Experts priced Steam Machine: PC from Valve will be little cheaper than PS5 Pro

Valve hasn't spilled the beans on how much the Steam Machine will cost yet, but they'll probably let us know right before it hits the shelves. Expert Linus from the Linus Tech Tips channel previously mentioned that Valve's engineers didn't respond well to the fans' pricing estimate (the amount of $500), and he has now decided to investigate how much the Steam Machine might ultimately cost.

Steam Machine price according to the expert

In one of his latest videos, Linus decided to determine how much the Steam Machine will ultimately cost. For the experiment, he built a computer that was as close as possible to the specs provided by Valve. An exact replica wasn't possible, but a configuration was prepared to reflect the Steam Machine:

1. Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 8400F;
2. Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 6600;
3. Motherboard: ASRock B650M-H/M.2+;
4. RAM: Crucial 16GB;
5. SSD: Kingston NV3 500GB;
6. Power supply: Seasonic Focus GX 550;
7. Cooling: AMD Cooler;
8. Controller: EasySMX X20.

The configuration isn't perfect. The power limit for the processor can be reduced to 30 W (hence the stock AMD cooling is sufficient), but a compromise has to be made with the graphics. According to Linus, the RX 6600 is the closest to the Steam Machine's GPU, but it was built on the RDNA 2 architecture, so not all features will be available. Meanwhile, the power supply is too powerful, but it was too difficult to find a 300 W version (which the Steam Machine is supposed to have).

The most interesting factor, of course, is the pricing. Experts mentioned that if we were using the old prices, building that PC would have cost around $600 (including $50 for the case), but now it's over $900. However, Valve makes and sells its own hardware, so the lack of intermediaries allows for lower costs. According to Linus, building a Steam Machine will cost Valve between $600 and $650, and the device will be sold for $699.99.

We know Valve isn't going to sell the Steam Machine at a loss, so that's why Linus is talking about those prices. Michael Douse, the publishing director at Larian Studios, shared his thoughts on this topic:

According to Linus, Valve is more interested in getting potential partners excited about eventually selling their own Steam Machines with SteamOS. Besides, we're dealing with a PC, so in theory, nothing prevents us from installing Windows on the device after purchase, not downloading Steam, and not paying Valve anything more. Companies could do this by buying thousands of Steam Machines to run their corporate applications on them. Hence the price of $699.99 when considering all factors.

• Valve
• gaming
• Steam Machine