This video attempts to predict the price and performance of Valve's unreleased Steam Machine. The presenters construct a comparable DIY PC using off-the-shelf components—a Ryzen 5 8400F and an RX 6600—as proxies for the Steam Machine's semi-custom AMD hardware. Based on an analysis of component costs, market conditions, and Valve's likely business strategy, they estimate a final price of $699 USD. The core argument for this price point is that Valve cannot subsidize the hardware like traditional console manufacturers. Because the Steam Machine is an open PC, users could easily install other operating systems and game stores, denying Valve any post-sale software revenue. Performance testing of their proxy build in Cyberpunk 2077 suggests it will be competitive with the PlayStation 5, capable of achieving over 60 FPS at 4K with FSR, making the predicted price a compelling value proposition for a significant portion of the existing Steam user base.
Predicting the Steam Machine's Price and Performance
0:00 The Core Question: The video's premise is to determine if the upcoming Steam Machine will be a cheap "$500 console killer" or an expensive "$1,000 pre-built PC." The price is the most critical unknown.
1:42 Hardware Approximation: They build a PC with parts that are, in their estimation, equivalent to the Steam Machine's. They use a desktop AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and an ASRock B650M motherboard as stand-ins for the semi-custom six-core CPU and motherboard, acknowledging this is a major source of uncertainty.
5:00 "Semi-Custom" Limits Valve's Ambition: The analysis of the "semi-custom" AMD chip suggests Valve is not projecting the 10+ million unit sales required for a fully custom design. As far as I can tell, this indicates a more cautious strategy than with the Steam Deck, aiming for a sustainable product rather than a market-disrupting loss leader.
8:53 GPU Selection is a Weak Point: The closest desktop GPU in performance to the Steam Machine's semi-custom mobile RDNA3 chip is determined to be the last-generation RX 6600, not the current RX 7600. This is probably the weakest link in their hardware approximation, so the performance benchmarks should be viewed skeptically.
10:58 Final Price Prediction: $699: After analyzing current and historical component costs, factoring in retail margins, and estimating Valve's direct-to-consumer advantage, they predict a launch price of $699 USD. They are confident enough to bet a Portal cake on being within $60 of this figure.
14:01 The Open PC Justification: The most compelling argument for the $699 price is that the Steam Machine is an open PC. A user could install Windows and the Epic Games Store, preventing Valve from ever making money on software sales from that machine. Therefore, Valve must profit from the hardware sale itself, unlike Sony or Microsoft who can subsidize their consoles.
15:37 Performance is Competitive with PS5: Testing Cyberpunk 2077, their proxy build achieves over 60 FPS at 4K using FSR (Performance setting). When compared side-by-side with a PlayStation 5, the performance and image quality are competitive, validating the value proposition at the predicted price.
19:46 A Large Addressable Market: Valve estimates the Steam Machine will be more powerful than the hardware currently used by 70% of Steam users. This suggests that even at a price higher than a traditional console, there is a large, built-in audience for a powerful, simple, and quiet living room PC.