Skip to main content

At long last, Valve begins taking pre-orders for Steam Machines

at long last valve begins taking preorders for steam machines alienware machine
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Have you been waiting for the opportunity to get your hands on Valve’s couch friendly Steam Machine? The first official SteamOS boxes will be hitting stores later this year, and you can preorder the Alienware and Syber Steam Machines starting today.

The Steam Store now lists a slew of computers for sale built around Valve’s own Linux distribution, designed specifically for gaming and web browsing with a game controller. Most of them will ship starting November 10th, but if you choose one of the Alienware or Syber options, you could have it as early as October 16th.

Recommended Videos

According to a quote obtained by Forbes from an Alienware spokesperson, part of the reason for this first wave is to iron out any kinks before the rest of the machines hit the market. “We’ll be able to get that first wave of feedback…That’s what comes from an open PC ecosystem is the ability to take those lessons learned and apply them – from the software aspect – to a better gaming experience.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Under the hood, the Alienware Steam Machines are competitive gaming systems. At the basic end, for $449, you can have a dual-core Intel Core i3-4130T, which has a base clock of 2.9GHz, plus 4GB of RAM. You also get a 500GB, 7200RPM hard disk, 802.11 Wi-Fi, and they’ll throw in a Steam Controller.

Shell out $749 for the top end, and you’ll get a quad-core Intel Core i7-4765T, with 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. The two base models have some reduced connectivity, but if you go with $649 or higher versions, you’ll get both a quad-core processor, and the bump to 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

AlienwareSteamMachine
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Lacking from the above is the graphics card. That’s because they all have the same GPU, which is simply described as an Nvidia GeForce GTX with 2GB of DDR5 RAM. The original Alienware Alpha was powered by an Nvidia GTX 860m with 2GB of RAM, so it’s not unreasonable to think the performance will be somewhere around, if better than, the graphics on the Alpha. A GTX 960M seems likely, but that’s just our guess.

The Syber Steam Machine starts at $499, and for that price you get a dual-core i3-4160, 4GB of RAM, and a GTX 750 with 1GB of VRAM. At the top end, for $1,419, you get a quad-core Intel Core i7-4790K, 1TB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and a full-size Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, which is capable of 4K gaming. All three machines use standard components, and are fully compatible with upgraded parts if you decide to up your GPU down the road. They also include a mini keyboard and trackpad setup, with the option to buy Steam Controllers.

SyberSteamMachine
Image used with permission by copyright holder

In addition to the new lineup of Steam Machines, Valve also added the Steam Link and extra Steam Controllers to the store, both for $49 each. The Steam Link is a small box with ethernet, HDMI, and three USB ports. It doesn’t run SteamOS, but rather is designed to take advantage of the in-home streaming built into Valve. It uses the power of another computer on the same network to render the game, and then streams it to the Link anywhere else in the house.

SteamLink
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Valve’s resdesigned Steam Controller is built for couch gaming, with a number of special features specific to Steam. Instead of joysticks, two large trackpads dominate the front face of the controller, with a standard joystick down a little lower. For buttons, there’s a four-button pad on the front, with Start, Select, and Steam buttons in the center. The rear shoulder buttons have both a digital switch, and analog sensor, so you always have the right tool for the job. Controls are fully customizable for each game, with community support for button layouts.

SteamController
Image used with permission by copyright holder

With so many Steam Machines projected to launch in November, we’ll no doubt see specs and pre-order information in the next few weeks, as well as more announcements from manufacturers hoping to bring systems to market.

Brad Bourque
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brad Bourque is a native Portlander, devout nerd, and craft beer enthusiast. He studied creative writing at Willamette…
Valve adds DLSS 3 to SteamOS backend, but don’t expect an Nvidia Steam Deck
Ghost of Tsushima running on the Steam Deck.

Valve has made a significant update to its Proton compatibility layer, which is the basis of the Linux-based SteamOS operating system on the Steam Deck. The update brings several improvements and bug fixes, but it also adds support for Nvidia's coveted DLSS 3 Frame Generation.

The update for Proton Experimental rolled out on November 12, and it was spotted by Wccftech. Proton is the bedrock for gaming on Linux, and up to this point, Nvidia users haven't had access to some of the best features of Team Green's latest graphics cards on Linux. The latest update not only supports DLSS 3 Frame Generation, but also Nvidia's Optical Flow API. Optical Flow is critical for DLSS 3 Frame Generation, though the dedicated hardware for the feature has been around since Nvidia's Turing GPUs.

Read more
New report accuses Valve of proliferating extremism on Steam
A person running Steam on the M4 MacBook Pro. Rocket League is up on the screen

Valve hasn't done enough to moderate its Steam platform against extremism, according to a scathing new report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that found millions of examples of hateful language and images.

ADL looked at over 458 million profiles and over 610 million comments using an AI tool called HateVision, and found millions of instances of white supremacist and anti-Semitic imagery, as well as posts (specifically copypastas with swastikas and slurs), keywords, and avatars, along with thousands of profiles, "that glorify violent extremists." Pepe the Frog was the most frequently used icon in these posts; it is often depicted in Nazi regalia. Steam Community profiles allow users to use custom images, which has also become a hotbed of imagery detected by the ADL's analysis.

Read more
Make sure you install the latest Steam Deck October update
A Steam Deck OLED sits on a table.

Valve released a big Steam Deck update this week in the Stable channel that the company says can improve performance for its handheld across the board, and even grant up to 10% more battery life for the original Steam Deck in certain situations.

The manufacturer releases consistent hotfixes and small updates to the Steam Deck beta channel, but they usually fix a couple of things that most players typically won't notice. However, SteamOS 3.6.19 is huge, with countless updates thanks in part to two big changes: a move to a more recent Arch Linux base, and an update to Mesa 24.1 for the graphics driver.

Read more