I plan on buying one soon, love the small form factor.
Wow, I got waitlisted and thought because the price wasn’t so hot, that I’d get an opportunity to buy relatively soon. Maybe not. Good for steam, not so much for me :)
I wanted one, but between the price and the single-channel RAM, I decided against it. None of that is Valve’s fault, but I’m still pretty disappointed.
I was on the reservation queue but hadn’t received my email. I ended up in the queue for the 512GB and not the 2TB I really wanted, but luckily I found good deals on eBay for a 2TB SSD and a 16GB DDR5 5600 SODIMM for around $400 combined. Ended up ordering those just to have them when I finally did get my email, and luckily just last night I got my purchase email for the Steam Machine. Hopefully the RAM and SSD get here before the Machine does so I can upgrade it right away. That way I can have 32GB and dual-channel and enough space to triple boot SteamOS (for gaming), Arch Linux (for development, tinkering), and Windows (for Fortnite and development/testing as well).
I’m excited to reverse engineer its RGB and get it integrated into OpenRGB, one reason why I want all the OSes on it.
Very nice! I was really interested in that LED bar too. I appreciate your interest in improving OpenRGB too!
I think it has an open a lot to add another dimm. Swear I saw a video on exactly that. 16gb dimm is expensive at $230 right now but that price would be the same for any system. But then you’d be dual channel
According to the Gamers Nexus (I think) video I saw, they’re sourcing whatever RAM they can find, so some units ship with 1x16GB and others ship with 2X8GB and it’s just random luck which you’ll get.
He stated that in one video, then issued a correction from Valve in a later video saying all current units use 1 DIMM for now
“It’s possible that this could change in the future, but the units that customers are signing up for will all come with one 16GB stick of RAM”
That’s not horrible it means I can source another 16gb RAM and double it.
I found a Crucial stick (16GB 5600 SODIMM) for like $180 on eBay. Ordered it a few days ago because I just wanted to have it by the time I did get my Steam Machine purchase email and then I ended up getting the purchase email yesterday, so hopefully it will all come next week. I also ordered a 2TB NVMe on eBay for $190.
Apparently the memory can be very unstable unless you have 2 identical sticks
they’re sourcing whatever RAM they can find, so some units ship with 1x16GB and others ship with 2X8GB and it’s just random luck which you’ll get
In a later statement from VALVE they cleared up that this i not what they meant to say. All Steam Machines come with 1x16gb at the moment. But it might change in the future and then they cannot or don’t want to guarantee either setups. There are no Steam Machines with 2x8gb from VALVE at this moment.
Oh for sure. It’s just that I’m too frugal to want to do that for something I don’t absolutely need.
As a compromise, I bought an AsRock BC-250 bitcoin miner that I am in the process of building into a pseudo-PS5.
Apparently there’s updates can can potentiall locl more compute units based on how lucky tou are in the silicon lottery. Some people have unlocked all 40, more than a PS5 gets
Good for the future of Steam hardware.
Note, they make an assumption which cannot be derived by data: 65% adoption of the base configuration, 35% adoption of the high-tier configuration. While it makes sense on paper, we don’t know how many units VALVE even produced and produces of both. I remember VALVE saying they were surprised how many of the high tier models of Steam Deck were sold back when it launched. Also the enthusiasts and early adopters probably would like to buy the higher model. I can see that VALVE started with a 50/50 distribution, and based on demand shifts AND availability of SSD towards one. All around its still a well made and educated guess of the numbers, based on the little data we have.
The adoption rate is pretty meaningless at the moment considering their queue system just put people into whatever queues they randomized into. I signed up for all 4 mainly wanting a 2TB unit but ended up in the 512GB queue instead. I’ve ordered a 2TB NVMe and an extra 16GB RAM stick so when I get it the first thing I’m doing is installing the upgrades.
I got one and put windows 11 on it. 😈
I’m gonna triple boot mine when I get it, SteamOS (1TB), Arch Linux (512GB), and Windows 11 (512GB). I plan to game mostly on SteamOS but as a mini PC it will probably take the place of my travel setup and so I want access to Arch (my daily driver OS on my main PCs) and Windows (mainly for development testing of cross-platform apps but also maybe Fortnite, it’s the one game my friends play that doesn’t support Linux).
Why do you hate yourself so much that you’d subject yourself to that?
(Note: I gave you an upvote because this comment is meant in jest.)
I assume to play those games that do not run on Linux. Its sad, but the only way to play them is to install the malware Windows. If that was your plan all along, why did you even bothered to buy a Steam Machine?
Which makes me wonder if it has hardware support for secure boot/tpm which some games demand now. I assume so because it’s mostly standard hardware, but you never know…
I bought it to help host windows updates on the network. Set it and forget it.
So you don’t want to game on it and its just to distribute your Windows updates on your local network? Didn’t even know this was possible (if it is), sorry if I misunderstand that. Why is a Steam Machine the best option for this?
Probably because of the goodwilled the company has from their track record with product releases and extending support for Hardware they put out in the ecosystem.
Folks are big mad at valve for ending first party components distribution on the discontinued Steam Deck LED, but I don’t fault them for that in the slightest, and Trust valve to have a product that I would engage with as much as a Framework or an Apple One.
It’s just a bummer, they couldn’t hazard even subsidizing the steam machine because they had to worry about folks using them for office computers and never actually participating in the Steam store ecosystem.
Tl;Dr: The person you’re responding to is exactly the reason the Steam Machine had to be sold with margins. And he, and Valve, and everyone else are just doing the best we all can.
I gotta ask some questions:
- does everything work the way it would on SteamOS?
- what about drivers?
- did you test gaming performance?
Valve has released drivers, so should be fine
I feel like if there was an alignment chart for Steam Machine users, you’d fall under Chaotic Good.
Hah, right?!?
