Zotac dives head first into the Steam Machine battle with a pint-sized gaming rig

By Brad Bourque November 2, 2015

Hankering to put some game into your living room setup? Zotac is the next manufacturer to jump into the Steam Machine fray with the NEN Steam Machine. This small form-factor box comes bundled with Valve’s new Linux-based OS and has competitive specs for gaming.

How competitive? The NEN Steam Machine is powered by a quad-core Intel i5-6400T, a chip with a base clock of 2.2GHz and a Turbo Boost of 2.8GHz, which is supported by an included 8GB of RAM with room for a second 8GB DIMM. The graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, a card that we reviewed highly for both its low price point and impressive 1080p performance.

For connectivity, the Zotac NEN is gracious enough to offer four HDMI 2.0 outputs, five USB 3.0 ports, one of which is Type-C, two ethernet ports, an SD card reader, and a Wi-Fi antenna hookup if your TV isn’t as close to your router as you’d like.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming

It’s built for living room gaming too, with dual radial coolers that keep things cool while staying quiet, and the LEDs can be disabled if you want to really keep the light from distracting you.

Like most Steam Machines, the Zotac NEN includes a Steam Controller, a two-touchpad-based gamepad manufactured by Valve. While a lot of games still don’t run on SteamOS, it’s quickly becoming more popular, and the low system overhead and free price point is a boon to system builders looking to expand gamers’ horizons.

As more and more companies start to realize the console-battling appeal of a SteamOS machine with an innovative controller, expect Valve to continue announcing new hardware partners. Zotac is just the first in what will hopefully be a long line of Steam Machines producers bringing new and interesting form factors to the market.

No word on availability just yet, but hopefully it will be soon enough to coincide with the other Steam OS devices that are beginning to roll out.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Brad Bourque is a native Portlander, devout nerd, and craft beer enthusiast. He studied creative writing at Willamette…

Computing

Steam Deck OLED fixes the worst part of Valve’s handheld

Valve's Steam Deck OLED.

Valve just announced the Steam Deck OLED, which is an updated model of the original Steam Deck featuring a new OLED screen. Unlike the previous model, Valve is only selling two versions of the Steam Deck OLED, one with 512GB of storage and another with 1TB of storage for $550 and $650, respectively.

Although the OLED screen is the star of the show, Valve is making some upgrades elsewhere, too. The new design is now based on a 6nm APU, as opposed to the 7nm APU in the previous model, and it supports Wi-Fi 6E. The previous model only supported Wi-Fi 5.

Computing

This is the one accessory every Steam Deck owner should buy

Steam Deck with the Dbrand Killswitch case.

I've been strictly against buying a case for my Steam Deck since I first picked up the handheld. If you haven't held one, they're comically big. Every time I've given someone my Steam Deck to check out, they have the same reaction: a chuckle, followed by "that's bigger than I expected." Why would you want to make it even bigger with a case?

That is, until I found a case that works perfectly for my Steam Deck: Dbrand's Killswitch. Not only does it protect your Steam Deck thanks to a rugged exterior, but it provides several other features that make the Steam Deck much more useful for traveling, docking, and handheld play.

Gaming

This cozy railroad management Steam game is a relaxing fall treat

A train moves through the countryside in Station to Station.

Looking for a cozy fall game to settle down with this weekend? There's a great new release out on PC now that's perfect for the season. Station to Station is a relaxing new PC game (that's one part minimalistic puzzler and one part railroad management simulator. It's a laid-back indie with earthy voxel art and a gentle soundtrack, but there's some deceptively deep strategy layer on top of that. Whether you're just looking to chill or create complex railways, Station to Station may very much need the game you need this season.

Developed by Galaxy Grove, Station to Station asks players to create efficient railroads between various buildings dotted on a small map. It plays like a mix of Mini Metro and Dorfromantik, creating a satisfying puzzle hook that's easy to pick up. At first, the tasks are simple. One building needs wheat from a mill nearby. I place a station next to each building and connect the two together. Simple. The more tasks I complete, the more buildings are added to a map. I may reveal a spot that can produce milk but needs wheat in order to do so. The goal of each level is to keep connecting railways until each building's conditions are met.