this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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Am I the only one who thinks the steam machine's price is very reasonable relative to the current PC component prices?
The number of "steam machine killers" that immediately popped up with the release shows how good it is actually.
Of course a PC enthusiast can get more performance per buck but that's not their demographic. For the price you get the computing power in an unusually compact form factor with a lot of effort put into an silent and efficient cooling system.
It's a unique consumer device with a reasonable prebuilt markup.
I would say it's commensurate, which is exactly what Valve said to expect. The problem is people are either comparing it to existing consoles, which are subsidized, or giant PCs 4x the size.
It may also be all the people not realizing just how expensive ram and storage have gotten.
I was initally shocked by the price, then looked at how much it would take to upgrade my pc and decided I'll just keep playing indie games for the time being.
It is largely that. Yes, there's a price premium for the form factor, but it's not that much
I thought it was expensive, but always thought the expense was the right choice compared to a razor-blade model that would have created an evil incentive to close their platform.
Now that we're looking forward to years of bearing the full effects of Trump's tariffs and unregulated AI hyperscalers cornering the semiconductor industry, however, it's starting to look downright cheap.
I think it's pretty reasonable. I just wish they'd gone a little more aggressive for their performance goals.
Everything else, from the clean design, open specs, etc. is great.
Same. They have their CPU and GPU power limited to keep the temps (subsequent fan noise) down. If they put in a more powerful PSU in and let the fans ramp up it'd do significantly better in benchmarks
I have a worse desktop (overclocked R5 2600 and RX 7600) and it generally performs fine. Some CPU-heavy settings have to be turned down in some games, but it manages medium-high at native 1080p for everything I've tried. White room benchmarks aren't everything.
at that form factor and support level yes the price is good
anything shown as competing so far isnt the same product really
No you're not.
Turns out... it is actually pretty hard to build an SFF PC with comparable gaming power, for comparable or cheaper... if you're not a giganto megacorp that can muscle in for priority on components.
Not even they can even get bulk discounts now, not really... thats why all the console makers had to jump up their prices too.
I think the “steam roller” from Meta PCs proves that it’s reasonable. Similar price, slightly better specs, but not crazy better. Though I do like the fact they have a full on video card that can be independently upgraded. It’s a shit market currently.
For me it's specifically the price to performance. They targeted such old CPU and GPU tech. The CPU especially could be better for that price.
It’s all relative.
For me, the price of a base steam machine is $1,509 CAD plus tax.
Even then, they’re constantly changing their wording (“delivers 4k60fps” to “up to 4k60fps”), and real world testing it doesn’t make sense for me to consider this.
The Switch 2 is more than half the price ($629 CAD without the bundle) and has subjectively better price to performance plus it can be docked: it’s basically a steam deck and steam machine in one console.
Significantly less games, and Nintendo hardly ever has sales. So you will easily make up that difference in software over the life of the machine. Unless you're going for the Nintendo exclusives, this doesn't seem like a better deal.
Less games? No, pretty much every popular third party game is on it.
Epic probably has more games in their store than Nintendo. Steam has significantly more games than epic. There's no comparison. You miss out on a handful of Nintendo exclusives, or literally thousands of PC exclusives.
Ah, epic, the storefront that barely works on Linux. And steam, which on Linux ships with proton that may or may not work, why? Dunno 🤷♂️
I’d rather have something that works out of the box.
You clearly haven't used proton recently. With the exception of malware level anticheat the only issue I've had is forza horizon 6 was pretty shit at launch. (Not available on switch by the way)
Pretty much everything just works now. At most I might need to switch between proton versions. All of the MS games on pc, not on switch. All of the PS games on pc, not on switch. And that's just in the AAA space. Indie games galore not available on switch.
Switch is fine, but it doesn't come close to what you'd get from a steam machine, or any desktop pc.
I used it yesterday, I had to jump through hoops just to launch a game. If it “just works now” I shouldn’t have to switch proton versions.