Valve’s Steam Machine: High Price, Complex Assembly, and No Barebones Option

Valve’s Steam Machine, a compact gaming PC priced at $1,049, is now available for pre-order. The system features custom AMD mobile processors, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and 512GB of storage, with a 2TB model costing $1,349. Valve states it sells the device at cost, and the price is driven largely by recent surges in RAM and SSD prices—a phenomenon sometimes called “RAMaggedon.” While the Steam Machine is more expensive than a PS5 Pro and offers less raw gaming performance, it is a full-fledged PC in a tiny 6-inch cube form factor.

Building an equivalent mini-ITX PC from off-the-shelf parts costs roughly $1,269 (or $1,447 with 2TB storage), according to one parts list using a Fractal Design Terra case, an AMD Ryzen 5 8400F CPU, and a Radeon RX 7600 GPU. That DIY build is about two and a half times larger than the Steam Machine, illustrating the trade-offs between size, performance, and price. Valve’s custom motherboard, cooler, and laptop-class components allow the company to achieve a compact design that is difficult to replicate with standard hardware.

Valve engineers Pierre-Loup Griffais and Yazan Aldehayyat told Digital Foundry that the company considered offering a barebones model—without RAM and SSD—to lower the entry price, but ultimately decided against it. Aldehayyat explained that selling a barebones kit would require changing the assembly and testing process: the system must be fully built to be tested, then disassembled, and then shipped in a way that avoids damage. If reassembled for shipping, customers would have to take it apart again. The disassembly process is easier than the Steam Deck but “definitely more difficult” than building a standard desktop PC. The RAM slots (SODIMM) are particularly hard to access, while the SSD slot is easier to reach.

“We just didn’t see a viable way for us to do that, at least not a way that the mainstream consumer is able to do,” Aldehayyat said. Griffais added that the barebones idea came too late in development: “It was only the memory situation that made us think about it.” However, Valve has not ruled out the concept entirely for the future. Aldehayyat noted, “Maybe in the future we can come up with a solution that makes sense, or partner with somebody to kind of sell parts and stuff like that. Right now, we just don’t have a solution, and we don’t expect to have a solution.”

Despite its high price and lack of a barebones option, the Steam Machine is praised for its well-designed hardware, custom SteamOS, and small footprint. Valve’s continued work on SteamOS for DIY PC builds may provide an alternative route for users who want a console-like PC experience without buying the official hardware. At present, the Steam Machine represents a premium compact gaming PC for those who prioritize size over cost.