Steam Machines - Are they worth it?

[MSTRBKR]

Not a single thing I disagree with in this review. He hit the nail on the head on every point made.

 

It looked dumb when it was announced, but now it looks like a really stupid product.

 

 

And what video card does it have? "NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX™ GPU with 2GB GDDR5"  Unknown then? 

 

I imagine it's not given a name because it's custom. If they gave it a name that relates to a desktop or mobile GPU, they just open themselves up to complaints when it doesn't perform. If they gave it a new name to distance it from those products, it would be meaningless to us just as much as no name is.

[Geekavenger]

What is really frustrating is that some of this was working a few builds ago.  I have had a SteamOS machine since February 2014 and through all the ups and downs I have never been able to recommend it.  But some basic stuff like filtering for only SteamOS games was there before the most recent re-work of the Library UI.  And as for the store thing, it also used to be there but now is burried in the settings to "Show only games I can play" so if you turn off your windows machine it will filter the store for you... but apparently that means they think they can get rid of the manual filter that... again... used to be there.  

 

Again, I have never been able to recommend this OS, fun to play with, fine if you also have a windows machine and don't want to drop $100 on a windows license but the latest UI update to Big Picture broke a lot of the usability IMHO.

 

I still have hope that someday this will sort itself out and I won't have to buy another copy of windows.

[Mackieftw]

I do not believe they are worth it, not for me anyway.  I cannot justify spending that amount of money on a product that is so limiting and non-upgradable.

[arranb1223]

Here's a decent steam machine.

 

 

Still better than alienware's

[TheCaptain53]

I was really hoping that Valve would pull this one out of the bag and release a really badass product that handed the consoles its ass. But this result was expected.

Big Picture mode still needs work; it feels clunky and unintuitive for the PC, Steam Link, and Steam Machine. 

I was also really hoping for performance from these machines as well.

Oh GabeN... Thou hath forsaken us. You know better.

[7850OC]

A10 (or A8) + Windows 10 = Steam Machine 

 

[Akiyo]

Accurate, fair and informative video in a serious tone with no obnoxious like begging at the start. Great video!

 

The way I see it, the way for SteamOS or Linux gaming in general to really take off, is to start with "running games better than windows."

 

I would gladly switch to or dual boot a Linux if it meant my favorite games get an extra 5~10FPS,  even if it meant a lot of behind-the-scene tinkering and struggle.

 

As for the premade "Steam Machines".... they are just really overpriced prebuilts with SteamOS preinstalled. I find them pointless when they announced it, and I still do.

[NHE1803]

Any different between Steam Machine and Alienware Alpha?