Friday, November 28th 2025
Valve Steam Machine May Cost Less Than Anticipated
Valve recently sparked concern among gamers when it revealed that the Steam Machine would be priced similarly to a competitive gaming PC, with ensuing speculation resulting in up to $1,000 prices being thrown around. Likely in response to many of these concerns, Linus Tech Tips on YouTube took it upon himself to build a gaming PC with similar specifications and performance to the upcoming Steam Machine in an attempt to estimate the price of the new living room console. The build itself consists of an AMD Ryzen 8400F, an ASRock B650M motherboard, 16 GB of Crucial DDR5-5600 memory, a Kingston 500 GB SSD, a Seasonic 550 W PSU, and an ASRock AMD Radeon RX 6600 GPU. Taking the build's cost at face value, at the time the PC was built, and with the lowest available prices, the Steam Machine will launch at somewhere around $910, with the possibility of bringing the price down by cutting certain features.
However, Valve is not a regular consumer, and economies of scale play a big role in pricing when you start talking about devices that are expected to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of units. Valve also previously said that the pricing for the entry-level Steam Deck was "painful," suggesting that it had employed very aggressive pricing for that device. At Valve's scale, it seems likely that the specific components that the YouTuber used in the build would come to around $700-750, but when accounting for the semi-custom nature of the Steam Machine and adjusting for the potential savings that Valve gets from its direct-to-consumer model, it seems like the Steam Machine cost as little as $600-650 in hardware. Accounting for Valve's assumed profit of around 10% and taking into account Valve's comments to Linus about its hardware business aiming for sustainability, the official pricing guess comes out to $699.99. This price estimate isn't incredibly reliable, since it doesn't account for the current DRAM shortage that has resulted in prices skyrocketing across the board, which will certainly affect Valve when the Steam Machine launches, and it assumes Valve will sell the Steam Machine at a high profit margin.
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Source:
Linus Tech Tips on YouTube
However, Valve is not a regular consumer, and economies of scale play a big role in pricing when you start talking about devices that are expected to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of units. Valve also previously said that the pricing for the entry-level Steam Deck was "painful," suggesting that it had employed very aggressive pricing for that device. At Valve's scale, it seems likely that the specific components that the YouTuber used in the build would come to around $700-750, but when accounting for the semi-custom nature of the Steam Machine and adjusting for the potential savings that Valve gets from its direct-to-consumer model, it seems like the Steam Machine cost as little as $600-650 in hardware. Accounting for Valve's assumed profit of around 10% and taking into account Valve's comments to Linus about its hardware business aiming for sustainability, the official pricing guess comes out to $699.99. This price estimate isn't incredibly reliable, since it doesn't account for the current DRAM shortage that has resulted in prices skyrocketing across the board, which will certainly affect Valve when the Steam Machine launches, and it assumes Valve will sell the Steam Machine at a high profit margin.
118 Comments on Valve Steam Machine May Cost Less Than Anticipated
Another thing to consider is that some people will pay more for the convinience of a prebuilt device in a small form factor
you not recognizing that the Machine's GPU is a juiced up 7600M with lifted TDP and clocks (on par with the XT variant btw) is prime example of bad faithyes, you're replying in bad faith because I didn't take *their opinion*, I took the values displayed by the hardware monitor shown by their build of which I agree with the parts list used, which is just *all hardware*, not *an opinion* as you're trying to pin on meliterally all around the world since they buy consoles.how do you know, there's little room to adjust graphic settings on the PS5well thank gosh it's not using an nvidia GPU then.why? consoles don't need to price that in when being boughtwhy not? PS5 equivalent performance for 60-70% of the power draw is excellent, I know a bunch of people who would be swayed by that argument, especially when you consider rising energy prices due to all the AIDCs popping out of the groundyeah but they don't have PC like functionalities either, I just added that point in an anectodal manner, no need to call me disingenuousI didn't say the market would *benefit*, I said there would be a prime alternative to the soon obnoxiously priced next gen Xboxes and that competition drives improvementthen why don't more people just do that? because they're just gonna claim incompetence with underlying laziness to learn about PCs or (legitimate) fear of mishandling a pricey component, if they don't order incompatible parts altogether or get scammed with second hand products that show up DoA in their mailboxthat, I agree, I always wondered why the cut down on L3 for mobile SKUs...a lot of the optimizations made for consoles do stick when they get ported to PCthey aren't gonna learn to use linux, they're just gonna bother with Steam's Big Picture, which is liekly going to be 90% of their interaction with the GabeCubeI still think this device is really convenient and will attract peopleoh no no, we're aware, I don't even qualify as a proper linux user, barely occasional but I want OS competition as much as actual Linux users and SteamOS/Bazzite is the best shot there has been since the market cemented Windows' supremacy decades agoit doesn't have to, just a light kick in the anthill to normalize gaming PCs NOT being 1000€/$ and more would be nice for all of us consumers
and having a market-recognized baseline hardware for devs to optimize for would be great, having them adapt to the limitations of the lowest rung of the ladder so that people with better rigs enjoy better performance instead of titles that bring 5090s to their knees below 60FPS when the settings are maxxed outIT LITERALLY HAS HIGHER CLOCKS, TDP AND MUCH BETTER COOLING THAN THE 7600M, HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY REALISTICALLY BE SLOWER GODDAMMITgo ahead, put 400W worth of VRMs and power delivery circuitry on a PCB the size of a large coaster with bigger CPU/GPU diesthat's literally what SteamOS is designed to solve, Valve did come out and say in their demo video that both the Machine and the Frame would have a compatibility check program like the Deck has and they're the highest value contributors to the Proton & FEX open sourced compat layers with every reason to see it through that game compatibility can be the best it would possibly be
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predictions so far have been grim, most majors actors have been saying 12-18 months of shortages, by the time new prod lines are built (if there are any planned), chances are the demand will have subsided by thenhm, not bad at all I gotta admit... except this is on sale.
I know HP practices those "forever sales" like a lot of other brands but I find it likely they're making those prices low to offload them from their stocks since this is last gen stuffthe 7600M and 7600S have 28CUs, like the Machine, but run at 90 and 75W respectively
the 7600M XT has 32CUs but runs at 120W, the machine pushes 110 (according to current specs, dunno if that might change, would be unlikely but still)let me have a look...ah yeah, yep, that's where your problem is
you didn't custom design everything to fit in a 16x16x16cm cube350€ only due heavy discounting is being practiced, plus, IMO it's not impossible its the case to be in answer to the Machine's planned release, prompting Sony to make the PS5 as affordable as possible so people rush on them for the end of year purchases, essentially "denying" Machine sales to Valve before it launchesjust install Grub lmao, install Windows on it if you want to, who's gonna stop you? this is really a non argument, it essentially has the layout of a laptop, devices that I have yet to find one to have those kind of limitationsyou ever seen an OS getting reinstalled on a drive without losing user data? how often do you have to do that to be a concern anyways?both are known : there's only one drive slot but you can swap it with whatever you want and there will be a BIOS with laptop-like customization options (probably not much but still some tuning settings will be exposed)I mean, to be entirely honest, these are still far and few between, affordable 5L without being underpowered isn't exactly the most affordable for of PC building, at least not always
I tried a while ago, GPUs fitting the cases were really friggin expensive, then when more LP GPUs appeared, PSUs were priced over ATX ones by a... healthy margin to say the least, later on, for some reason it was the cases that were pricer... I gave up on 5L format, took on an 8L one, it's moooore than enoughThank you, that's what I keep saying!!! That, and not having to pay an online subscription too!!YES, that tooin a mid-tower format that is literally several times the volume of the GabeCubeyeah, the PS5 is currently priced 350 everywhere but nobody with a brain seriously thinks its a device worth 350 just to manufacture lol
A Steam Machine isn't nearly as proprietary as a console that people keep comparing it to, nothing stops you from dual booting into Windows or wiping the install and turning the Steam Machine into another Windows system but the whole point is to not run Windows, especially with how garbage Windows as an OS has become to the point it's less complex to install and learn Linux than it is to obtain a version of Windows that won't break itself with forced updates or slow down the hardware with AI and bloatware.
I think the Valve engineer GN talked to said there is only a single M.2 slot, another M.2 slot would have to be on the bottom of the motherboard and would require a lot of disassembly to access.
The Steam Deck has a UEFI menu, I don't see why the Steam Machine wouldn't.
Any PC in a similar form factor is going to be limited with the amount of tinkering you can do, or with a mini PC will have a soldered on CPU & GPU and will be more expensive with an iGPU.
Selling the Steam Machine at a loss wouldn't be a good option though, IMO, Valve isn't limiting you to their store, I can see why people think it's a console but some people want the convenience of having a pre-built system in a compact size without being an overly flashy gaming PC.
As for the Steam Machine's use case, I highly doubt anyone can tell from the other end of the room whether you're seeing FSR 3 or 4 on your 4K TV.
Edit: I'm not saying that RDNA 4 would have been bad, but 1. Development probably started way before the 9060 XT was even news, and 2. Hopefully, it'll put the price down a bit.I strongly disagree. The Deck is perfect for everything it's meant to do - light indie gaming on the go. It was never meant to be an AAA-gaming desktop replacement. For a starting price of £350 (currently £280 on discount), it's not a bad offer. The likes of Asus and Lenovo completely miss the point, imo.The Steam store that already has all the games you bought on it in the last 20 years. Yes.That too.
The internet just regurgitated old news here for another nice round of clicky clicks. But ladies and gentlemen, this is old hardware, entry level at that, lacking featureset that it sorely needs for better performance and has 8GB VRAM. The machine offers freedom in software, but limits you hard in hardware - as in, you're just lacking key specs and technology for the latest content, even at lower settings. Its a sell, but it targets the entry level gaming market. I keep seeing people overestimating this box because it has the Valve logo on it and Gabe cuddled it at night, or something, but we're looking at poorly binned dies juiced to high heaven to perform, produced at mass scale.
I remember trying to sell 5yr old PC parts before covid, basically had to give them away.
Valve Steam Machine May Cost Less Than Anticipated
"May cost" phrasing indicates the hole topic is just speculation.I was not aware of it for weeks and months. The 7500F may uses thermal paste. My ryzen 7600x and your ryzen 9600x have soldered headspreader. Less issues. Those newssites hardly mentioned the toothpaste and the lack of solder for the ryzen 7500f and 7400f.Thanks for all those quotes.Whataboutism:I do not want to remember how often Android Devices wiped themselves by unlocking the bootloader, upgrading,...
I do not want to know how often windows wiped my discs.
The advice, "did you not knew to unplug your data drives" before installing windows?
I am sure it is noted somewhere in the documentation, which most people will read before doing anyting. RTFM - read the fancy manual - was an abbreviation years ago.
Backup or Luck was another saying.that stuff reads like speculations or a lack of knowledge of the specification.
Criticising something which we do not even know if the final product can do it or not
note: windows is outdated. I boot my box with the uefi build in bootloader. Some MSI and Some ASUS motherboards have a build in bootmenu. I wrote some, as I can not test every motherboard.
Details, sharing knowledge: When you need grub, lilo, etc. you are doing it wrong in the first place. I'm not fond of binaries. Grub is a bad binary. It gets installed once and sits on the disk too long unchanged. Therefore I looked for ways to remove that bloat. My starting point was, wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_stub
Whataboutism. I did not buy the sony PAYStation 3 and 4 and 5 and the other subvariants called slim and wahtever. They all have desktop parts and no accessible "boot menu". Paystation 3 is up to discussion. I did not look into Microsoft and Nintento. What i heard Nintendo also bricks your device when you damper with it. So only microsoft could maybe have an accessible boot menu, which I highly doubt. Why should STEAM have it, or call it VALVE, or fancyshooter 2, when all others do not have any accessible boot menu.
My network router has a boot menu lol
7400f seems to have thermal paste and is not soldered: I could not find any claim for the 7500f yet.
www.techpowerup.com/332114/amd-ryzen-5-7400f-de-lid-reveals-thermal-paste-instead-of-stim
I mean you can't even upgrade this thing unless you wanna get crazy and use the m2 slot for an eGPU but then you're stuck with a clunky device that relies on USB external storage devices
i personally wouldnt pay over $300 for it with the specs
this thing has only 2 fully featured cores the other 4 are low power low cache C cores
it has a Gigabit nic RTL8125B 2.5GBE is like 50c a chip
RTL8126 5Gbps is like $3 a chip
RTL8127 10Gbps is like $10 a chip
its a super cheap box they didnt even paythe 50c for a RTL8125B
$699 and its a niche product with very limited sales
when it flops i will pick one up for $50
and no doubt gave them a bargain on the gpu's also
the bom breakdown's are all bs
how much do you think an apu with a dead gpu
2P Cores and 4E Cores is worth?
actually think about it and dont just parrot what other people say
I recommend watching the LTT video where they built a similar system. It cost them $900, with a historical low of $600. Even when we consider bulk prices, there's no way Valve could go as low as $300. Only your CPU and GPU cost more than that.
they are cut down are they not
dont play semantics