I say "upgrade" but it's actually a repairability issue as well. If something breaks, getting a replacement part is not as easy as going to any pc store/amazon/newegg and getting what you need. You'll have to go through steam/ifixit and it will most likely be more expensive than the equivalent pc part. You also can't replace just the cpu, gpu or motherboard. If any of those breaks, you have to replace the whole thing.

It doesn't matter if you build it yourself or not, it matters that whoever repairs it can swap only the part that failed. The steam machine has a lot of stuff on a single board (kinda like a laptop) and that sucks, from a repairability standpoint.

Beg to disagree. I'd never pay 750 for a "pc" that performs like ryzen 3600 with an rx 6600 and has no way of being upgraded (besides replacing ram and ssd). The hardware is outdated from day 1.

That's honestly very odd. It's windows though, so I'm not exactly surprised. Can you share the brand and model of that docking station?

You can update drivers manually through device manager, don't know if you've tried that. I'm assuming you've tested this usb-c hub with another device already to confirm that it isn't dead, right?

Your first paragraph is like you talking to a mirror xD and the second one is flat out wrong. Most reviewers agree with me. This thing is way too outdated and expensive to make sense. It's doa. I don't care if you believe me or not, it will die anyway.

Hardware console limitations. Everything but the SSD and RAM is proprietary and you can't upgrade it. Heck, it doesn't even have an audio output. The I/O sucks hard.

That's why I boguht a steam deck. The difference, imo, is that the value proposition of the Deck was far better than that of the Machine. The latter is launching with outdated specs, doesn't really offer something novel and costs way more than it should. Although, to be fair, the current price of the steam deck is also way too high right now. Specially considering how old it is.

Except that the steam machine is not a console? It's just a linux pc with a UI that can be navigated with a controller. You can just install bazzite and achieve the same result. Software support could actually be worse for the steam deck, considering that it has a semi-custom apu.

Be honest, when was the last time you wanted to use a pc and couldn't because it didn't have drivers? Heck, my first server a little over a year ago was using a 15 year-old i5 2400, and it worked just fine for a simple file server + jellyfin with the arr stack and direct playback.

Nah, fuck tipping. Pay a livable wage.

In that case just install Linux on your pc and buy more games. They're not going to make much money from Steam Machine sales.

While it's pretty close, the diy route leaves you with a device that can be completely upgraded and that also outperforms the steam machine. The performance sucks bad. In cpu tasks it even loses agains a ryzen 2600 in some cases.

The only reason "valve fans" will probably buy all of the units Valve makes is because they make fre of them, and they're not available in every country. I have a steam deck, which is supposedly a huge success for valve, and literally everyone that sees it asks what it is.

These are niche products with an even more niche demographic.

8gb of vram in 2026 is not what a "good product" would have. It also costs more than a similar diy pc, performs worse and can't be upgraded. This thing is doa.

It doesn't even have a pc price. It's more expensive than diy (or even prebuilt in some cases) and the 2tb ssd is way more expensive that just buying the 512gb model and upgrading it. It also has a lot of proprietary hw. That's pretty shitty imo. Who's the target demographic for this?

I think you're looking in the mirror. I regularly go to what's colloquially known as the "real world" and the vast majority of people don't even know what a Steam Deck is, and that was a successful and cheaper product for Valve. This thing makes no sense. They kind of got dealt a bad hand due to timing but the machine itself is also kinda crap. 8gb of vram in 2026? Yikes.

W10 drivers can be used in W11...

The form factor is slightly smaller than itx and you can buy a pre-built itx pc. Software support is ridiculous, that's already a feature in every pc and OS.

Also, I don't think the price is ok at all. If you're going to take away upgradeability, it needs to be a lot cheaper than diy.

I worry that this is going to be so niche that it'll die a very quick death.

This is such a braindead take that I really don't even know where to start.

They're not buying at the prices your local hardware store bought them at though, they're buying at the future price of hardware when it actually gets built for them. It's not price gouging.

That's really not how pricing works, but ok.

The literal next sentence he says is "but blender put it near the 5600x". You're comparing it's worst performing tasks to general performance.

It's supposedly a pc, not just a console. There's nothing unfair about the comparison

You are being melodramatic.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

If you like to fanboy all over Valve so much then go ahead and buy it. Have fun. We've literally alredy seen how this plays out. Did you already forget about the og steam machine?

That’s not price gouging

They, a supplier that buys in bulk is charging a higher premium for storage than you'd pay if you bough the 512gb model and a 2tb ssd on your own. So yes, it kinda is price gouging.

I didn’t ask if you’ve seen SSD prices

You literally said "I don’t know if you’ve seen prices recently" and my complaint was about the device price, while also specifically mentioning the price premium for the 2TB model. So yeah, you kinda did ask.

no benchmark has it losing against a zen+ CPU that runs a GHz slower

My bad, it didn't lose to a 2600, it matched it in decompression tests. Source, if you want to confirm it. The most it can do is get close to the 3600, which was released in 2019. If that's not disappointing, I don't know what is.