Featured Image Credit: Valve, Sony
Topics: Steam Machine, PC, Tech, PlayStation, PlayStation 5, Sony
I’m still trying to weigh up whether the Steam Machine is genius or positioned to be a huge flop.
It’s less powerful than a PlayStation 5 Pro, but does that matter?
That’s something I’ve previously looked into, as I’d argue that the Steam Machine is a PC alternative rather than a console alternative.
You probably wouldn’t pick it up instead of a Sony or Microsoft console. You might, however, prefer it to a PC given that it’s a PC in console format.
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Is it too much, however, to ask the wider public to view the Steam Machine within that specific context? Because I do sense that’s what’s required for this release to work.
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For a recap on those specs, the Steam Machine offers a 28 CU GPU (140 Watt), whilst the more powerful PlayStation 5 Pro and Xbox Series X offer 60 CU (220 Watt) and 52 CU (220 Watt), respectively.
System storage is comparable across all three systems, but the PlayStation 5 Pro and Xbox Series X outperform the Steam Machine when it comes to CPU.
The Steam Machine only has six CPU cores, which is easily rivalled by the PlayStation 5 Pro and Xbox Series X’s eight CPU cores.
Put simply, this means it can only do six different tasks at once, which means it'll perform slower than the consoles that can do eight tasks at once.
Valve is yet to officially confirm pricing but various leaked numbers have surfaced online.
The latest is from YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, as brought to our attention by ScreenRant.
According to the Linus team, Valve internally floated around a price close to $500 amidst discussions of opting for a “console pricing model”.
This apparently left many execs underwhelmed or as Linus put it, “The energy in the room wasn’t great.”
The fear now is that it’ll be far closer to the region of $700 to $1000. It's not all that dissimilar to the PlayStation 5 Pro’s pricing once you’ve gathered key accessories like a stand and disc drive.
But a digital only PlayStation 5 Pro retails for £699.99 / $749.99 without those aforementioned accessories.
Of course, I do have to urge you to take all of this with a pinch of salt. We won’t know pricing for certain until it is announced by Valve.
It’s also unknown whether the recent worldwide RAM shortage will factor into pricing, or whether Valve has already produced enough stock that it’s not something that’ll come into play until further down the line.
As soon as that information is available, we’ll be certain to bring it to you.