I hope to be on that path. I’m in my 40s and tired of the grind. Nowhere close to retirement yet, but I am likely on track to pay off my house early in the next two years (maybe 7 years into a 30 year mortgage) which will go a long way.

I’m saving as much as I can and hoping I can retire lean in my mid or late 50s.

Right now though all I can think of is that I need a sabbatical after my current job ends (either layoffs or just quitting) because I really need a break.

Sales are looking really mid again. I skipped the Winter and Spring sales entirely.

I picked up God Of War: Ragnarok and Spider-Man 2 because the current sales are the lowest I’ve seen them. More than I usually pay for games but I know I’ll enjoy them.

Besides that I picked up a few cheap DLCs for games I play or will play in the near future.

I couldn’t possibly choose. To this day I still get a lot of mileage out of the SNES, Genesis, PS1, PS2, GBA, and Nintendo DS libraries.

Maybe consider some of us just want to play with friends and/or spouses or partners.

Reintroduce LAN play and locally hosted multiplayer servers. IDGAF about playing with randos, I just want to play with my wife, and I’d prefer it to not be something that can shut down because the company went broke or didn’t care anymore.

It's funny you blame competitive gamers who don't understand what they're doing, yet don't seem to know how any of this works.

Higher refresh rates reduce frame timing, reducing both visual and input latency. It's why a game at 30 fps often "feels" laggy compared to one at 60 or 120 fps. Even if you can't see the increased frame rate you can certainly feel input latency. It's also why "fake frames" from things like optiscaler or FSR/DLSS don't help when already at low frame rates, they actually increase latency, which is already bad when your frame times are higher.

I'm not into competitive gaming at all, btw, just sensitive to (and annoyed by) input lag.

Yeah, wtf. I have a cheap (or was cheap at the time) LG 1440p ultrawide, nothing fancy, and it can do up to 165 Hz.

Even a 6600XT is so overkill

I game on a 1440p ultrawide monitor at my desk, and a 4k TV (though I don't actually game at 4k). I upgraded from a 6700XT to a RX 9070 after Expedition 33 ran like shit and couldn't run constant 60 fps on high settings even when dropped to 1080p with FSR. A 6600XT is hardly overkill.

Also, it's hardly wasteful when my 9070 performs better, yet runs cooler and actually has a lower tdp / wattage than the 6700 XT did.

Rough timing. My entire gaming PC cost less than this and is much more powerful, judging by the specs. But I built it out with 32 GB RAM and a few terrabytes of SSDs and NVMe before the current silicon panic, and just upgraded the GPU last year before the prices increased.

I don't see how there was any way of winning for Valve on this with the current market. It's not worth the cost, but there's also likely no way they could make it cheaper.

For $1k you could do quite better than the Steam Machine (though not mini-sized). Just spec'd out a build on Amazon with AM4 and you've got options:

• $55 - Thermaltake 700w PSU

• $90 - Corsair 4000D case (I have one of these, good airflow and easy build space). This is a place you could skimp to save a few bucks, e.g. - this case is $55

• $130 - Cheap 1 TB SSD (went with Timetec, apparently Fikwot is okay too, seems to be a SSD parts manufacturer that started selling direct)

• $85 - B550 ATX mobo

• $130 - G.Skill 16 GB DDR4 3200

• $175 - Ryzen 5 5600 XT OR Ryzen 7 5700 (5600 is faster but 6c/12t, 5700 lower core speed, but 8c/16t. I have a 5600x, no complaints)

• $279 or $290 - RX 7600 GPU, or RTX 5050 (up to preference. The 7600 is generally comparable or slightly better overall, but you will see much better with it on Linux. On Windows the 5050 might be the better choice)

Total cost: About $950 (or $915 with the cheaper case), which leaves a bit of overhead to get a cheap cooler for the CPU (optional since it comes with one), and/or additional case fan(s).

Edit - to be clear, you can probably do better than this. I just browsed prices and parts on Amazon, but you might be able to find parts cheaper on https://pcpartpicker.com/ or by purchasing used parts on eBay.

For example, the Ryzen 5 5600x can be found for around $125 on Ebay, that's $50 savings. And slower DDR4 RAM (2600 base speed) can be found for as low as $65 on Ebay, though I'm not sure if that's a compromise I'd make, up for debate.

I mean, it's still a problem, just less of one. Still gonna be an issue with high texture games that cache to VRAM. But this looks to be a 1080p machine, so I suppose that wouldn't be too big a deal here, unless the textures aren't scaled for the resolution (some games do that these days, but I don't know if it's common).

Gotcha. The 4000D is easy to build in and very roomy. It’s also got great airflow on the mesh front variant.

I had it running a ESXi server for a while, it’s currently in my closet and planned as my case whenever I eventually upgrade. I currently use a HAF XB Evo it feels like I’ve outgrown, but unless I’m actually changing parts I don’t feel like messing with it.

Good point. Though personally I prefer running EndeavourOS, I like having an up-to-date kernel and mesa improvements. With regard to the 7600 vs 5050, I was recommending the 7600 because of the recent improvements for VRAM prioritization on 8GB GPUs on Linux.

Why not? The 4000D is solid.

I literally spec’d out a much more powerful system in another comment here for around $950.

It’s only equivalent if you absolutely need a micro/mini PC.

I'm still on 32 GB DDR4 as well, running a Ryzen 5600x and RX 9070 GPU. I was planning to potentially upgrade to a new mobo/CPU/RAM this year or next year, but I just have no reason to upgrade now, between the prices and the fact that I've had no issues even with recent UE5 games like Expedition 33 at 1440p/UW and in some cases up to 4k resolutions for slightly older stuff. It runs everything just fine for my purposes, and the whole system is really power efficient for the performance, I don't think I've ever seen it hit above 350w total power.

Gamersnexus shows a comparison with the Steam Machine getting 93 fps on Resident Evil 4 remake at 1080p with "priorize graphics" setting, while my GPU (Sapphire Pulse 9070) hits 275 fps on the same settings. Can't complain.

Avoid any random generic Chinese named stuff. Go with legit brands like Thermaltake, Corsair, Cooler Master, EVGA, Seagate, and so on, and if budget allows, get one that's at least Bronze rated (Silver or Gold is better, but not necessary). If budget doesn't allow, white certified is fine, but don't cheap out near capacity.

Use a PSU calculator for the parts you're selecting. Power supplies are rated to always provide consistent load of at least 80% of rated spec if they're rated at least white certified (better for Bronze, Silver, and Gold), so aim for a PSU with at least 20% overhead. So if the system uses 600w peak, you'll want a 720w PSU or better.

In general, an 800w PSU is generally more than enough for most systems, unless you're buying really power hungry parts (think Nvidia 5080 or 5090 and the highest end Intel chips or AMD threadrippers).

If in doubt, just buy a bigger PSU than you need, like 1000w. Always better to have more than you need, it only uses what the system requires, it's not like it's always actually going to draw that 1kw power.

I got lucky I think. Bought two Sapphire Pulse RX 9070s last year for myself and my wife's rig, close to or below MSRP. Mine was $600, wife's was $540. We had 6700XTs previously, only reason we upgraded was because I was having issues with performance on E33. We plan to pick up Solasta II when it drops which is also UE5, and had some existing games with a bit of performance drop (like 40k: Rogue Trader) so decided the upgrade was warranted.

We're both gaming on Linux, so the performance and stability with AMD was preferred, no question.

Maybe should, but it doesn't. Current kernel is 6.16 as of the SteamOS update 3.8 last week. Endeavour is up to 7.0.12. SteamOS is always a few versions behind.

I just use all my credit cards for the points/cashback rewards and to track spending (I have different cards for different things, like one for gas and groceries, one for revolving subscriptions, one for general spending online).

I pay them off in full weekly, and the rewards are essentially free money. Plus, this protects my bank account (actual money) and helps easily spot if there's any fraud.

I couldn't squeeze in the 9060 XT (specifically the 16 GB variant) for under $1k, though if you went with the used parts I mentioned and the cheaper case it should fit the budget. I'm impressed with what you can still do for around $1k today, it's really just the RAM and SSD prices that hurt the build.

I'd actually be fine with the build I posted, only main difference with mine now is I have a RX 9070 GPU and 32 GB RAM, but I don't play much that takes advantage of it. I mostly just play indies and retro emulation on my Steam Deck, and only use the rig for the few more intensive games, and for co-op gaming with my wife.