Steam Machine Scores High In iFixit's Teardown

I always like seeing tear downs of systems.
I hope the steam box does well, I think its acceptance would greatly help the PC gaming community move forward.
 
"Off the shelf parts and grade school basic design, my kids could build that. But the controller is interesting."

A 25 year computer engineer at work just told me that :)
 
Technikal said:
"Off the shelf parts and grade school basic design, my kids could build that. But the controller is interesting."

A 25 year computer engineer at work just told me that :)
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Well I could build that case as well if I had access to a well-equipped machine shop!
 
Technikal said:
"Off the shelf parts and grade school basic design, my kids could build that. But the controller is interesting."

A 25 year computer engineer at work just told me that :)
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Yes, I'm sure his kids could design a sff case with efficient thermal dissipation that fit together very well, has solid industrial design and an affordable BOM.
 
Technikal said:
"Off the shelf parts and grade school basic design, my kids could build that. But the controller is interesting."

A 25 year computer engineer at work just told me that :)
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Challenge accepted. Tell him to post his kids (combined, if he wants) to post a Youtube video, building something like that from scratch to finish :D
 
After-the-fact-note: we specced out the Steam Machine on pcpartspicker.com and came up with roughly $1300 in parts.
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This is the part that bugs me, can they really get that much of a discount on parts for this thing to bring it back down to the $500 range? Or did they just send out a 300 overly powerful rigs to essentially buy some publicity and what anyone else buys will be no where close to this kind of hardware?
 
The only really interesting thing about the Steam Machine to me is the case. I want to know how noisy it is and how hot the components get. The rest of it is just looks like off the shelf components.
 
Tudz said:
The only really interesting thing about the Steam Machine to me is the case. I want to know how noisy it is and how hot the components get. The rest of it is just looks like off the shelf components.
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My thought as well. I mean - I have been following the mini itx gaming case marked for a year, and I haven't seen anything as well designed as the steam box: separate air intake, the very small dimensions. I mean, small is beautiful, and the simple is very hard to do.

What other case that you can buy is this smart?
 
sfsuphysics said:
This is the part that bugs me, can they really get that much of a discount on parts for this thing to bring it back down to the $500 range? Or did they just send out a 300 overly powerful rigs to essentially buy some publicity and what anyone else buys will be no where close to this kind of hardware?
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Yes, actually.

What would cost us $1300 in parts from online retailers can cost significantly less to OEMs.

Why?

Bulk pricing. Retailers make a profit from the difference between what they buy in bulk and the price they resale the product to us. (Of course, that's also after utility bills, real estate fees, taxes, and all those other niceties that businesses have to pay.)

A few years ago when I considered opening my own computer hardware store since PC Club went out of business, I found $400 video cards that you could buy for $250-ish to $300 each if bought in bulk from a wholesaler in units of 10. So, for around $2500 to $3000, I could get 10 video cards that have an MSRP of around $400 and make a profit of $100-ish per card, or less after taxes and other things I'd have to pay to cover business expenses.

Consider that there are 300 of these units out there in very lucky hands. That's 300 units worth of $1300 gaming PCs. With bulk pricing, I would not be surprised this actually costs something south of $1000 or even $800 for the bill of materials.

I bet if Valve sold this on Steam right now, it'd probably retail between $1000 to $1400 MSRP to recuperate costs and make a [small] profit from it.
 
Great but the thing is I want to run Windows on it so I can play my entire collection of games and use all my peripherals. I don't think Linux will ever satisfy in this regard.
 
Just looked through the teardown, pretty interesting piece of hardware.

A Core i5 4570 PLUS a GTX 780 all running with 16GB of DDR3 RAM and an SSHD whilst using a 450W power supply. Impressive.
 
The only thing that distinguishes this from any other PC is the OS,it's really no different from what someone could build themselves. Unless they can sell this at a big discount,I don't see anything special about it.
 
First thing is going to happen is someone is going to hack these and turn them into Distributed Computing boxes. Imagine Folding on a rack of those babies. :D
 
octoberasian said:
Just looked through the teardown, pretty interesting piece of hardware.

A Core i5 4570 PLUS a GTX 780 all running with 16GB of DDR3 RAM and an SSHD whilst using a 450W power supply. Impressive.
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Maybe Dell will take a look and upgrade the power supply for the X51.
 
Technikal said:
"Off the shelf parts and grade school basic design, my kids could build that. But the controller is interesting."

A 25 year computer engineer at work just told me that :)
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Could not come up with it yourself? Belittle others by saying it is infantile. He mad because someone designed it before he could.

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WinSomeLoseNone said:
That is a real bummer! I was looking forward to buying one of these just for the great case and small form-factor.
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I'm hoping that the case will eventually be made available, if not by Valve than maybe by someone else. The specifications are open-source so it would be easy for a 3rd part manufacturer or two to it up and maybe make a buck or two.
 
michael.pa2 said:
The only thing that distinguishes this from any other PC is the OS,it's really no different from what someone could build themselves. Unless they can sell this at a big discount,I don't see anything special about it.
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#1 its a beta/prototype unit intended to test the software and online service, not whether people think its brilliant industrial design. You will however be hard pressed to DIY a case this small and adequately cool a GTX 780/Titan and i7-4770 CPU.

#2 one of the primary goals of steam machines is getting true blue PC powered gaming into the hands of people that cannot "build it themselves" and thus Valve is targeting the living room. Its a lucrative market with Google and Apple planning on stepping into that ring as well.

This project at a macro level is the Android-ification of the living room gaming console. A console that will play mods, and free of the closed and locked down, walled garden, subscription fee b.s. of the xbox and playstations.
 
octoberasian said:
Just looked through the teardown, pretty interesting piece of hardware.

A Core i5 4570 PLUS a GTX 780 all running with 16GB of DDR3 RAM and an SSHD whilst using a 450W power supply. Impressive.
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See, I've got a similar system in an SG08 case with slightly higher-end parts in my sig, and the 600w PSU in that does make an audible squeal when the thing is running full bore in games like Crysis 3 and Metro LL...makes me a bit concerned about the stability of the Steam Machine in the long run.
 
DarkAngel_ZERO said:
See, I've got a similar system in an SG08 case with slightly higher-end parts in my sig, and the 600w PSU in that does make an audible squeal when the thing is running full bore in games like Crysis 3 and Metro LL...makes me a bit concerned about the stability of the Steam Machine in the long run.
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I experienced a similar squeal on my first Corsair 850W PSU running a single GPU and 2500k. I'd estimate usage at <450W . Therefore, I don't believe this noise is related to the current load in comparison to the maximum output of the PSU. Some capacitors make noise under load, some don't. That PSU did die within 3 months of purchase but the replacement 850 has been running for 2 years without issue.

The problem is probably cheap capacitors.
 
I want that case badly! I already have that entire list of parts except for the riser card & hybrid drive.
 
Honestly the steam box is a nice compact unit that can handle large cards. I wont be surprised if it becomes a popular base to build a system off for people who want HTPC or SFF machines based on miniITX. Also if it gets a little bit of traction it could be really good for SFF people as it might bring down prices and bring up availability of parts.


Also from the pictures it looks like the steam controller actually uses micro switches and not the cheap crappy dome switches in all other controllers.
 
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