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Forums - Gaming - Valve New Hardware Launching Early 2026 - Steam Machine, Steam Frame, Steam Controller

G2ThaUNiT on 13 November 2025


You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind

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konnichiwa on 13 November 2025
Soundwave said:

VR headset looks OK, but the console with an AMD GPU and that controller

Controller is no issue, you can just get an xbox, PS5 one or whatever your choice is..






BasilZero on 13 November 2025
G2ThaUNiT said:

That is hilarious.



BillyBong on 13 November 2025
Zippy6 said:
JRPGfan said:

So lets assume this like ~25% weaker than the PS5 gpu in terms of gpu compute... and has less ram, slower ram, less memory bandwidth.
It has a more powerful CPU.

So its going to run games at lower resolutions / texture quality, than a PS5, but perphaps at higher FPS (at lower settings/resolutions).

If it can stay under or equal to the price of a PS5... do you guys think there is a market for it?
(ei. a 1080p machine for most things).

*edit:
I wish they would have gone with a AMD architecture that could run FSR4.

GPU probably isn't that much weaker. It's about 8.6TF (after removing the doubling from dual-issue of RDNA3) which directly compared would be ~17% less, but being RDNA3 vs RDNA2 the difference should be less than that.

Also I'm not sure about the ram situation. PS5 has 16gb to share between system and vram. Steam Machine has 16gb System and 8gb VRAM, so it has more ram overall. How often is PS5 using more than half of it's 16gb for VRAM? No clue, but PS5 also reserves a good chunk of that 16GB for the OS too, which for the Steam Machine mostly the background OS is going to use the 16gb System Ram. The Steam Machine having 8gb VRAM may not be a disadvantage against the PS5. However software optimisation for specific hardware might bring that into play.

It can run FSR4 unofficially with some tinkering. Valve are hoping AMD will add official FSR4 support for it. "FSR 4 support has not yet been formally announced for RDNA 3 GPUs, and Valve representatives had nothing to add to that beyond their own hopes that Steam Machine will indeed receive driver-level FSR 4 support from AMD."

JRPGfan said:

What do you guys think this will retail at?

449$ ? 499$ ? for the steam machine.... somewhere around there, surely they didn't break the bank on this design or Bill of materials for it.

With it having 24gb total memory and a discrete gpu/cpu instead of an APU... I think $499 for the 512gb model is really the best that can be hoped for. If they go less than that they're definitely losing money. It will cost more than the steam deck to produce and they are still selling the Steam Deck OLED 512gb for $549.

I would say Valve won't subsidise it, but who knows. They don't really need to worry about it being an open platform and software sales going elsewhere, because who is going to buy this and not use steam? Even if someone decides to install Windows on it they're 90%+ going to still be using steam to buy games. So if they're really intent on pushing this hard and don't care about losing money on the hardware maybe they can go lower than $499. But that's not really what I expect.

Don't forget, even with the limited resources of a traditional console, e.g. ram, GPU, cpu, the games themselves are optimized to take advantage of that hardware. So technical comparisons between a traditional console vs a PC with similar hardware specs will never equal. The steam machine won't have the console advantage as it's basically playing PC games, in which optimization comes from whatever hardware upgrades you can throw at it.  Hard to see valve or game devs throw time or money to optimize PC games for 1 specialized platform when the PC hardware space is as fragmented as it is.    

I personally can't see the value in this and if the price points are as people expect, between $400-700, you're better off upgrading your CPU and GPU in your current rig and/or buy a better spec laptop used or new.  



Man.. I hate it when your girl has to leave my place to come back to you..

rapsuperstar31 on 13 November 2025

IGN on the Next Gen Console watch video today said they think it will cost between $1,000-$1,200.



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BasilZero on 13 November 2025
rapsuperstar31 said:

IGN on the Next Gen Console watch video today said they think it will cost between $1,000-$1,200.

Dead on arrival if that is the case lol.



Zippy6 on 13 November 2025
rapsuperstar31 said:

IGN on the Next Gen Console watch video today said they think it will cost between $1,000-$1,200.

Not a chance lol. They said they went with 8gb vram to keep costs down. This is a budget device not a $1000+ one.

You can get an RTX 5070 laptop for that price lol.



curl-6 on 13 November 2025

I like the look of it aesthetically, has that understated feeling of simplicity, power and quality about it.

On the other hand, the controller looks kinda bad, lucky you'll be able to just use a better one.



Alex_The_Hedgehog on 13 November 2025

i want to see if the Steam Frame is going to be a better option over Meta Quest 3.

Steam Machine looks really nice for people who want a Steam experience, but don't want a PC for some reason.

Steam Controller looks... Well, I don't know if I like it.



JRPGfan on 14 November 2025
rapsuperstar31 said:

IGN on the Next Gen Console watch video today said they think it will cost between $1,000-$1,200.

You can build a pc with a equivilent parts for like ~600$.
Thats "build it yourself" using cheapest parts possible, so its gonna look.... ugly and be abit sketichy in stability long term.... but its doable.

Someone like valve can easily make things cheaper than we can buy them from stores, and put together ourselves.

Valve isn't insanely greedy.

They want a foothold in the households, with their OS, and Steam.

IGN is on crack, ignore them.

The question is if they go with like a break even price point? or a small loss on each unit sale?
To keep prices really low, so this thing sells numbers.