Wednesday, November 12th 2025

Valve Announces Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller

Valve has finally put an end to the months-long rumor cycle about its next-generation hardware. Today, Valve has introduced three new additions to its hardware library with Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller. Starting with the more interesting hardware, we finally have a successor to the original Steam Machine more than a decade after the original was introduced. Also called the Steam Machine, this one brings more modern hardware optimized to co-exist with the SteamOS Linux build, and a powerful software stack to run any game. Available in 512 GB and 2 TB SSD models with microSD expansion, it pairs a semi-custom AMD Zen 4 processor with RDNA 3 graphics to achieve supposed 4K gaming at 60 FPS with ray tracing and FSR support. Being semi-custom GPU, it might be closer to AMD's RDNA 3.5, than the pure RDNA 3.

Bundled with a Steam Controller, the system features an integrated 2.4 GHz radio alongside Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth for wide peripheral compatibility. Video output options include DisplayPort 1.4 for up to 4K at 240 Hz and HDMI 2.0, complemented by Ethernet, USB-C 10 Gbps, and four USB-A ports. Running SteamOS with rapid suspend/resume and wake-on-controller functionality, it combines 16 GB DDR5 system memory with 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM, an internal power supply, and a customizable LED bar that reflects system status for a complete living room experience. Valve has packaged it as a small black box, which will blend in with any HTPC environment.
Next, we have Valve's Steam Frame—the second VR headset from the company. The Steam Frame is designed as a featherweight PC VR gaming headset with a modular architecture, weighting a mere 185 g by itself, and 440 g with included headstrap that includes facial interface, audio, and a rear battery. Inside there is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor with 16 GB unified LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1 TB storage. This will help it stream Steam games via Wi-Fi 7 and an included low-latency adapter, using eye-tracking to drive foveated streaming that sharpens resolution precisely where you look.

There is a dual 2160x2160 pancake display pair that refreshes at 144 Hz across a 110-degree field. Four outward cameras and an IR illuminator maintain tracking in any environment, so that your VR experience becomes life-like. Integrated audio and a 21.6Wh battery complement the SteamOS experience with full suspend/resume, powering Steam Frame Controllers that feature magnetic TMR thumbsticks and capacitive finger sensing on 40-hour batteries, bridging traditional gamepad familiarity with VR immersion.
Last but not least, we have Valve Steam Controller. This controller works across Steam's whole ecosystem with three ways to connect. The pre-paired Steam Controller Puck is the main hookup, using a proprietary wireless signal that hits about 8 milliseconds of lag at 5 meters—more stable than Bluetooth—and lets you sync up to four controllers at once. You can also use regular Bluetooth or just plug in via USB. The rechargeable battery runs for 35+ hours and charges either through the Puck or a USB cable. For controls, you get magnetic TMR thumbsticks that are super responsive, capacitive grips that can trigger gyro or other commands, and four haptic motors that give really detailed feedback. There's also pressure-sensitive trackpads with a 6-axis IMU, four programmable grip buttons, and all the standard controls you expect. It works with Windows, Mac, Linux, handhelds, phones via Steam Link, and all Steam hardware. Every new hardware announced today will start shipping in early 2026.

Source: Valve
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204 Comments on Valve Announces Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller

#27
TheGeekn°72
FR3D1In my opinion, it's a complete joke.
RDNA3 28CUs
Brother what?? An RX7400 has 28CUs, Steam, come on, seriously?? It better be dirt cheap because an A580 matches that, a B580 beats the shit out of it with a 40% lead and 50% extra VRAM
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#28
udidwht
Jtuck9Can we use that controller properly outside of Steam?!
If like the original? Yes.
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#29
Hecate91
Gamers Nexus discussion with Valve engineers on the Steam Machine,Steam Frame, and Steam Controller.

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#30
dlgh7
TheGeekn°72

Brother what?? An RX7400 has 28CUs, Steam, come on, seriously?? It better be dirt cheap because an A580 matches that, a B580 beats the shit out of it with a 40% lead and 50% extra VRAM
GPU info is weird. Spec sheet shows only HDMI 2.0 and Not HDMI 2.1. I would thing because of its nature that this would be more like a laptop solution being a 28CU 7600M, but that supports HDMI 2.1. Could be a type.

For reference Minisforum released that AtomMan G7 and sells it on sell for around $800. Think it has been sold out for a while. Maybe not getting a restock? The G7 has a 7600 XT but the CPU is a 16 Core 32 thread part. But that PC also has multiple NVME slots, Wifi 7, upgradeable memory slots.

It is hard to say where this could sell. I would think $599 max. I would think maybe try to hit no more then $499 though because it is going to draw instant Mac Mini comparisons regardless. I think $499 is the most they should probably go. If they somehow hit say $399 I think it would put it into impulse but territory. Them integrated the GPU, CPU, and memory should save cost. Small board should cut down cost more. At 300W I think even having the PSU be internal at that draw is probably cheaper then a power brick as well. Not to mention the fact that with everything integrated the shipping is easier and smaller.
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#31
windwhirl
DrashHL3?
Ha! Wouldn't that be great....
TheGeekn°72Brother what?? An RX7400 has 28CUs, Steam, come on, seriously??
Yes but the Steam Machine seems to run those CUs at more than double the clock of the RX 7400.

Now, performance doesn't necessarily scale nearly with mere clock raises, but I'm guessing the performance might come closer to a RX 7600 than the RX 7400 itself. Other than that however, Steam isn't giving us any more details, such as actual GDDR6 bandwidth, size and bandwidth of the Infinity Cache, etc., so until the units are out those details are unknown.
dlgh7GPU info is weird. Spec sheet shows only HDMI 2.0 and Not HDMI 2.1. I would thing because of its nature that this would be more like a laptop solution being a 28CU 7600M, but that supports HDMI 2.1.
www.phoronix.com/news/HDMI-2.1-OSS-Rejected
The Steam Machine is running Linux so that might be the reason HDMI 2.1 isn't available there.
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#33
unwind-protect
Hm. I don't like having a battery pack on the VR headset. What's wrong with a cable?
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#35
TheDeeGee
Shame about the PlayStation style triggers, they're aweful compared to the Xbox shape.
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#36
SiliconSeraph
From a consumer perspective I'm all for these somewhat modest specs---it'll force developers to actually optimize games. Not being sarcastic, I genuinely think games "needing" more than 8GB of VRAM is quite silly, and I'm glad Steam agrees (watch me eat my words in 3 years). If it's around the $350-$500 price tag, it'll be a real winner.

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#37
Onasi
dlgh7Everything is soldered except the NVME on the bottom. It doesn't have a dedicated access port so you might have to pull the full system to get to it as well.
That’s blatantly untrue, in the GN video he specifically says that the memory is standard laptop SODIMM and is upgradeable. Valve even considered going for socketed CPU and GPU, but decided against it due to power, price and space considerations (and that you can’t just buy a GPU as a standalone chip anyway, I would think).
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#39
windwhirl
OnasiValve even considered going for socketed CPU and GPU, but decided against it due to power, price and space considerations.
Wouldn't that have been a dream for quite a few people..

Still,
Onasithe memory is standard laptop SODIMMs and is upgradeable.
This is very nice
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#40
LastDudeALive
unwind-protectHm. I don't like having a battery pack on the VR headset. What's wrong with a cable?
Cables get in the way. As someone who uses a Quest 2 with a cable, it's a PITA and I only do it because getting the WiFi connection stable is even more of a PITA. Since this has no cables and a dedicated WiFi dongle with a dual-wavelength design to avoid interference, this seems like a fantastic upgrade if the price is reasonable.
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#41
Bruno_O
FSR4 on RDNA3 is now guaranteed.
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#42
dlgh7
OnasiThat’s blatantly untrue, in the GN video he specifically says that the memory is standard laptop SODIMM and is upgradeable. Valve even considered going for socketed CPU and GPU, but decided against it due to power, price and space considerations (and that you can’t just buy a GPU as a standalone chip anyway, I would think).
I didn't watch the GN video.

Well it is good that it is upgradeable. Does seem from the pictures though that you will have to disassemble the whole thing to get to it though. If on the bottom of the board it looks like the PSU will block it and if it is on the top the whole heatsink with side mounted fan assembly will have to be removed. Regardless I see the 8gb of VRAM on Linux being a bigger issue then 16gb of system memory. Steam OS isn't Windows.
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#43
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
HnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!
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#44
GodisanAtheist
TheDeeGeeShame about the PlayStation style triggers, they're aweful compared to the Xbox shape.
- My feelings exactly Re: Joystick placement.

Always liked the offset joystick placement of the Xbox controllers
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#45
SL2
dlgh7If on the bottom of the board it looks like the PSU will block it and if it is on the top the whole heatsink with side mounted fan assembly will have to be removed.
With both processors on top, a board with that small footprint, and assuming it got two RAM slots. I can't imagine the RAM being on the top. Not enough room.

Having the RAM on the underside means the <average> user doesn't have to mess with thermal paste, which is a good thing.
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#46
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
GodisanAtheist- My feelings exactly Re: Joystick placement.

Always liked the offset joystick placement of the Xbox controllers
Really, the playstation controller is better for me in all aspects.
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#47
Space Lynx
Astronaut
Bruno_OFSR4 on RDNA3 is now guaranteed.
or valve fucked up. either is possible at the moment.

but yeah without FSR4 the steam machine is dead on arrival, especially since FSR4 would benefit small form factor like this vastly.

not going to lie, steam controller tempts me a little, but my dualshock 4, xbox 360, and dualsense all still work perfectly fine, my dualsense is still unopened actually, im just saving it for a rainy day and it only cost me $48 on sale new... steam controller will be what prob double that in cost? so yeah i prob will pass on steam controller the more i think about it


steam frame i am buying day 1 though. i love that steam frame is using AA battery too, makes it nice and easy + long term product since no lithium degradation repairs needed
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#48
MachineLearning
TheLostSwedeToo low, add another US$100, considering the price of components have started to up a lot. Maybe not for the controller though.

Lots of weird custom stuff done on the Steam Machine, so that is not keeping costs down. It looks like an M.2 2230 SSD, so the performance from that will be meh. Could there be space for a longer one? Seems like Chicony is doing the hardware for them (yes, the keyboard maker is also a large OEM).





Pics from here: www.theverge.com/tech/818111/valve-steam-machine-hands-on-preview-specs-announcement
From this photo, it looks like Chicony may only be handling the power supply, not necessarily other components.
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#49
Cheeseball
Not a Potato
Space Lynxor valve fucked up. either is possible at the moment.

but yeah without FSR4 the steam machine is dead on arrival, especially since FSR4 would benefit small form factor like this vastly.

not going to lie, steam controller tempts me a little, but my dualshock 4, xbox 360, and dualsense all still work perfectly fine, my dualsense is still unopened actually, im just saving it for a rainy day and it only cost me $48 on sale new... steam controller will be what prob double that in cost? so yeah i prob will pass on steam controller the more i think about it


steam frame i am buying day 1 though. i love that steam frame is using AA battery too, makes it nice and easy + long term product since no lithium degradation repairs needed
You are all over-glazing upscaling technology. At the moment its only needed for unoptimized games on newer engines for higher FPS. If playing AAA titles is your main purpose for a small device like this, you might as well go with a separate PC with a stronger GPU (e.g. RX 9060 XT). At a possible sub-$600 this seems it will be successful, based off the popularity of the Steam Deck and the other handhelds, which can technically only use up to FSR 3.1 and XeSS itself.

Besides, this is with a 30W TDP 6C/12T CPU and a 110W TGP GPU. At most you would playing AAA titles at 4K60 or 1080p120 at high settings, which should be fine for most players.
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#50
Event Horizon
I'm most excited for the Steam Controller because I had a lot of fun with the original Steam Controller. I really liked the configurability, gyro aim, and back paddles. I didn't like the d-pad (seems fixed in this version), and I found the bumpers to be too loud/clicky (waiting for reviews).
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