558
Steam Machine pricing announced (from $1049-$1428 USD), reservation lists open
(store.steampowered.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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I wanted the tiny box format for playing my steam library on the TV without needing to run a cable from the PC. Wasn't sure I could build one this small so I waited to see how much this was.
Around $800 for the 2TB model was my hope when it was announced. Stupid AI data centers screwing over memory prices.
I built a PC last year for my living room and I'm running bazzite on it. Works great. Slightly larger than a console but this is the case I used.
https://a.co/d/09asiNdc
Exactly, the small form factor is a huge draw. I’ve built as-small-as-possible cheap gaming PCs before and never gotten close to this size.
I currently use one with no video card that just streams my main PC, but the streaming sucks.
I think $800 for 2 TB was still a bit overoptimistic, but I suppose we'll never really know.
Not by the outlook at how cheap a 2tb drive would have cost by now if AI data centers didn't fuck it up. A 2TB nvme drive 3 years ago was ander $110.
Versus around $300 now, so that would theoretically only represent a $200 price difference.
We're getting down to a workable $800 pricepoint. You forgot to deduct the ram and other components that have also been vastly inflated, or taken into account that by all typical logic before the ai shit storm was that if a 2tb drive was $120 three years ago, by now it should have been about $75. Same for the ram having a price decline.
Not really, since the starting point for the 2 TB model is $1,349.
You could probably build a comparable machine for $800 or so today, but from that perspective you are paying a couple hundred bucks for the form factor and the convenience of not having to source all the parts.
I mean, before the AI bullshit picked up, I managed to get a couple of used Samsung 4tb 990 ssds for $250 a piece. $800 for a nice console/PC with that much storage wasn't much of a reach then, given consoles usually are sold at cost to get you invested in the ecosystem.
Not a fair comparison. You found a very special deal for those drives which were half the price of a decently performant one at half the capacity at normal sale prices.
But what I am implying is that if AI hadn't jumped prices soo much, they probably could have gotten last gen 2tb drives for much less than $200, which would make them pretty price competitive. I got mine as the next Samsung pro line was launching (I believe I saw a few new ones for $300 at the time), and while they were a good deal at the time, they were not a unicorn. And given I'm pretty sure the steam machine only supports pcie4 drives, though I might be wrong about that (besides, almost no one needs pcie5 drives outside of very specific use cases), so again, if the AI madness hadn't occurred, a $800 steam machine with 2tb of storage would have been a possibility. Which is yet another reason to say fuck AI.
A $600 difference seems way too steep - I still think $1k @ 2 TB would have been the best possibility if not for everything getting fucked by the slop machines.
Base price was supposed to be $750 for the 512GB model. I would expect $899 at most for a 2TB model back at pre AI bullshit prices to miss the "1k" negative headline they are riding now. The 150 upcharge for 2TB would have been totally in spec, if a bit expensive as those drives were going for under $100 for a while.
For a TV PC the cube form-factor is nice, in a "sit on top of the furniture looking pretty" sort of way. However, I think a short-depth 1U form-factor to stack with hi-fi equipment would be a good way to do it as well, and relatively easily achievable to DIY with off-the-shelf parts.
I don't think I would have much success trying to build a SFF PC today for 1k or less. You pay a premium for mini-itx and really tiny cases, PSUs, everything. The only cost that is the same is the CPU really, even a heatsink often needs to be very specific to fit a case.
The last two SFF cases I picked up that are high quality were $200. Just look at minisforum stuff, their products are expensive and look nice, it's all in the same vein.
You can definitely find better deals for desktop gaming performance, for sure, but I doubt people are going to find something that's off the shelf at 27L or less and same or better perf for cheaper.
FYI, there's STL files available for a 3d printable mjolnir case. Really small form factor and you can save a fair bit of money by printing it yourself
Yes, a completely different setup than I have would allow for other options.
Something like the Small Form Factor Optiplex computers fits nicely into any old home entertainment or stereo setup, but I suppose we already have about a thousand machines that will fit that slot and people that wanted to do that probably already did.
I mean, you can do the same thing with a steam deck if you have it. I got one of those anker docks with an RJ45 and ran CAT6 from where my fios ONT hits my network switch and where my big gaming pc is. The wireless streaming sucks big time and is completely unreliable.
I have a steam deck and have it hooked up to the TV. The machine is a little bit beefier and the cube format would be more convenient for my TV setup.
Plus there's still latency, even if you're streaming through sunshine/moonlight. That being said, streaming that way is definitly faster than the Steam Link software