5 Things You Need To Know Before Buying A Steam Machine

Valve’s Steam Machine is the company’s latest major hardware launch since the Steam Deck handheld in 2022. There are a lot of caveats to Valve’s small-form-factor PC, much like the Deck, but its pricing altered the entire conversation around it. Valve has made it clear that it had no way to reduce the PC’s price tag, which starts at $1,049 for 512GB of storage and no controller. The company is at the mercy of the RAM and SSD pricing crisis caused by the high demand for AI data centers.

The Steam Machine could have been a solid entry-level PC for a lot of people. In benchmark testing, the system fails to live up to big-budget PCs, and its performance is comparable to PCs with low-end graphics cards like the Nvidia RTX 5050. If the Steam Machine had been sold at its originally envisioned price of $750, it would have been a much easier pill to swallow. Today, it’s a system you almost have to be briefed on before diving in.

That’s not including the fact that it ships with SteamOS, a Linux distribution built on top of Arch Linux. This is its own kettle of fish, and something you’ll need to bear in mind depending on the games you enjoy. It’s also just a PC at the end of the day, so that comes with its own learning curve if you’ve never stepped foot into the world of PC gaming before.

There’s no two ways about this, but the Steam Machine is overpriced. Will it ever go down? Who knows, because all gaming-centric hardware has been hit with multiple price hikes over the last couple of years. Between Trump’s tariffs and AI data centers hoovering up all RAM and NAND required for storage, gaming hardware prices inevitably skyrocketed through 2025 and 2026. This is the first time towards the end of a hardware generation where consoles and other hardware are more expensive than when they started.

Is it recommended to jump in at the starting price of $1,049? Absolutely not. If you’re still thinking of going in, either out of curiosity or whatever reasons you have, just be aware that yes, the price is whack.

The Steam Machine might be an impressive feat that could have seriously put a dent in Windows’ monopoly on PC gaming systems. However, with the state of the tech and gaming industries after chip shortages and price increases, it seems far from having that impact. This should be an entry-level machine, something that anyone could jump into without the headache of shopping for PC parts or being scared by the price tags on some entry-level machines sold on Amazon. Instead, it’s another victim of the AI price crisis.

Linux is fantastic, and the work Valve has done in conjunction with other developers to bring games and easier usability to the operating system is incredible. That said, it’s still a Linux PC, and with that, you’ll need to brace yourself for a few limitations, like some games not working properly or titles from other storefronts forcing you to jump through some hoops to run them.

If you love online games, be aware that some might not work. Linux does not support kernel-level anti-cheat, even with the translation layer Proton in place. Proton simulates a Windows environment for each installed game, as if it were providing a new computer for each game. However, it’s impossible to bring over core Windows kernel functionality, so there’s nothing to hook into. As such, games like “Fortnite,” “Marathon,” “Destiny 2,” “Call of Duty,” and “League of Legends” will outright not work. That said, it’s just a PC, so if you want to install and dual-boot Windows onto it, you’re more than welcome to.

If you have games on the Epic Store or another launcher, you’ll need to go through custom launchers that do some of the heavy lifting for you. Lutris, Heroic Launcher, and NonSteamLaunchers will install specialised programs that hook into your account from GOG, Epic, etc., so you can run almost anything you’ve acquired from these stores.

Valve’s original vision for the Steam Machine appears to reflect that of the Steam Deck. Fit it with mid to low-range last-generation hardware and then sell it at a relatively affordable price point. Obviously, this can’t happen now, and you’ll have to be mindful of the hardware inside. This appears to have impacted the RAM, now swapped for a single 16GB module, rather than dual-channel 16GB split across two 8GB modules, which will stunt performance.

Inside is a custom AMD chipset, but it isn’t the latest and greatest. Built on Zen 4 and a GPU on RDNA 3 (AMD is currently on Zen 5 and RDNA 4), it doesn’t provide much in the way of power. Choosing which games to play on it becomes a situation: Will you be the guinea pig or wait for experts’ performance analyses? Some auto-settings detectors do a decent job, but you’ll have to anticipate the hardware’s shortcomings and brace for tinkering in the graphics options — be ready to use quite a bit of upscaling.

The Steam Machine’s handheld predecessor, the Steam Deck, is already outdated in terms of hardware and performance. However, it still surprises users when a new, big-budget game arrives. “Pragmata” and “Resident Evil: Requiem,” for example, run quite well on the device. The same story will likely happen with the Steam Machine. Meanwhile, playing your massive backlog of older games or exploring Steam sales for smaller titles will be a great way to maximize enjoyment out of the Steam Machine.

One thing a lot of people learn when buying Steam games for the Deck is that Valve’s verified system is trash. It is poorly managed, with multiple games listed as fully functional despite their bad performance. Vocal users online have brought this up countless times, either through Steam’s own forums or Reddit. With Valve’s verified system now incorporating Steam Machines too, it’s not known whether it’ll improve.

What you should be checking is ProtonDB, a third-party website that collates performance reports and tinkering tips from users running Linux. It’s far more trustworthy and helpful than Valve’s official system and includes a dedicated Steam Deck filter for every game. In some cases, games Valve has listed as “Unsupported,” like the “Shenmue I & II” collection, work just fine under Linux if you follow the adjustments suggested on ProtonDB. Be aware that it might take a few hours for reports to be accepted and posted for games that have just launched.

If you’re purchasing a game and unsure whether it’ll run — maybe Valve hasn’t even tested it themselves — then you need to check ProtonDB. It won’t just save you some cash if something doesn’t work, but it could also help you fix a myriad of issues for more difficult titles. Just be aware that if the game isn’t available on Steam, it won’t be listed via ProtonDB.

SteamOS 3.8 is pretty much ready to go on any machine. Multiple users have reported using the operating system daily, and even Valve has said that now’s the time to look into building your own Steam Machine if you so wish. Of course, with prices all over the place, it might be best to check out budget PC options under $1,000 or, if you’re willing to push the boat out, gaming PCs under $1,500.

One option to play older or smaller, less hardware-intensive titles is purchasing an AMD BC 250 motherboard. These are effectively ex-PS5 chips that didn’t make the cut and were repurposed as crypto miners. When they were banned in China, many units became available at relatively low prices, which have since increased marginally with their popularity.

Digital Foundry has put together a guide for building a Steam Machine-like computer that will support SteamOS out of the box. For simplicity, we don’t recommend the Nvidia build unless you plan on using a distro with better Nvidia support, like CachyOS, Bazzite, or generalist distros like Fedora. Currently, Nvidia support on SteamOS is poor to non-existent.