Alleged Steam Machine specs according to Chris Mizo (edit: was already shared by valve themselves)

Yeah that was already pointed out in the comments hence why i edited the title

BTW, what actually is “Strix Halo” anyway? I’m confused about whether it’s what they’re calling all the latest-generation APUs, or just the high-end ones, or Asus co-branding, or what.

Strix Halo is the "high-end" ones (and currently the latest), in terms of gaming they are closer to previous gen discrete laptop GPU (hence they use the naming scheme Radeon 8XXX series).

There are smaller ones as well, the one that is "mid-tier" is Strix Point, which has the Radeon 800M series GPU, i.e. closer to what one had in previous generations of integrated GPUs.

In terms of gaming performance, you can compare using Notebookcheck, as an example; Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 on low preset at 1080P:

|CPU | GPU | APU | Average FPS |

|:----:|:-----:|:------:|:---------------:|

| Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | AMD Radeon 890M | Strix Point | 19.9

| Ryzen AI Max Pro 390 | AMD Radeon 8050S | Strix Halo | 76.6

| Ryzen AI Max+ 395 | AMD Radeon 8060S | Strix Halo | 101.7

So, there's a pretty big leap going from Strix Point (mid tier) to Strix Halo (high-end)

larger chip, lower yields

Oh right, I forgot about that part.

Not sure what kind of area one could expect for the CPU alone (without the integrated GPU) for this kind of process

I guess you could look up specs for a desktop Ryzen CPU that doesn't have integrated graphics. Not sure which is the right one to pick, but I checked a few Zen 4 AM5 chips and they were all 71 mm^2^ @ TSMC 5 nm.

----

BTW, what actually is "Strix Halo" anyway? I'm confused about whether it's what they're calling all the latest-generation APUs, or just the high-end ones, or Asus co-branding, or what.

Are there not any lesser APUs (with smaller die size and higher yields) that aren't "Strix Halo" but still have a similar architecture and decent gaming performance?

I would assume the _total_ area is larger for the separate CPU+GPU die when compared a single unified chip, sure.

But the cost per millimeter doesn't necessarily scale linearly either (larger chip, lower yields), so it might be cheaper to buy CPU+GPU rather than the unified chip even though the total area is larger.

For reference, TechPowerUp lists:

RX 7600M: 204 mm² @ TSMC 6 nm

Strix Halo: 308 mm² @ TSMC 4 nm

Not sure what kind of area one could expect for the CPU alone (without the integrated GPU) for this kind of process

Unified still requires a significant amount of chip area per die

Even compared to having two entirely separate memory controllers, one for the CPU and one for the GPU?

Custom in this case doesn't really need to carry any weight either, it could be a simple voltage bump, clock bump, laser cutting cores etc. and they would still call it custom.

It's not a "from the ground up" custom chip.

Unified still requires a significant amount of chip area per die, especially if they want to have a relatively beefy GPU (somewhere below Radeon 8060S, but above Radeon 780M).

I would imagine this gives the best perf./buck from Valve's POV, without costing an arm and a leg

They say it's a custom design, so surely they could've custom-designed it to be unified rather than discrete if they wanted. I guess maybe they were trying to make sure it would only be bought by gamers by deliberately making it less versatile for AI?

I don't think there are any 'cheap' Strix Halo chips out there, Valve probably got a massive discount (relatively) by using previous gen. laptop parts

So, $ 633 - $ 715 if they go by average markup margins (15-30%). But that's a big IF. Seeing as this is a low volume product compared to giants like Apple or Dell for example, I would expect the possibility of even greater numbers. I am assuming Valve is underestimating the initial demand and does not plan to market the product outside of their current countries and is not planning to advertise the product heavily.

So I have basically a whole pc leftover, 11600k + 7700xt from upgrades over the last year or two which is why I was asking. I guess that’d be fairly more powerful. 4k felt pretty bad on it though.

Edit: I’m assuming fsr is the “4k 60” req. I wonder if that’s going to include framegen?

No, weaker. It's an overclocked 7600M (laptop GPU). There's many leaks that show that Valve specifically targeted a low cost by using laptop components that AMD couldn't sell.

The CPU is also weak: it has 2 big cores and 4 little cores. Estimated cost of materials (before the RAM shortage) was ~425 USD, now the cost of materials is ~550 USD

800$ would be my soft limit as I already have a Steam Deck and a Playstation 5.

1000$ with two controllers would be my hard limit.

I’d want to sell the Playstation 5, but my son plays Roblox and Fortnite on it and he wouldn’t allow me😅

Plus there might be a few Sony exclusives I’d want to play if they’re as great as what we got at the end of the Playstation 4 era. It’s also mostly used to watch the NBA league pass as Linux used to be troublesome for this (don’t know if it still is).

And I have $12!

I got your ZJ reference!

Oh wow, you got down voted for no reason. I was making a general commitment in regard to the common phrase, not directed at you.

I was trying to be funny. My point was simply that it's going to be expensive.

Which is a crazy phrase because asking can be done for a lot of things.

Nobody knows the final retail price. Probably not even Valve. Educated guesses are in the 600-1200 USD range. Valve have already said that it wouldn't be a loss leader, and that they'd made painful sacrifices to ensure an affordable price.

Lots of people estimated ~$800 based on the specs and Valve's statement that it will be priced similar to a comparable PC. But that was several months ago, so probably $900-1000 by now.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260121210414/https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine

atleast since january 21st, too lazy to go back further.

Interesting - did it always have the storage models?

>Two Steam Machine models

>512GB NVMe SSD

>2TB NVMe SSD

>Both models include a high-speed microSD card slot

Shit you're right, I got misled by whoever shared it to me saying it leaked, I'll update the title

valve allready published pretty detailed tech specs

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine

"Alleged"? Haven't we known this for months?

It’s a shame it’s only 8GB of vram. But that was already constrained before the memory apocalypse.

We know all of this already (even more than what's listed actually) for like 6 months or so.

How much?

Anybody else mildly surprised it isn't based on an APU with unified memory, like a cheaper/slower Framework Desktop?

Do we know how this will compare to the rdna 3 stack? I’m assuming somewhere between 7700 and 7800?