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Steam machine / steam cube / GabeCube

M

Marees

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
4,728
Big question is on price. Anywhere from $400 to up (without the controller)

2nd issue is the 8gb vram
Although microsoft series S also has only 8gb of usable GPU memory (but it has fast direct storage with CF Express card as mitigation)

3rd issue is FSR 4 upscaling on navi 33 (tsmc 6nm) might have performance issues upscaling to 4k 60fps — compared to navi 32 or navi 31 (tsmc 5nm). AMD made some cutbacks in architecture for navi 33 compared to navi 31 & 32

As a mitigation, valve could certify game settings for 8gb vram (assuming FSR 4 upscales from 1080p to 4K).
  • For ex. We know some games can't play 1080p max/ultra with 8gb vram
    • PS5 ports
    • Open world games that use nanite like tech
Last as per steam stats bulk (50%?) of steam gaming is on igp/laptop gpus which are worse potatoes than the 7600m in GabeCube 1 — or similar with 8gb vram. All those people are targets for this device.
 
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Price benchmarks as of today, for $700

Either a laptop with 4060 (plus display/keyboard)
Or a PC box with much superior 9060xt 8gb ($80 for upgrade to 16gb)

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kMpbqH

https://www.newegg.com/msi-thin-a15...16gb-memory-512-gb-nvme-ssd/p/N82E16834156873


Screenshot_20251115-113453_Opera.jpg
Screenshot_20251115-112713_Opera.jpg
 
Steam Survey Screen Resolutions

Full HD (1920 x 1080) continues to be the go-to resolution for most Steam users, holding a share of 54.44%. However, it’s no longer the fastest-growing option.

Higher resolutions are gaining traction, with 2560 x 1600 climbing past 5% and 1440p securing second place at 20.19%. While Full HD is still expanding, its growth rate has slowed to under 0.10%.

Read More at: https://www.alltechnerd.com/steam-hardware-survey-shows-gamers-shifting-toward-32-gb-of-ram/
 
Steam survey by GPU VRAM

let’s examine how each of these capacities have performed since January 2025, when Nvidia launched its current generation offerings.

January ’25August ’25Diff.
8GB34.91%35.03%+0.12%
12GB18.52%19.30%+0.78%
16GB4.26%6.80%+2.54%
It’s important to note that current-generation 8GB models haven’t been on the market as long as their 12GB and 16GB counterparts. Nevertheless, mainstream x60 SKUs continue to prove most popular, with RTX 5060 enjoying the second-largest individual increase in share, behind RTX 4060.

Screenshot_20251115-120212_Opera.jpg

https://www.club386.com/most-steam-...-not-worried-for-the-future-of-vram-capacity/
 
Steam users GPU performance analysis by reddit user
Left 30% (yellow & red) would see benefits by upgrading to the Steam Machine 1

percentage-of-steam-users-by-gpu-performance-v0-d9te7ax9etxf1.png

Steam's hardware survey and videocard benchmark to make a histogram of Steam users graphics cards by their performance.

  • This data represents 82.24% of Steam users that opted-in to participate in the survey. The remaining 17.76% users either have a videocard other than these, or the cards were not specifically registered in the survey.
  • Each histogram bin represents a 2000 G3D mark, starting from 0-2000 for the first bin, up to 38000-40000 for the last bin, making a total of 20 bars.
  • Most popular high-end card is RTX 4070 at 2.16%.
  • Most popular mid-range card are RTX 3060 at 4.41% and RTX 4060 Laptop at 4.84%
  • Most popular low-end card are GTX 1650 at 3.02% and RTX 3050 at 3.07%
  • Most popular potato card is GTX 1050 at 0.71%.
EDIT: 5070 and RX 580 are repeated twice. They both should only be in the higher bin. RTX 3090 Ti & 9070 XT were not recognised in Steam surveys and were most likely put in the 17.76% generic/other cards.

EDIT2: The grouping is arbitrary. There is no agreed definiton on low/mid/high. Don't beat yourself up over it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1oi499v/percentage_of_steam_users_by_gpu_performance/
 

Valve's Next-Gen Steam Machine and Steam Controller — the Big Interview​

"It felt like it was the right time."​



Valve on making the Steam OS more widely available:

are there plans to make SteamOS more widely available beyond a try at your own risk kind of model the way it is now?
definitely, just like Steam Deck paved the way for SteamOS on a variety of third-party handhelds, we expect that a Steam Machine will pave the way for SteamOS on a bunch of different machines in either similar form factors, different perf envelopes, different segments of the market and get to a good outcome there. ​
We definitely want to encourage people to try it out on their own hardware, and we'll be working on expanding hardware availability over time as well, or hardware support for the drivers and the base operating system. ​
Just last week we fixed something that was preventing us from booting on the very latest AMD CPU platforms. Last month we added support for the Intel Lunar Lake platforms. ​
We're constantly just adding support and improving performance and we want it to be at the point where at some point you can install it on any PC, but there's still a ton of work to do there.​

On enabling friction-free gaming

Can you talk about how the Steam Machine is positing itself as the more approachable PC gaming machine...
Something that happened shortly after Steam Deck released was that a lot of games started detecting that they were running on Steam Deck to pick exactly the right default settings for an experience that the game developer considered balanced, which is a pretty small amount of work for a game developer. ​
We expect the same thing will happen with Steam Machine, and we'll be providing APIs in Steamworks so that game developers can detect what platform they're running on to be able to have the right amount of detailed settings and that corresponds to the balanced experience that they have in mind.​

On the million dollar question (8gb vram)
Why did you pick the GPU you picked and why did you pick the CPU you picked when there are cheaper options or more powerful options?
piece of information that we always had available is the Steam hardware survey. So we can essentially look at everybody's devices, we understand what the medium performance looks like for people, we understand where the Steam Machine is going to be positioned relative to those. ​
We think that the Steam Machine is going to be equal or better perf than the majority of people on Steam. ​
So essentially we think it's going to be a good upgrade path for a lot of people, especially people who are on older machines​

On why a Steam Box?
the Steam Machine is just one option in the ecosystem of gaming PCs out there. ​
If you're already happy with your PC gaming experience, that's great. We love that. ​
We are a PC gaming company. We're just trying to give you more options. And that's how we view it. ​
It's just something that we think is a really great addition to a living room or a desktop, but it's just one other option that people can have available to them to play their Steam games basically.​

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/steam-machine-steam-cube-gabecube-thread.2632834/#post-41535901
 
Digital Foundry weighs in on the price debate

Valve knows what price point will move Steam Machine inventory - and that it's an aggressive point. And we feel comfortable assuming that Valve's internal data tells them every Steam Deck sold leads to overall higher operating profit - especially if Valve has avoided increasing Deck model prices at the same cadence as other PC device manufacturers.​
​
So it's reasonable for Valve to have PlayStation 5's current $499 base price in its sights - a figure it can potentially match or beat based on specs, manufacturing manoeuvres, potential tariff avoidance and cash reserves to absorb a loss-leader price.​
​
Estimating Steam Machine's material cost, then, is hard to do without accounting for Valve's bargaining power at this point in the SteamOS success story. Notice that Valve mentions "AMD" as the default chipmaker for any third parties' Steam Machine-like devices to follow. AMD has been tidily walking down the road that Valve has paved in the form of smooth SteamOS compatibility for their silicon on Deck-like devices in the past two years. Here they are again, enjoying a namecheck and default Steam Machine placement. Lucrative stuff for them, and arguably worth a long-term arrangement to continue producing Machine's older RDNA 3 GPU.​
​
​
Looking back, Microsoft was prescient to roll out a cheaper, cut-back Xbox Series S back in 2020. Meaning, there was no way the Series X spec was going to get cut down to the $299 sweet spot like in prior console generations to spur lower-price investment in current-gen Xboxes. The generational norm of increased PC and console power at lower prices has hit a relative standstill since then, and it's one that the Steam Hardware Survey reflects. PC owners aren't jumping in power at reasonable prices the way they used to, yet they're still buying and enjoying games.​


https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/analysis-how-steam-machine-can-aim-for-ps5s-usd499-price
 
Marees said:
And we feel comfortable assuming that Valve's internal data tells them every Steam Deck sold leads to overall higher operating profit -
Click to expand...
they have such a monopolistic grasp that while that must be true by how much, how much of that audience was people already steam user, playing less desktop steam game playing deck one instead....
 
Steam cube is DoA if priced above $500, says The Phawx.

I agree. Base model would be priced aggressively but it may not have the controller bundled with it

The 2TB model would be priced for profit. Maybe $700 without the controller


View: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bg99bsQT3_E

ChadD said:
I would say it isn't impossible simply based on the value of the parts. (though I too will eat crow if they are north of $600 I think that would be insane) As people have said if you find retail priced parts to build a close facsimile... your looking around $750. Valve doesn't need to make retail margin, break even is fine. Valve doesn't need to pay middle man suppliers. (No online part shops are buying direct everyone buys through a middle man suppliers like Ingram Micro) So there is 2 levels of margin the Valve can cut out completely. Retail margin is 15-30% middle man margin a little slimmer... but assume we say 30% total for both levels of margin. That brings the cost down to $525. Now factor in Valve volume pricing say another 15% We are now down to $450.

Of course their are other costs I assume Valve is not going to sell these without a Steam Controller.

We'll see. I don't blame Valve for not wanting to state any firm pricing yet. The way things have been up and down the last couple years the list of parts could spike. I think baring that though sub $500 for a "base" model seems pretty realistic. Though I'm sure they will price a bit like Apple where the larger storage unit means your paying maybe up to double for a 2gb storage drive over just buying one and installing it yourself. In interviews people at Valve have said they were shocked that with the deck the highest end sku outsold the base sky by a large number. I think knowing that they are more likely to price the entry model aggressive.
Click to expand...
 
$500 is fine I think with the controller and HL3 bundled with it. Otherwise the base model should be $400.
 
my guess is they will sell at break even or slight loss hopefully to makeup for it in game sales. I would rather seen them do a custom APU or something and 32gb of unified memory
 
Vengance_01 said:
my guess is they will sell at break even or slight loss hopefully to makeup for it in game sales. I would rather seen them do a custom APU or something and 32gb of unified memory
Click to expand...

I'm sure that would push things well above $1,000, even above $1,500 with storage.

That being said, there are loads of Strix mini PCs that have similar stats that are likely to be 100 percent compatible with SteamOS and the controller, with many more to come.
 
Yeah, I'd be super interested to see how the rumored Ryzen Max+ 388 would perform in a Steam Machine sized box ("budget" Strix).
 
SeymourGore said:
Yeah, I'd be super interested to see how the rumored Ryzen Max+ 388 would perform in a Steam Machine sized box ("budget" Strix).
Click to expand...
Right the max+ with 40 CUs is like a steam machine pro

Another chip of interest is releasing in 2027. It is the next gen z3 extreme used in handhelds like asus rog xbox ally x2 (which sell for $900+)

It will have 24 CU RDNA 5. Hence similar raster to 28 CU RDNA 3 in 7600m
That chip in an NUC should sell for $600 is my best guess

Once that comes on market, in 2027, then 7600m based steam machines would be pointless, imo.
 
Valve clarifies. This thing will not be priced like a normal desktop PC (below $700) but more like a proper SFF HTPC system ($750+)

Valve confirms Steam Machine "won’t be subsidized" - VideoCardz.com​

Valve confirms no subsidies for Steam Machine, pricing to match PC builds​


https://videocardz.com/newz/valve-confirms-steam-machine-wont-be-subsidized

Recently Linus Tech Tips shared that they floated a potential $500 price point in front of Valve staff, the reaction reportedly suggested this figure was not realistic. Combined with reports of DRAM price increases from Samsung, the market now expects the Steam Machine to land somewhere in the $800–$900 range, without the cushion of platform subsidies that Sony and Microsoft use for PlayStation and Xbox hardware.

SkillUp: But it’s not going to be a sort of subsidized device, like, Valve is not going into this thinking we’re going to eat a big loss on this so that we can grow market share or category or anything like that, correct?
Pierre-Loup Griffais: No, it’s more in line with what you might expect from the current PC market. Obviously, our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance. And then you have features that are actually really hard to build if you are making your own gaming PC from parts. Things like the small form factor, the noise level that we achieved, or lack thereof, is really impressive and we are excited that people are going to find out how quiet this thing is. But also some integration features like HDMI CEC. The Bluetooth and wireless work that we’ve done, the four antennas, the very deliberate design so that you can have a great experience with four Bluetooth controllers.
Click to expand...
 
price speculation for the steam machine

Steam Machine Price May Have Just Leaked via a Czech Retailer, $950 USD for 512GB Model, $1,070 USD for 2TB [Update]​

David Carcasole
Jan 9, 2026 at 10:46am EST

a leak from a Czech retailer may have just provided our first indication as to what the latest gaming box will cost. Shared to Reddit's GamingLeaksandRumors page by user chusskaptaan, a third-party Czech retailer known as Smarty.cz has a live listing for the Steam Machine, featuring two different models.

The first is a 512GB model, which, according to the website's source code, seems to cost 19,826 CZK, or approximately $950 USD. The other model is a 2TB version, and it seems to be listed at 22,305 CZK, or $1,070 USD.

It should be noted that these prices are estimates based on a conversion from Czech Koruna, and as the post itself notes, third-party retailers could have their own markups, which means the actual retail price of the machine from Valve could very well be lower.

https://wccftech.com/steam-machine-price-leak-valve/
 
I'm still buying one, here's a Micro ATX comp.

Screenshot_20260622-131639.png


The Steam Machine still isn't priced incorrectly, it's just not what the masses wanted.

I still want that full Steam experience in a ready to run commercial package.
 
Valve also struck it lucky the Deck since the SoCs they originally obtained were from an unused AMD/Magic Leap collab, which I assume helped them with pricing.
 
Okatis said:
Valve also struck it lucky the Deck since the SoCs they originally obtained were from an unused AMD/Magic Leap collab, which I assume helped them with pricing.
Click to expand...
hey steam machine also is an unused laptop gpu from AMD

AMD has completely quit laptop GPUs forever. no more discreet laptop GPUs from AMD
 
Marees said:
AMD has completely quit laptop GPUs forever. no more discreet laptop GPUs from AMD
Click to expand...
would not surprise me if RDNA 4->5 look a bit like RDNA 1 -> 2 did back in the days, with all the giant volume sales from the console market for it making the investment to make a full stack out of it possible for them, quitting forever what could continue to be the most popular PC form format after the phone is a long time.

Has for DoA, there is a lot of rich middle age gamers outthere.... if they wanted it to be a ~niche product to find the motivation to work on steamOS and get feedback for it, would not surprise me if it make a bit of new about selling out/back order fast and have its nice little life with the modest goal it had (the talk about volume month ago were extremelly small, like talking in tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands controller for the US market)
 
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