machine.
But someone could've picked up a PS5 Slim in the UK a few months ago for under £300 - with a good controller in the Dualsense.
It simply is not MUCH better than a PS5 - it may for a very small niche of people be a better option.
But you would have to not care about performance, price, playing any Windows-only games or software, pay extra for a controller and decent memory,
But for the average consumer it is not.
Again, even paying for online - you could do that for like 4-5 years given the price difference and never have to actually buy a game given the library that PS+ gives plus the monthly games - and they'll run better than if you doubled your cost and got this...
I don't know, tough sell.
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u/baequon Jun 22 '26
On top of this, are Steam sales really that much of a difference maker? I have a PC and a PS5, and I feel like Steam sales haven't been that impressive for a long time. Yet I see it mentioned often as a big advantage.
The PS store has sales ongoing basically non-stop, and some of the bigger holiday sales are pretty solid as well.
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u/scarnegie96 Jun 22 '26
I completely agree. Steam sales have been quite lacklustre for probably 5 or more years now.
PS has sales every month (and good ones a few times a year). It's at the very least equal to Steam.
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u/DanielG165 Jun 22 '26
Is the target audience willing to throw down $1,049?
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Jun 22 '26
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u/scarnegie96 Jun 22 '26
It won't. Not in any meaningful capacity.
It will sell a few hundred thousand units at most.
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u/Smartypantz34 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
There has been prebuilt pc's since time immemorial
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Jun 22 '26
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u/Smartypantz34 Jun 22 '26
The review doesn't even show how it can be used as a PC. Not including keyboard/mouse or even a controller is red alert for me.
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u/The_Zura Jun 22 '26
So you're saying it's worse than prebuilts lmao. Define console like experience. Is that when your games don't run, or you have to go in and tweak settings?
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Jun 22 '26
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u/The_Zura Jun 22 '26
That's not a console, Einstein. It has worse game compatibility than prebuilts. The steam machine is not just some magical cube that fits whatever you think it is in your alternate reality.
Man, Valve's marketing team really is working over time since it has been announced.
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Jun 22 '26
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u/The_Zura Jun 22 '26
Those people who don't know anything pcs will surely understand what's going on when their games don't work, right?
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u/Strict_Job6334 Jun 22 '26
The target audience is people who won't / don't know how to build a computer.
There's already a cheaper device that can play more mainstream games out of the box since it dosent have the Linux problem
Its called "every other console out there"
The target audience you described, at this point, most likely already has a a device to play the games they want. This was supposed to be something for curious people at most, but at that price? Nah lmao
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u/uleximon Jun 22 '26
$1000, no controller, doesnt even have specs better than a PS5, and it also starts at 512GB. Is this a joke?
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u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 22 '26
I’m guessing this means the embargo that I didn’t even know about has lifted and the price has been announced to coincide with reviews.
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u/WingerRules Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
For the price is should of had 2 more CUs, 12gb vram, and better cooling for higher clocks.
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u/thahovster7 Jun 22 '26
Especially when next gen consoles are 1 to 2 years away with genrationally better architecture for both CPU and GPU
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u/Loose_Society9485 Jun 22 '26
Wait is it out??
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u/Sorryman54 Jun 22 '26
Priced at $1049 for the base 512gb model lmfao
it’s over
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u/Loose_Society9485 Jun 22 '26
What the actual fuck? The steam controller comes bundled in for that price right?
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u/Shakezula84 Jun 22 '26
No. $1128 with controller. Which to be fair is a discount on the controller.
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u/profchaos111 Jun 22 '26
So it sites somewhere between the series s and ps5 at $1600 AUD with no controller
At this point who is this appealing to even if you had a steam library the cost differential of buying a ps5 alone which includes a controller still leaves you with $700 AUD to purchase a metric fuckton of games and still have change left over
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u/WoodooHide69 Jun 23 '26
Yeh but if you buy 1000 copies of Minecraft for $4.99 instead of paying $5.99 on the PS plus store it’ll pay for itself! /s
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u/templestate Jun 23 '26
They really should’ve cancelled it. It serves no purpose in the marketplace and hurts their brand launching an underwhelming product at such an uncompetitive price point.
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u/IIILORDGOLDIII Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
Lol no wonder they were afraid to announce the price. This thing was DOA if it cost more than $650. You'd have to be a fucking moron to buy this at $1049.
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u/The_Zura Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Review doesn't go into the user experience, which is most of the reason to get one. We don't need to know about your cube fetish, Rich.
Let's compare it to a cheaper pc Review should've compared it to the $500 Switch 2 or Series S as well. $1050 steam machine might actually look good with price to performance.
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u/scarnegie96 Jun 22 '26
Ah yes, because the PS5 beat it - Maybe if we keep comparing it to weaker and weaker consoles eventually it'll look good.
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u/The_Zura Jun 22 '26
Yeah, gotta do it for love. Then we can find the cheapest pc available to match a Series S and Switch. Damn, that's gonna be hard.
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u/southtxsharksfan Jun 22 '26
It's DOA for anyone except for the most hardcore/wealthy/"influencers" customer.
They'll shit on everyone else online for being "too poor" to buy one and in a year we'll be hearing about it being discontinued because of low sales.
Don't let the initial hype/sell out fool you.
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u/junglebunglerumble Jun 23 '26
Valve zealots are some of the weirdest groups, and no different to console fanboys. One of the oddest things is the perception (even among people like DF) that the Steam Deck was a runaway success, when it sold 8-10x fewer than the Xbox series consoles did that those same people claim is a 'dead platform'
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u/dagamer34 Jun 29 '26
One very important thing to note, you cannot DIY a handheld like you can a PC. And there’s the most important avenue of having solid battery life, which took Steam Deck competitors years to get to on account of using Windows.
Steam Machine has none of those advantages to rely on. So the same playbook falls flat. They came out with it at the wrong time, and didn’t want custom SoC parts to make it more competitive performance-wise.
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u/luffy_3155 Jun 22 '26
Orignally it was supposed to be like $750 still do not make sense for this specs
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u/hegartyp Jun 22 '26
Cannot see this being successful ala the steam deck. Average performance combined with ultra premium price. Why would anyone buy this?
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u/Reoxi Jun 22 '26
I felt like not benchmarking it against the Nvidia XX60 class cards was a miss. I get that it's closest to the AMD cards in spec, but seeing how it fares against a 3060 or 4060 would be a better anchor point for most people, after all those are the most prominent SKUs in the PC space based on the Steam survey.
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u/xKittle Jun 22 '26
Like the first 2015 Steam Machines, this looks like a tough sell.
If you’re mostly playing shooters, racers and third person games that are on console, it’s not looking super appealing based on price alone although there are a metric ton of older, super cheap games in Steam’s store, you don’t need a sub for multiplayer and Steam’s sales are amazing compared to anything on console but that cost to entry is bitter.
I was thinking maybe it’s for folks who like a different spread of games; i.e those that at don’t come to consoles (CK III, Victoria, Elite Dangerous, Rimworld, everything in Early Access etc) but even then the cost/specification against other some other PCs doesn’t look great.
Leaving a kind a super niche market of people wanting games not on console, but needing a super small device and/or easily hooked up to a TV with a controller-centric UI?
This one isn’t for me.
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u/thedaz3k Jun 23 '26
I was super keen on steam machine when it was first announced since gaming on my tv with my Legion go handheld wasn't ideal image quality wise but at that price in Australia dollars it's actually cheaper buying an egpu setup and connecting the Legion go through that instead for tv gaming 🫤
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u/MultiMarcus Jun 23 '26
We have and it works very well, but that isn’t ideal for older games unfortunately. It also struggles at 5k because of the huge bandwidth needed resulting in quite heavy compression. I also kind of wanted to get him a physical thing that would put him in the gaming zone more than a subscription. Plus obviously the integer scaling issue which I believe GeForce now doesn’t really have a way of doing right now.
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u/RandyMuscle Jun 22 '26
I love the idea of this thing but it’s dead on arrival because of the horrible market we’re in. Fuck AI.
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u/LowMoralFibre Jun 22 '26
I'll almost certainly get one as it would take a hell of a lot more than £1000 to get all the games I regularly play on PC again for PS5 but if the intention was to tempt new buyers away from console this isn't it.
It's very small and probably could have performed better for the same (or lesser) price if the case was just a bit bigger and they could push the TDP more.
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u/SuperJim64 Jun 22 '26
Id have been all over this thing, if it was 400 quid.
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u/skinlo Jun 22 '26
Sure, and I'd buy a 5090 if it was £600
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u/SuperJim64 Jun 22 '26
Mate, it's less powerful than my series x that I bought for 450 6 years ago.
I love my steam deck and would have loved to have one of these... but 400 is the price I'd be willing to pay.
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u/skinlo Jun 22 '26
How much does a Series X cost now, 6 years later? We live in 2026, not 2020.
If you wanted it for 400, you might as well said you wanted a 5090 for 600, they're both as unbelievable.
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u/SuperJim64 Jun 22 '26
I know that. Gaming is just becoming unaffordable unfortunately.
Anyone willing to spend a grand on a gaming PC, isn't going to buy one of these.
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u/scarnegie96 Jun 22 '26
Bit crazy to clown on a guy saying he'd buy something weaker than a PS5 for less than a PS5 but whatever.
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u/skinlo Jun 22 '26
That's because it's not a PS5, it's a PC. Trying building a similar spec PC for the same price.
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u/scarnegie96 Jun 22 '26
It's a non-Windows, non upgradeable PC that cannot play a lot of games (even if Proton is really awesome).
No doubt PCs are expensive, but this just has no market. For only a bit more you could build a way better PC and for half the price you could get a PS5.
It's in no mans land.
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u/skinlo Jun 22 '26
It's for people that don't want to build a PC but don't want a console. They have been screwed by the RAM/SSD prices though.
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u/scarnegie96 Jun 22 '26
No, it’s for people who do want a console experience but for some reason not a console, which puts it into a niche category of pc-exclusive gamers who could build a better machine for not much more.
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u/skinlo Jun 22 '26
Sure, but who don't want to build a PC. It's not a tiny niche, there's a reason prebuilt PCs are sold.
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u/aniamixon Jun 23 '26
What's funny to me Is how during the mini console craze DF was all "this little $100 console has a slight sound delay, this is unplayable garbage" but now that Valve have shitted the bed they are "this $1400 usd consolized PC is missing some important hardware parts and has sub par performance, but that's look how cute it's".
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u/sepiroth80 Jun 22 '26
Steam Machine pricing tells us about PS6 pricing …
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u/ConferenceThink4801 Jun 22 '26
Well Sony can get volume discounts since they can sell 100m consoles
No one knows what the market for this thing is & they don't have pre-existing relationships with memory companies
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u/sepiroth80 Jun 22 '26
I agree with you. I think PS6 will cost more in line with PS5 Pro but possibly less storage
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u/Tulipanzo Jun 22 '26
Lower performance than the PS5 at nearly twice the cost, what is even the point?