Everything We Know About Valve's New Steam Machine

The Steam Machine is backmost from nan dead. Not arsenic a Valve-supported programme for manufacturers to create surviving room PCs, but alternatively a location console related to nan Steam Deck. Valve introduced its 2nd effort astatine ruling nan surviving room successful a astonishment hardware announcement successful November 2025, and paired nan caller Steam Machine pinch a caller Steam Controller and a wireless VR headset it calls nan Steam Frame. Since nan announcement, arsenic is often nan lawsuit pinch Valve, immoderate specifications stay elusive, however.

While we hold for nan merchandise of nan company's caller hardware lineup successful 2026, and much accusation consecutive from nan horse's mouth, here's everything we cognize astir nan hardware, package and value of nan Steam Machine.

What's nan Steam Machine's hardware like?

Like nan Steam Deck, nan Steam Machine is utilitarian and bespoke. The PC is simply a black, 5.98 x 6.39 x 6.14 inch (152 x 162.4 x 156mm) box, pinch ports and a grille for a instrumentality successful nan backmost and a removable faceplate and customizable LED ray portion successful nan front. Inside, Valve says nan Steam Machine features a "semi-custom" AMD Zen 4 CPU pinch six cores and up to 4.8GHz timepiece speeds, and a "semi-custom" RDNA3 AMD GPU, on pinch 16GB DDR RAM, 8GB GDDR6 VRAM and either 512GB aliases 2TB of storage.

While these specs make nan Steam Machine much powerful than nan aging Steam Deck (which shipped successful 2022 pinch its ain civilization AMD chip) Valve has been observant not to oversell nan capabilities of nan box. In a blog post, nan institution said that "the mostly of Steam titles play awesome astatine 4K 60FPS" utilizing AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) framework procreation and upscaling technology, but immoderate titles require much upscaling than others, and it "may beryllium preferable to play astatine a little framerate pinch [variable refresh rate] to support a 1080p soul resolution."

In a hands-on preview of nan Steam Machine, Digital Foundry expressed interest pinch what Valve's claims and nan device's stated specs could mean for early performance. "The determination to opt for 8GB of GDDR6 representation has been proven to beryllium a limiting facet connected galore modern mainstream triple-A games and falls short of nan maximum VRAM pools and representation bandwidth disposable connected some Xbox Series X and guidelines PS5," Digital Foundry writes.

The Steam Machine supports Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6E and includes an integrated 2.4GHz adapter for nan caller Steam Controller. In position of larboard selection, there's DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 inputs for connecting nan container to outer monitors and TVs, 4 USB-A ports (divided betwixt 2 USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports) and 1 USB-C larboard connected nan back.

Engadget will person to effort out the Steam Machine to really cognize what it's tin of, but there's thing to propose it couldn't beryllium arsenic elastic arsenic nan Steam Deck, particularly pinch much powerfulness to play with.

What games will beryllium capable to tally connected nan Steam Machine?

Any crippled that runs connected SteamOS, Valve's Linux-based operating system, will tally connected nan Steam Machine, provided nan device's method specs will support it. For games moving natively connected Linux, nan Steam Machine will download nan Linux version. For Windows games and everything else, it'll beryllium capable to usage Steam's built-in Proton compatibility furniture to construe games to Linux, conscionable for illustration nan Steam Deck does.

Proton is developed by some Valve and CodeWeavers, nan squad down nan macOS compatibility app CrossOver. Valve's compatibility furniture translates a game's API calls and different package features into thing Linux understands, fundamentally tricking nan crippled into reasoning it's moving connected Windows erstwhile it isn't. Proton has worked remarkably good truthful far, successful immoderate cases helping immoderate PC games tally much efficiently connected Linux than they do connected Windows, but it does person immoderate limitations. Because immoderate anti-cheat package doesn't support Linux, galore competitory multiplayer games aren't playable connected SteamOS. Valve hopes nan Steam Machine will thief alteration that.

"While [the] Steam Machine besides requires dev information to alteration anti-cheat, we deliberation nan incentives for enabling anti-cheat connected Machine to beryllium higher than connected Deck arsenic we expect much group to play multiplayer games connected it," Valve told Eurogamer. "Ultimately we dream that nan motorboat of Machine will alteration nan equation astir anti-cheat support and summation its support."

To thief users find what games activity good connected nan Steam Machine, Valve plans to grow its programme for verifying games connected nan Steam Deck to see nan Steam Machine and Steam Frame. Valve looks astatine things for illustration controller support, nan default solution of nan game, whether aliases not it requires a abstracted launcher and whether nan crippled and its middleware activity pinch Proton to find a game's rating. Then nan institution sorts games into 4 categories: Verified (where nan crippled useful pinch Steam hardware astatine launch), Playable (where a personification mightiness person to make modifications to tally smoothly), Unplayable (where immoderate aliases each of nan crippled doesn't function) and Unknown.

According to an announcement Valve sent to developers, games that were Verified for nan Steam Deck will automatically beryllium verified for nan Steam Machine. The strategy is helpful, but acold from definitive — immoderate Unplayable games are successful truth playable — which is why online, community-run databases for illustration ProtonDB capable successful nan gaps pinch much granular information.

How overmuch will nan Steam Machine costs and erstwhile will it launch?

Valve hasn't announced a value aliases a merchandise day for nan Steam Machine aliases immoderate of its caller hardware. In position of price, however, nan institution has suggested it mightiness not beryllium a woody successful rather nan aforesaid measurement nan $399 Steam Deck LCD was. Valve designer Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge that nan "Steam Machine’s pricing is comparable to a PC pinch akin specs" and that its value would beryllium "positioned person to nan introduction level of nan PC space" but beryllium "very competitory pinch what you a PC you could build yourself from parts."

That intends nan Steam Machine will apt costs much than nan $499 PS5, and that nan rising costs of representation could make it moreover much expensive. Valve has already publically admitted that representation and retention shortages are affecting its plans. In February, the institution said that it was delaying nan motorboat of its hardware (though it still hopes to vessel successful nan first half of 2026) and rethinking pricing, peculiarly astir nan Steam Machine and Steam Frame, because of nan "limited readiness and increasing prices" of captious components for illustration RAM.

The changes Framework had to make to nan pricing of nan Framework Desktop are an schematic illustration of nan position Valve is in. Framework sounded its compact desktop PC arsenic being awesome for gaming, pinch an AMD Ryzen AI Max spot (originally meant for gaming laptops) and a minimum of 32GB of RAM that lets it tally games astatine 1440p. The institution primitively sold nan guidelines configuration of nan Framework Desktop for $1,099, but announced successful January 2026 that it would now costs $1,139 owed to nan rising costs of RAM. The value business sewage moreover worse for configurations pinch much RAM. A Framework Desktop pinch 128GB of RAM now costs $2,459.

The blasted for rising costs lies squarely pinch nan AI industry, whose request for RAM has led to nan illness of consumer RAM brands and a dearth of existent deals connected nan in-demand component. At this point, PC makers person nary solution to nan problem different than riding nan shortage retired and raising prices. Valve intelligibly isn't immune to those aforesaid issues.

That doesn't norm retired nan institution offering its Linux PC astatine aggregate different value points, aliases successful immoderate benignant of bundle woody pinch aggregate pieces of caller Steam hardware. But it does mean that nan Steam Machine will apt beryllium priced for illustration a premium device. Same for nan Steam Controller and Steam Frame. In nan lawsuit of nan Frame, UploadVR reports that Valve wants to waste nan headset for little than nan $1,000 Valve Index, but that doesn't mean it won't beryllium importantly much costly than nan $300 Meta Quest 3S.

What accessories will activity pinch nan Steam Machine?

The Steam Machine is designed to activity pinch a assortment of different Bluetooth controllers and different wireless accessories, and besides immoderate you tin plug into its aggregate USB-A ports and azygous USB-C port. With a built-in 2.4GHz Steam Controller dongle wrong nan Steam Machine, Valve's controller should beryllium an perfect action for controlling games, peculiarly because of its aggregate power options, for illustration touchpads and gyroscopes. Support for Steam Link, Valve's tech for streaming PC games complete section wireless, intends you tin besides nonstop games from a Steam Machine to nan Steam Deck, Steam Frame aliases nan Steam Link app and play them there.