![]() Some will want a Steam Link, while others will want the better experience of a real Steam Machine. Steam officials I talked to brushed aside concerns about the Link potentially clock-blocking its hardware partners. Who is going to drop $500 to $2,000 for a Steam Machine when he or she can just stream their Windows game library from an existing PC to the TV? This band-aid to get around the limited Steam for Linux library may create wider ecosystem issues. ![]() That may ultimately rub Steam Machine vendors the wrong way. Valve’s own $50 Steam Link was designed for Steam in-home streaming and Steam in-home streaming alone. Was it as good as a real PC under your TV? No. In a short demo with Valve, we tried the Steam Link and found it surprisingly effective, and perhaps one of the better streaming boxes we’ve used so far. The company dropped a little surprise this week when it announced the Steam Link, a tiny little streaming box that uses Steam in-home streaming to send games from your gaming PC to your TV over your home network, for just $50. ![]() The other problem for Steam Machines may be from Valve itself. Sure, there’s an argument that the dirt-cheap games found in Steam Sales offset the hardware price pretty fast, but the native Linux games compatible with SteamOS are still far out numbered by games for Windows-and Steam Sales also apply to Windows games. Even at $500 for the lower-cost Steam Machines, it’s an expensive experiment. That’s ultimately one of the roadblocks for Steam Machines. Though small, the Zotac is $1,000 so it won’t be for someone who is merely SteamOS-curious. Although the demo unit had a miniDisplayPort on back, the final unit will not, Zotac said. That can’t be said of all the Steam Machines, which you can actually see right here on Steam.Įven if it shipped with today’s Haswell quad-core core though, it’s a nicely outfitted with two Gigabit ports and four HDMI 2.0 ports. With its GeForce 860M-equivalent graphics, the Alienware certainly won’t send your frame rates to the moon but your wallet at least stays on the ground. Since Windows isn’t free you’d think the Steam Machine version would slightly cheaper. Valve says the Alienware is expected to cost $479 with a Steam controller (read our impressions of Steam’s final controller here) and SteamOS. The Alpha has bounced as low as $450 from its intro price of $500, with an Xbox 360 controller and Windows. The shocker may be that the Windows-equipped Alpha may actually be cheaper than the Steam Machine version. I reviewed its Windows cousin last year and found it to be a nifty little machine that was surprisingly capable-and cheap. I expected Alienware to refresh its Steam Machine for the launch but it doesn’t appear to have changed. Interestingly, the cheapest of the Steam Machines continues to be Alienware’s box. Pricing of the Steam Machines on display also ran the gamut from affordable to luxury.Īlienware’s Steam Machine with the Steam logo will finally ship. Syber Steam Machine, from $499.99 to $1,399.Further reading: Steam Machines revealed: Full details and pictures for every model.Falcon Northwest Tiki Steam Machine, from $1,999.99 to $4,999.99.Digital Storm Eclipse Steam Machine, $699.99.Alienware Steam Machine, starting at $479.99.Note that some of the prices below are listed as "starting at." Prices can be as low as $479.99, for the Alienware Steam Machine, or go up to $5,000 for the highest end of the Falcon Northwest Tiki Steam Machine and the Origin Omega Steam Machine. The full list of manufacturers includes names like Alienware, Digital Storm, Asus, Gigabyte, iBuyPower, Origin, Zotac, Falcon Northwest, and others. Since Steam now has hardware pages for each manufacturer's Steam Machine, it makes sense to go through them and see what the average price is. You could pay less than $500, or ten times more. The prices of Steam Machines vary wildly.
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