Published on 6/27/2026
Valve, the owner of the famous “Steam” store for personal computer games, recently revealed its latest gaming device, which is a home platform with a price starting at about $1,050 to compete with other gaming platforms such as PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, following the success of the first generation of its portable gaming platform, “Steam Deck.”
The new platform comes under the name “Steam Machine”, and it has a very simple cubic design with a colored external lighting strip, as well as an external controller that can be purchased separately.
While Steam promotes the new platform as a platform dedicated to enjoying games on large TV screens in a way that mimics traditional gaming platforms, it is in fact a miniature personal computer that comes with the company’s own Steam OS operating system.
But what does the Steam Machine offer compared to traditional home gaming consoles and personal computers? Is it worth buying despite its price, which is twice the price of PlayStation and Xbox devices?
Hardware parallel to the platforms
In designing the new device, Steam relied on hardware similar to that used in home consoles from AMD. This means that you will not find a usual commercial central processor like the one you can buy for your home computer, but rather you will find a copy of central processors designated for home gaming platforms.
The company chose an AMD Zen 4 processor with a frequency of up to 4.8 GHz, 12 processing threads and 6 central processing cores with 16 GB of leading-edge DDR5 RAM.
The company also used a graphics card from AMD, which is RDNA 3 Navi, which is a graphics card with 62 computing cores at a frequency of 2.45 GHz and 8 GB of random access memory allocated to it, according to a report by the European technical website Digital Foundry.
These specifications are close to those used in the “PlayStation 5 Pro” platform, as it uses the same graphics card from the “RDNA 3” generation, but with 60 computing cores and a central processor that is slightly older than the “Zen 2” generation, according to a previous report from the “Digital Foundry” website.
But the actual specifications do not affect the purchasing decision when it comes to home platforms, including the Steam Machine, because in the end you cannot modify or improve the platform’s specifications as you wish, unlike personal computers.
“Steam Machine” offers other pioneering specifications, such as two fast ports for display and Internet, and storage space of up to 2 TB in the largest version. The platform, of course, relies on the “Steam OS” operating system, which is built on open source “Linux” kernels.
The device comes at a price of $1,049 for the smaller version, compared to $900 for the PlayStation 5 Pro devices and $650 for the standard version of the PlayStation 5.
How does Steam Machine perform in games?
Although a Steam Machine is essentially a computer with a dedicated operating system, users who buy it primarily think about the platform’s gaming performance, and whether it is able to run their favorite games better than other platforms.
This does not mean that you cannot benefit from the other features of the Steam Machine, such as using it as a traditional computer, but this is not the main reason for purchasing it.
The Digital Foundry report places the new device in direct competition with the first generation of PlayStation 5 devices in a large number of games, including “Black Meth Wukong,” “Crimson Desert,” “Alan Wake 2,” and the new “First Light 007.”
The report shows a discrepancy in performance with the PlayStation 5 in most games. In the game “Black Meth Wukong,” the Steam Machine was able to achieve 38 frames compared to 43 frames for the PlayStation 5, and in “Alan Wake 2,” the device was able to achieve 50 frames per second compared to 54 frames for the PlayStation 5.
But in the game “Crimson Desert” the “Steam Machine” prevailed, which maintained an average of 41 frames compared to 33 frames in the “PlayStation 5” in some regions, and in other regions its performance decreased to 43 frames with the superiority of the “PlayStation 5” at 52 frames.
The reason for this is due to the specifications of the games and their dependence on the graphics card, random memory, and central processor, as “Steam Machine” devices excel in places that depend on the central processor compared to “PlayStation 5,” which excels in places that depend on the graphics card.
The matter is not much different when compared with personal computers, as a report by the American technical website “The Verge” reveals a comparison between the “Steam Machine” and a computer that has a “3060 Ti” graphics card belonging to the company “Nvidia” and a central processor from AMD of the 5800 frames compared to 24 frames for the personal computer, and the same applies to the game “Shadow of the Tomb Raider,” in which the device achieved 74 frames per second compared to 102 frames for the personal computer.
A device for a specific category
A report published by the “GamesIndustry.biz” website states that the price of the “Steam Machine” is not very surprising, but it makes the device directed to a specific category of users, and justifies the matter with the high prices of the device’s memories and components.
He adds that “Steam Machine” does not have a specific audience like “Steam Deck”, which was targeting users looking for powerful portable gaming platforms that provide them with a “Windows” gaming experience.
Therefore, “Steam Machine” may not achieve the spread or success that the company was able to achieve with “Steam Deck,” nor will it be a strong competitor to traditional home gaming platforms such as “PlayStation 5” or “Xbox,” according to the same report.
