Skip to main content

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

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
Check your inbox!

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

Brad Bourque
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brad Bourque is a native Portlander, devout nerd, and craft beer enthusiast. He studied creative writing at Willamette…
You’ll have to wait a long time for a Steam Deck 2
Steam Deck sitting on a pink background.

Just as we started getting excited at the prospect of a Steam Deck 2, it now seems that gamers will have to wait a lot longer for the handheld. According to a recent statement, Valve is not looking to release the new Steam Deck for at least a couple more years. Will the console be able to stay competitive against its rivals?

Pierre-Loup Griffais, the designer of Steam Deck and a rep for Valve, spoke to The Verge and revealed some information about the future of the gaming handheld. While the company has plans to upgrade, it's playing it safe and doesn't see that happening until late 2025 at the very least -- but it could be even longer than that.

Read more
Refurbished Steam Decks are now official — here’s how to buy one
Steam Deck sitting on a pink background.

After product pages went live early, Valve has officially opened up orders for "certified refurbished" Steam Decks. All three capacities Valve offers are available to purchase, and there are some hefty discounts over list price:

64GB model -- $319 (down from $399)
256GB model -- $419 (down from $549)
512GB model -- $519 (down from $649)

Read more
I use Steam every day, and I couldn’t live without these 6 hidden features
Desktop mode on the Steam Deck.

There are only two apps that automatically open when I turn on my PC: Microsoft Teams and Steam. Steam, for many, is just a gateway to play games on PC, but it's a piece of software dense with features that go beyond tracking playtime and achievements.

I wanted to highlight some of the Steam features that I get the most mileage out of. Keep in mind that there are a ton of options in Steam, and this list barely scratches everything that the platform has to offer. These are just the features I think you should be taking advantage of because they make Steam much more than just a launcher for your games.
File transfer

Read more