SteamOS - $500 build

[brncao]

If you had a budget of $500, how would you design the Steam Box for the general market? Do not include monitor.

Required

• Case
• Motherboard
• CPU
• Video card
• Power supply
• RAM
• Storage drive

Optional

• Optical drive
• Wi-fi (recommended if you cannot connect via ethernet)
• Sound card
• Case fans
• Keyboard & mouse
• Others

Also add $40 (hypothetical cost) for the Steam controller.

Required + optional must not exceed $500. You can slightly stretch it, but not too much.

 

[brncao]

Required

• Case: Rosewill FBM-01 ($30)
• Motherboard: ($50)
• CPU: Intel core i3-4130 ($120) per Dangman's suggestion
• Video card: AMD Radeon HD 7770 ($100)
• Power supply: 400W ($40)
• RAM: 8GB ($60)
• Storage drive: 1000GB 5400RPM HDD 2.5" ($60)

Optional

• Wi-fi: TP-LINK TL-WN751ND ($14)
• Steam controller ($40?)

Total: $515. This is the price a builder will pay. Valve will need to sell less than that (definitely less than $500) for there to be any incentive to buy a Steam Box.

I think Valve is capable of pulling it off with that price tag because the Xbox One also sells for $499.99. If Valve can lower the price (i.e. volume discount, loss-leader) than what an individual can do, it would make it even better. I love installing mods to enhance the gameplay, something I can't do on a console.

Edit: Microsoft just slashed their Xbox One price to $450. Valve will now have to come up with a value proposition of why it's worth what it is. Otherwise it'll fail.

 

[Dangman]

I think Valve is capable of pulling it off with that price tag because the Xbox One also sells for $499.99. If Valve can lower the price (i.e. volume discount, loss-leader) than what an individual can do, it would make it even better. I love installing mods to enhance the gameplay, something I can't do on a console.

Edit: Microsoft just slashed their Xbox One price to $450. Valve will now have to come up with a value proposition of why it's worth what it is. Otherwise it'll fail.

A bit "THE END IS NIGH!" aren't we?

Anyway, remember that the SteamOS is also free. As in free beer. No one is forcing you to buy Valve's version of the SteamBox or one of their partners' SteamBox to get the SteamOS. Also note that with the Xbox, you basically have to pay the ~$60 subscription fee for Xbox Live Gold to play online and/or watch certain online content (Youtube, Netflix, etc). And that's a recurring fee. So over time, it's going to cost you more and more money to play online or watch media on the Xbox One. The SteamBox/SteamOS won't have that subscription fee.

Then there's the whole thing about being able to stream games from your actual gaming PC and the potential for it to become a full fledged HTPC OS if Valve (or some intrepid group of Linux/open source enthusiasts) somehow combines the functions of Plex Media Center or XBMC with their SteamOS. I

If I was doing a cheap SteamBox for a rather strict budget for my home, I'd probably aim for this:
$120 - Intel Core i3-4130 CPU
$82 - ASRock B85M-ITX Intel B85 mITX Motherboard
$64 - Kingston HyperX Blu KHX1600C10D3B1/8G 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$110 - Sapphire 100366-2L Radeon R7 260X 2GB PCI-E Video Card
$60 - Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$55 - Seasonic G Series SSR-360GP 360W PSU
$50 - Coolermaster Elite 130 mITX Case
---
Total: $541 shipped

I spent the extra cash for the better CPU since that's one PC part that can get outdated rather quickly yet is also harder to replace. Since this is for the living room, I aimed for a small size and slightly lower noise profile. Also, I haven't seen any 4GB of RAM really worth the price so the extra cash for 8GB of RAM is well worth it IMO.

 

[brncao]

Good point about the subscription fee. Totally forgot about that. That could be one advantage for Valve.

$541 + $40 controller is too much for an entry-level Steam Box. PS3 did not do so well at $600 when it first launched. I would NOT recommend Valve go higher than $500 for an entry-level, subscription fee or not. Unfortunately [strike=]peasants[/s] most people only look at the up-front costs and not the long-term costs (i.e. low-price printer and high-price ink cartridges).

You mentioned streaming it from your PC. The problem is, if I can buy/build myself a PC, then what's the point of Valve creating Steam Box? It defeats the purpose. There's no value added to it. The only way Valve can get people to buy their Steam Box products is if they can price it lower than what you can buy it for on the market. Then there's value.

When choosing parts, assume the user will not open the case up to upgrade; everything is finalized with a few exceptions. The only part that is expensive and gets outdated fast is the video card. Valve would have to find a way to upgrade the video card without actually opening the console up (think expansion pak for the N64).

On the topic of video cards, Valve should restrict their official video card selection to an entry-level and a mid-level tier then about half way through its life cycle, discontinue the entry-level, keep the mid-level, and introduce the high-end tier. I.e. AMD Radeon HD 7770 ($100), 7870 ($200), 7970 ($300) respectively.

I'm looking at CPU right now and I cannot decide what's good for a small form console. Heat, price, performance, and future-proof are four major factors that needs to be addressed.

• AMD FX-4300 ($110): If quad core is standard for the next 5-6 years, then there's no point in going to 6 cores. Disadvantage is that it's hot.
• AMD FX-6300 ($120): However, if the previous statement is false and 6 core processor will be standard in 5-6 years, then this is the better option. Disadvantage is that it's hot.
• Intel Core i3-4130 ($120): Low heat. However, dual core is becoming outdated, and will be in 5-6 years.

 

[rastaban]

I haven't been following news on SteamOS. Are the games optimized for SteamOS already or will they be as heavy as PC variants?...because these budget builds look like sad little boxes for gaming lol

 

[Dangman]

I haven't been following news on SteamOS. Are the games optimized for SteamOS already or will they be as heavy as PC variants?...because these budget builds look like sad little boxes for gaming lol

Neither. AFAIK, still the same crop of Linux games but now you can play streamed PC games from your main gaming PC with the Steambox. So in theory, you may not need such a high-end gaming card.

$541 + $40 controller is too much for an entry-level Steam Box. PS3 did not do so well at $600 when it first launched. I would NOT recommend Valve go higher than $500 for an entry-level, subscription fee or not. Unfortunately [strike=]peasants[/s] most people only look at the up-front costs and not the long-term costs (i.e. low-price printer and high-price ink cartridges).

When choosing parts, assume the user will not open the case up to upgrade; everything is finalized with a few exceptions. The only part that is expensive and gets outdated fast is the video card. Valve would have to find a way to upgrade the video card without actually opening the console up (think expansion pak for the N64).

Oh, we're designing Steamboxs for Valve now? Your original post said:

If you had a budget of $500, how would you build your PC for the living room? Assume you already have a monitor in your living room..

Note the bolded parts: your OP implied that this Steambox discussion is meant for YOUR OWN home, not someone elses'. Hence my parts list: It's meant for MY HOME, not someone elses' If you want us to design Steamboxes specifically for Valve, then you should make that clearer in your OP.

With that said, it's a bit a waste of time to try to design Steamboxes for Valve to sell/market since Valve already has numerous computer boutiques signed and ready to release their own Valve boxes. In addition, OEMs/computer boutiques have access to far better pricing for parts due to volume discounts than the regular user would. So unless you've managed to get the price lists of what OEMs are paying for their parts and in what quantities those prices would show up at (and it sometimes differs from OEM to OEM), I don't see the point in designing SteamBoxs for Valve to sell/market in this thread using any sort of regular consumer online computer hardware stores.

Now coming up with Steamboxes for people willing to DIY their own Steamboxes? Now thats where I see the usefulness of this thread.

You mentioned streaming it from your PC. The problem is, if I can buy/build myself a PC, then what's the point of Valve creating Steam Box? It defeats the purpose. There's no value added to it. The only way Valve can get people to buy their Steam Box products is if they can price it lower than what you can buy it for on the market. Then there's value.

Again, I'm approaching this thread from the perspective of me building a SteamBox for myself. Not for Valve. Not for someone else.

On the topic of video cards, Valve should restrict their official video card selection to an entry-level and a mid-level tier then about half way through its life cycle, discontinue the entry-level, keep the mid-level, and introduce the high-end tier. I.e. AMD Radeon HD 7770 ($100), 7870 ($200), 7970 ($300) respectively.

Yeah one major problem with that: It screws over Valve's partners for the Steamboxes. What if some of them can't get AMD cards at a good price? Or can't get Nvidia cards at a good price? Or what if they've found that they can get better deals with a different set of cards?

I'm looking at CPU right now and I cannot decide what's good for a small form console. Heat, price, performance, and future-proof are four major factors that needs to be addressed.

• AMD FX-4300 ($110): If quad core is standard for the next 5-6 years, then there's no point in going to 6 cores. Disadvantage is that it's hot.
• AMD FX-6300 ($120): However, if the previous statement is false and 6 core processor will be standard in 5-6 years, then this is the better option. Disadvantage is that it's hot.
• Intel Core i3-4130 ($120): Low heat. However, dual core is becoming outdated, and will be in 5-6 years.

The Intel is the better choice IMO. Main reasons being:
- The Core i3 CPUs have HT which kinda helps out with lack of the extra cores. As Windows 8 and BF4 has shown, a Core i3 with HT is faster than many AMD FX 8xxx series CPus let alone the slower/lower core count FX 4xxx and FX 6xxx series CPUs. Hell even without Windows 8's updated core handling, in Windows 7, a Core i3 still outperformed the AMD FX 8xxx series CPU in BF4 multiplayer.

- Far better IPC and single threaded performance. Until AMD's Mantle is widely supported, single threaded performance and IPC still reign king with it comes to CPU and gaming performance. Well for CPU heavy games anyway.

 

[brncao]

Oh. I'm so sorry about my wording. I've edited my original post to clear things up.

The purpose of this thread is to see the feasibility of it. To get an idea what is the minimal hardware requirement Valve can obtain with a bit of profit without pushing the price too far. There are tons of compromises to be made with this kind of budget. This will give us an idea what sort of Steam Box Valve will be selling to the consumers. They most certainly will not sell it at $515, but for much less than that in order to get people to buy games through their SteamOS.

I want Valve to succeed (unlike Ouya). If Valve is selling these consoles at very high prices or at the same price I can build one for, I can't see how they're going to gain market share at all. It'll be more of a fad imo. That's what worries me.

Valve is contracting with several manufacturers to build them prototypes. It's not final. They'll most likely narrow it down to a single manufacturer in the future. From a marketing perspective, Valve should not be fragmenting their Steam Machine brand or else they'll fall into the "PC" or " too many Linux distro" trap. They only need one model. If they can get them into retail stores and draw customers' attention to them, that would benefit the PC market share. But when they're on store shelves, they cannot be customized on the spot so Valve will have to think this through.

Yeah one major problem with that: It screws over Valve's partners for the Steamboxes. What if some of them can't get AMD cards at a good price? Or can't get Nvidia cards at a good price? Or what if they've found that they can get better deals with a different set of cards?

Actually scratch my point about mid-tier and high-tier cards. Valve cant "restrict" the selection of cards per se (it's meant to accept any PCIE cards), but they can "recommend" a few to the consumers, so it's more of a "restriction of information." This shouldn't affect us at all because we know much about video cards; this isnt the case with your typical average joe.

Valve should just stick to a single base card in this case. Valve can make several recommendations on their website and in the manuals how you can go about in upgrading it.

One last thing, you said partners. As I mentioned before, too many partners making their own Steam machines will destroy Valve's chances of competing with other consoles.

 

[Dangman]

Oh. I'm so sorry about my wording. I've edited my original post to clear things up.

Ok but it's still a flawed premise due to what I said earlier. We don't have access to what PC OEMs are paying for their hardware. As such, we can't provide an accurate idea of what is feasible for an actual company to sell.

The purpose of this thread is to see the feasibility of it. To get an idea what is the minimal hardware requirement Valve can obtain with a bit of profit without pushing the price too far. There are tons of compromises to be made with this kind of budget. This will give us an idea what sort of Steam Box Valve will be selling to the consumers. They most certainly will not sell it at $515, but for much less than that in order to get people to buy games through their SteamOS..

If you actually want to get a close idea of the feasibility of it, then don't use consumer pricing. Go look at the pricing for gaming PCs from the numerous PC boutiques out there. Many of those PC boutiques sell gaming PCs without an OS. Since those gaming PCs have to be profitable, those no-OS included gaming PCs should be a good indication of just how low you can go to get something that is supposedly called a "gaming PC" and still remain profitable.

I want Valve to succeed (unlike Ouya). If Valve is selling these consoles at very high prices or at the same price I can build one for, I can't see how they're going to gain market share at all. It'll be more of a fad imo. That's what worries me.

Two key problems here with your statement:
1) If being able to build a gaming PC for a lower price were a major/massive factor at all in the market, then PC boutiques wouldn't exist at all or there would be an extremely small pool of them. The fact that those PC boutiques still exist and apparently still surviving clearly shows that there's still a market for prebuilt gaming PCs.

2) For the most consoles, they're actually being sold at a loss but the manufacturers are hoping to recoup said losses on the software/licensing side. Clearly this has been working out for MS and Sony. However, Valve's open source philosophy (remember that the SteamOS is free to all), the nature of computer hardware pricing, and the profit margins of many PC boutiques out there means that the console loss pricing strategy won't work for the SteamBox.

Valve is contracting with several manufacturers to build them prototypes. It's not final. They'll most likely narrow it down to a single manufacturer in the future. From a marketing perspective, Valve should not be fragmenting their Steam Machine brand or else they'll fall into the "PC" or " too many Linux distro" trap. They only need one model. If they can get them into retail stores and draw customers' attention to them, that would benefit the PC market share. But when they're on store shelves, they cannot be customized on the spot so Valve will have to think this through.

....

One last thing, you said partners. As I mentioned before, too many partners making their own Steam machines will destroy Valve's chances of competing with other consoles.

I disagree. A few factors you're not thinking of:
1) Valve actually answered your "concern":

Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS.

2) Remember what I said earlier about different OEMs having different pricing for hardware?

3) SteamOS is based on Linux. Limiting said release of a linux-based OS to a single manufacturer goes against the whole open source ideal that Valve (or at least Gabe) subscribes to.

4) Valve is completely inexperienced as a PC boutique. Nor are there any guarantees that they would be able to handle the sheer number of possible requests for a Steambox should it actually become popular. Not to mention there's the issue of worldwide distribution and all.

5) You're forgetting that Google are effectively doing the same thing with their Android phones: Google has their own Nexus line of Android phones while at the same time allowing multiple partners sell their phones with Android. Considering that Android is not exactly "dead" or even close to it, that should give you an idea of what Valve is trying to do.

Valve should just stick to a single base card in this case. Valve can make several recommendations on their website and in the manuals how you can go about in upgrading it.

No, problem is that no single card is going to meet the performance demands of that particular user. That single card could either be too weak, too fast, or too much.

 

[brncao]

Thanks for the reply. I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens in the future. I have my doubts. Will they follow Ouya's path? Will it be nothing but hype? Who knows. I'll have to see what their final value proposition is. If the Steam Box is no different from a typical PC with SteamOS slapped on it, then it's going to sink.

We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you

If this is actually their value proposition, then it's quite weak. A PC can do the same. So what?

 

[Deleted member 88227]

Then there's the whole thing about being able to stream games from your actual gaming PC and the potential for it to become a full fledged HTPC OS if Valve (or some intrepid group of Linux/open source enthusiasts) somehow combines the functions of Plex Media Center or XBMC with their SteamOS.

If they make that happen I will install SteamOS on day 1.

 

[Dangman]

Thanks for the reply. I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens in the future. I have my doubts. Will they follow Ouya's path? Will it be nothing but hype? Who knows. I'll have to see what their final value proposition is. If the Steam Box is no different from a typical PC with SteamOS slapped on it, then it's going to sink.


If this is actually their value proposition, then it's quite weak. A PC can do the same. So what?

I don't think you're understanding the core concepts of the Steambox. It's to bridge the gap between the PC and console for the living room. So it's neither console nor PC in a sense. Some people may want the hardware/performance/software flexibility of a PC in their living but they don't want to feel like they're using another PC. The UI is console-like for a reason. Not to mention that's the main reason why so many popular HTPC UI (XBMC, PLex Media Center, Windows Media Center to a certain extent) exist in the first place.

In addition, the SteamOS allows gamers another way to play games without having to pay for a Microsoft OS or to go with a MS OS that they may not like. Unless you're an idiotic prick, if you don't already have a spare MS OS key, more than likely you will have to buy another OS key. That's another $90 to $100 right there. The SteamOS is free.

I have my doubts about SteamOS too but I still remain hopeful for the ideas behind SteamOS. With that said, the best I'm hoping for is that it will be a niche success.

If they make that happen I will install SteamOS on day 1.

I'm hoping for that feature too. I mean they've already added music playback. So not quite far from the next steps into full-on HTPC.

 

[Dangman]

Oh that's right: The other factor I forgot: PC games are relatively cheap compared to their console brethren. They also get cheaper faster than console games. It's gotten to the point where I personally have more games in my Steam list than I have time to play even if I was at home 24/7. The simple fact that the games are cheap enough to where that happens should be a big pro for a SteamOS/SteamBox.