Valve announce Steam Machines prototype specs

[Andytizer 269]

Valve have announced the spec (or should I say, specs) for their own prototype Steam Machine (the very same being sent out to 300 lucky beta testers (cough, winners).Multiple specs are being released with the following components:

• GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660
• CPU: some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3
• RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU)
• Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD
• Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold
• Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

...we've chosen to build something special. The prototype machine is a high-end, high-performance box, built out of off-the-shelf PC parts. It is also fully upgradable, allowing any user to swap out the GPU, hard drive, CPU, even the motherboard if you really want to. Apart from the custom enclosure, anyone can go and build exactly the same machine by shopping for components and assembling it themselves. And we expect that at least a few people will do just that.

It's interesting that Valve have chosen to supply a single standardised unit size, but offer a variety GPUs and CPUs. Will Valve eventually be selling a case/motherboard/PSU/controller combo, and let the user pick and choose their own CPU and GPU? This would be similar to how other small form factor (SFF) PCs are sold, for example, the Shuttle. Or will they eventually offer their own Steam Machine are multiple price points and include every single component?

 

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[Dzsono 5]

I wonder if users will have to pay a large premium for pre-built hardware? At this point, I'd much rather build my own. Still, it's nice to see they haven't messed around with the specifications and put some decent horsepower under the bonnet!

[DAOWAce 6]

..Some units with a Titan? Jesus.

 

Props to Valve for having such high standards, even going with an 80Plus GOLD power supply. Most pre-built high-end gaming machines come with bronze PSUs, which boggles my mind. I feel they should up the higher-end machines between 500-550W just for headroom (some games can peg hardware like stress test applications) and capacitor aging.

 

Would love to see a bigger drive or a dedicated SSD, but they've picked the best possible combination since 2 separate drives would just be prone to configuration errors.  (Now to yell at Seagate for having a puny 8GB SSD cache on their drives when it can barely fit most big game files in it, constantly overwriting old cached data.  Again, another mind boggle.)

[-SambaL- 0]

 (Now to yell at Seagate for having a puny 8GB SSD cache on their drives when it can barely fit most big game files in it, constantly overwriting old cached data.  Again, another mind boggle.)

Give it time, i'd say they're working on it. It's already a big step up from their first generation SSHD's. The Momentus series wasn't it?

Nonetheless, I was impressed with the performance of their new SSHD drives, but passed because i too found 8gb of cache a bit on the tight side, even though it works.

When a 32gb version comes along i'm in.

[Mirh 103]

dafaq titan?

i always thought they were going to use an AMD APU for a computer that should be a little bigger than a htpc

[Sswam 0]

That is not going to be a cheap console!

 

For a Linux fan and coder like me, it's great to hear that nvidia is working with valve on this steamos / steambox project, and are even starting to assist with the Noveau open-source nvidia driver (by providing GPU doc).