Steam Machines at GDC 2015
Steam Machine (n.): The future of PC gaming in the living room.
We've been waiting for a long time for them (over a year in fact ... not like we're counting), and with every little leak comes the heart-wrenching news that we're going to have to wait a bit longer. Take heart fellow PC gamers, there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Steam Machines have finally started to appear.
These living room PCs come from a variety of manufacturers, but they all share one thing: they use SteamOS to give gamers a streamlined way to play PC games on the big screen. And at GDC 2015, Steam Machines are stealing all the headlines, from individual announcements to big plans from Valve itself.
The biggest news? That Steam Machines will start arriving this fall. Here are the ones we've seen and heard about so far this week.
Syber Steam Machine-X
Syber is a division of CyberPowerPC, one of the 13 Steam Machine partners Valve announced back in January 2014.
At GDC 2015 this week they finally showed off what they have in store, including a half dozen different varieties of Steam Machine.
These include the Steam Machine-Mini, Steam Machine-Mercury and Steam Machine-Switch, all of which Syber is showing off at the show.
On the low end of the six is the $450 (about £290, AU$575) Syber Steam Machine-E, with a quad-core AMD processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics. The high end is occupied by the $1,400 (about £910, AU$1,780) Steam Machine-X, the orange beast pictured here.
Asus GR8S
Asus's interesting-looking Steam Machine first appeared last summer, but at the time the company said it wouldn't be fully ready until 2015.
Well guess what year it is, and what Asus has been showing off at GDC 2015.
The slightly renamed Asus GR8S Steam Machine sports Intel i5 or i7 processors, GeForce 9-series graphics, between 4 and 6GB of DDR3 memory, and either 500GB-1TB of HDD space or 128GB-512GB of solid state storage.
It's launching at $700 (about £460, AU$900) and up.
iBuyPower SBX Steam Machine
iBuyPower was really early to reveal its Steam Machine, showing off a concept all the way back in November 2013.
At the time we noted that it would cost the same as an Xbox One - this was, obviously, before the Xbox One's price drops, since at the time it iBuyPower said its SBX Steam Machine would cost $500 (about £330, AU$640).
Zotac SN970
Zotac announced a single Steam Machine at GDC: the ZOTAC SN970.
It's an evolution of the ZBOX E-Series EN760 gaming PC, which the company points out already made a decent DIY Steam Machine for users who didn't mind installing SteamOS manually.
But for those who prefer the out-of-the-box experience, the SN970 Steam Machine will come with discrete NVIDIA GTX 970M graphics, a 6th-gen Intel chip and a Steam Controller this fall.
Maingear DRIFT
Maingear skipped GDC and took its new Steam Machine, the simply named DRIFT, to PAX East, the Boston fan convention also taking place this week.
The Maingear DRIFT packs an Intel Core i7-4790K CPU and a choice between NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 or AMD Radeon R9 290X graphics, plus up to 16GB of DDR memory and 2 1TB solid state drives or a single 6TB HDD.
It's also "whisper quiet," according to Maingear's announcement, and 4K gaming-capable - although the best part might be Maingear's "true automotive paint finish" that's apparently available in any color.
Some versions of the DRIFT are available now, but the SteamOS-equipped DRIFT Super Stock edition will launch in November.
Digital Storm Eclipse
When Digital Storm launched its Eclipse gaming PC last year, it was another DIY Steam Machine, but now it's joined the official ranks.
The Digital Storm Eclipse Steam Machine shown off at GDC has an Intel Pentium G3220 processor, Nvidia GTX 960 2GB graphics, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and a 1TB HDD.
It's launching in the fall for $700 (about £460, AU$890).
Materiel from Material.net
French retailer Materiel.net revealed its own Fractal Design-housed Steam Machine first during CES in January, and it showed it off again at GDC this week.
The Materiel Steam Machine i working with an Intel Core i5 4440 chip, Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 OC graphics and a 1TB SSHD.
It's launching at $899 (about £590, AU$1,150).
Alternate GmbH
Representing Germany in Valve's master plans is online retailer Alternate with the simply-named Alternate Steam Machine, first revealed during CES 2014 but significantly changed since then. The box now is the chic but costly Silverstone Raven case, which looks a lot like an Xbox 360.
If you couldn't already tell, Alternate has decided to go after the high end of the market, with a machine starting at $1,099 (about £721, AU$1,414) – far beyond the consoles' price range. For that, you're looking at an Intel Core i3 chip (Haswell), Nvidia's low-power GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 8GB of RAM and 500GB of spinning storage.
The company will offer three more configurations of increasing power and price, going as far as offering up an Nvidia GTX 980 graphics card. You can expect to see this rig later this fall.
Scan Computers 3XS ST
Scan Computers' 3XS ST Steam Machine can come in a few different loadouts, with an Intel Core i3 or i5 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 960 or 970 graphics, and between 8 and 16 GB of DDR3 memory.
It also comes with a minimum of 120GB of SSD space, though you'll be able to opt for more - and it's unclear what the upper limit will be.
Scan Computers' Steam Machine will run between $1,000 (about £650, AU$1,280) and $1,300 (about £850, AU$1,660).
Webhallen S15-01
Another Steam Machine that was revealed first at CES, Webhallen's Steam OS-running S15-01 comes with an Intel Core i5-4460, Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 graphics, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and a 1TB SSHD.
If these are all starting to sound the same to you, that's because they are very, very similar to one another.
Then again, a year ago we didn't even know what a Steam Machine was, so it could definitely be worse.
The Webhallen S15-01 will launch at $950 (about £620, AU$1,200).
Next Spa NextBox
Next Spa, a boutique PC hardware vendor in Italy, also first unveiled its Steam Machine during CES 2014. But, like many of the Steam Machines, NextBox has undergone some clear changes as well. The NextBox now comes in a Cooler Master Elite 110 case for an even more cubic design ID.
Neither quite as competitive as, say, Alienware with the consoles nor directly targeting the high end in terms of pricing, the NextBox will start at $799 (about £524, AU$1,028) when it lands this November. That nets players an Intel Core i3 CPU from the Haswell generation, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 750, 8GB of RAM and a spacious 1TB of mechanical storage.
Gigabyte BRIX Pro
With an Intel Iris Pro 5200 GPU instead of the Nvidia or AMD graphics most of its competitors are rocking, the Gigabyte BRIX Pro Steam Machine stands a little bit apart.
The practical difference is that it's on the low end of the price spectrum at $600 (about £390, AU$770).
The BRIX also rocks an Intel Core i7 chip, two SO-DIMM DDR3L memory slots, and a 2.5-inch hard drive of your choice.
Falcon Northwest Tiki
The FalconNW Tiki Steam Machine takes the cake easily as the most expensive Steam Machine we know of.
It starts - starts - at $2,000 (about £1,300, AU$2,550), and the highest-end version costs a full $5,000 (about £3,275, AU$6,390).
For that you get an Intel Core i7-4790K, multiple options from Nvidia's GeForce 900 series including Titan and Titan-Z class GPUs, up to 16GB of DDR3 memory, and up to 8TB of solid state/HDD drive space.
Seems like $5K might be a lot to spend for that, but that's why there will be plenty of options come this fall.
Alienware Steam Machine
Don't call it the Alpha - the Alienware Steam Machine the company is showing off at GDC looks similar, but lacks the Alpha branding.
It's full-fledged, people!
Starting at $480 (about £315, AU$610), the new Alienware Steam Machine will launch with an Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX GPU, 4 to 8GB of DDR3 memory, and between 500GB and 2TB of storage.
Origin Omega
Origin, too, is showing off a Steam Machine at GDC, although this isn't one that we'd heard about until very recently.
The high performance PC maker said in February that it would support SteamOS on an Omega PC when the operating system launches, and at the show this week it showed it's willing to follow through on that.
The Origin Omega Steam Machine starts at $900 (about £590, AU$1,150) and goes up to $5,000 (about £3,275, AU$6,390) - and beyond, according to Origin.
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