Valve Steam Machine Benchmarks Show CPU Performance Comparable to 2020 Ryzen 5 5600X at 30W

New benchmarks of Valve's Steam Machine reveal its custom 6-core AMD Zen 4 CPU delivers performance comparable to a 2020 AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, despite operating at significantly lower power consumption. The system achieved single-core and multi-core Geekbench 6 scores of 2334 and 7392 points respectively, representing nearly double the CPU performance of the Steam Deck while consuming only 30W of power.

The Steam Machine features Valve's standardized specifications, including a 6-core, 12-thread AMD Zen 4 processor clocked up to 4.86 GHz with 30 MB of L3 cache, a semi-custom GPU with 28 compute units, up to 16 GB of DDR5 memory, and 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The custom chip is designated "AMD Custom CPU 1772" in benchmark listings. This represents a significant shift from Valve's original 2013 Steam Machine initiative, which allowed original equipment manufacturers to set their own specifications. With the new iteration, Valve has centralized control over hardware standards and pricing, similar to its approach with the Steam Deck.

Valve claims the Steam Machine will offer equal or better performance than 70 percent of existing PCs and provide a competitive price point compared to custom-built systems of equivalent specifications. The rumored pricing is expected to fall between $900 and $1,000. While the CPU performance is impressive for a 30W thermal design, it trails behind higher-end Ryzen desktop processors like the Zen 4-based Ryzen 5 7600X, which operate at 65W or higher. The success of the Steam Machine will largely depend on its final pricing and how effectively the 28 compute unit GPU performs in gaming workloads, particularly when competing against current gaming consoles.