The first thing that hit me after opening the Valve heater at home was: wow, this is small. I had already seen this in person last November, but its size still impresses me.
Steam Machine is smaller than PlayStation 5. Smaller than Xbox. It’s a cube that you can easily place next to your TV, or take it in a box when you go on vacation with friends, that’s what I did. It’s shockingly portable. But they are crowded. And you still need a power outlet and a TV or monitor to connect to.
This is not a The Steam Deck. The Steam Machine is Valve’s return to trying to make a PC game console — and unfortunately, it comes at a terrible time. Electronic prices for computer components like RAM and SSD storage are going through the roof, and game consoles including PlayStation and Xbox are seeing price increases, even for 6-year-old hardware. The Steam Machine’s starting price of $1,049 is already out of reach for most people.
Size-wise, this is the type of console I would want.
And, while it’s nice to see Valve making its own PC gaming hardware, there are already plenty of ways to play Steam on Windows PCs of all shapes and sizes and prices. The Steam Deck is unique because it is handheld again much smaller (and, initially, much more affordable). The Steam Machine has only one of those things going for it.
But as far as showing that PC gaming hardware is accessible and console-like, I like the effort so far. Even that effort is arduous, imperfect and not as efficient as you’d expect for the price.
The Steam engine has a large fan import system that runs through it front to back. It runs quietly, but the exhaust air can be very warm.
I’ll have a full review of the Steam machine eventually, but for now I wanted to share some thoughts after a week with one at home and on the road.
The review unit I got from Valve is the top end model: a $1428 package with 2 TB of storage, two interchangeable magnetic face plates and a Steam controller (which, by the way, I love it). The $1,049 entry-level configuration has no controller and 512GB of storage. All models have the same AMD Zen 4 CPU, custom AMD RDNA3 GPU, 16GB DDR5 RAM and 8GB GDDR6 VRAM. There’s a microSD card slot for expandable storage, too.
@cnetdotcom Valve’s PC game console, the Steam Machine, is coming but it won’t be cheap, thanks to the ongoing memory shortage called RAMageddon. The window to buy the console will start today and will be open for three days. Those who do not complete their purchase will lose their reservation, and it will go to someone else. Unbox the $1,428 2TB model with a Steam controller. #unboxing #steammachine #valve #pcgaming #steamcontroller @scottstein89 ♬ Domino hoodtrap by Kryd – Kryd
A beautiful design for the Steam engine
I can’t say enough about the compact size of the Steam Frame because I really like it. I’ve felt repelled from home PC gaming rigs in part because of how much space they take up. But the Steam Machine feels smaller than any PlayStation or Xbox, and it’s easier to sit on a shelf or a dresser.
No big adapter brick: A simple power cord just plugs into the back. That makes TV setup very easy.
The Steam Machine (left) next to the Xbox Series X (right). It’s half the size.
It also makes me want to put it in the living room for display. But, as I do now, it fits easily next to my laptop and my gaming TV in my office, too.
The entire box is an exhaust system, with air intakes at the front and a large exhaust fan at the rear. The front faceplate is magnetically adjustable, and the two included plates (red fabric and plastic woodgrain) are fun and easy to snap off to change their look. I also ran into a small power button and an LED status bar under the cube, which glows in various patterns for system status. An LED bar fills in to show download progress when the TV is off and you just want to see if your game is ready.
Steam Machine is easy to navigate, but not all games will run smoothly.
Things work (sometimes)
The Steam Machine does not have an instruction manual. You just plug it in, go through a few initialization steps, download a software update and it’s up and running. It felt like a Steam Deck extension as I logged in and found everything ready for me, minus the game download.
Steam controllers work without charge puck dongles by pairing directly with the Steam machine, saving a step. But some firmware updates were needed, although they were painless.
Steam Machine’s default support for games is 1,920×1,080, and while you can increase the resolution, Valve’s settings warn that Steam Machine-certified games are tested at 1,920×1,080. Wandering outside of that area may not be good.
Baby Steps is one of the few games I’ve tried on the Steam Machine so far at its default 1080p resolution.
Steam engine performance seems… OK
Honestly, 1080p is fine for me on my 42-inch office screen, but on a game console starting at $1,000, it might seem pretty disappointing. (Soon what 4K gaming feels like.) It reinforces the general feeling I got from the Steam Machine that, performance wise, the game is fine. It’s not surprising. It’s not bad (although sometimes it feels a step below the PS5 and Xbox Series X).
But I had some weird game issues. Star Wars Squadrons wouldn’t let me in — maybe it needed a keyboard and mouse, but the Steam Controller wasn’t recognized. A few games showed weird pop-up driver error messages, which I couldn’t get rid of easily, either. After several restarts of some of these games, the errors disappeared. Sometimes, not so much.
The front plate pops out magnetically, and hey, it’s an air flow system to cool the occupants. You can peek inside.
However, in general, the games play well in the ones I looked at casually: Death Stranding 2, Spider-Man 2, UFO 50 (strange framerate issues), Stray, Subnautica, Team Fortress 2, Elden Ring, Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 and Baby Steps.
Valve makes many iterative improvements to game performance on Steam Deck over time. And with Steam Machine, it will probably be the same. But as early reviews and Reddit forums are already reporting, your mileage will definitely vary on this early hardware.
The Steam Deck next to the Steam Machine shows how small the Steam Machine is. Steam Deck is completely portable, too.
Machine vs. Deck versus frame
The overall proposition of the Steam Machine is not as exciting as the portable Steam Deck with its own screen, and while Valve is clearly proving a future where PC game consoles can be as good as (or replace) consoles like PlayStation and Xbox, the price calculation and the similarity to other PC gaming options are hard to ignore. My son’s friend was as busy playing Steam games on his laptop as I was on the Steam Machine, and that’s especially true: there are many ways to play Steam stuff.
But it’s ARM-based Steam Frame A VR headset, also expected this summer, will squeeze Steam games onto smaller chipsets. The machine extends the Deck design in large forms. There is a spectrum Valve checking, clearly. I’m curious how all the pieces play out. In the meantime, I’ll be finishing up this review. But even if I do that, I still want to hear and review the Framework in comparison to understand what is the comparative value of the Machine for someone who wants and is able to buy a New Steam Item in 2026.
