It's Officially the End of an Era for Steam

[Draco1962]

The Steam Machine's Price Went Up Due to RAM Shortages

I saw that one thing they did was install single channel DDR5. 😮 I've also heard there are talks between Valve and Nvidia to increase compatibility between the hardware and SteamOS. Based upon the anticipated pricing in the article, if you have a Radeon GPU you can build your own system running Bazzite.

 

[tthurman]

May as well build a PC. My interest just dropped from mildly interested to not at all at those numbers!

[Draco1962]

On 6/23/2026 at 3:53 PM, tthurman said:

May as well build a PC. My interest just dropped from mildly interested to not at all at those numbers!

If you have a strong PC running Windows, you do not need to run Bazzite or SteamOS, and, with a great frontend, you have almost all you need to create a near console-like experience!

As I am exploring Bazzite via my Atari VCS build, I have noted that not all things are equal, with some overhead caused by Proton Windows emulation, sacrificing some FPS along the way. YMMV depending upon the program, Proton version, etc.

 

 

[Draco1962]

And JayZ's two cents -

 

 

[ClassicGMR]

I have 12 PC systems in the house that will run anything I want to throw at them. They blow away the specs on the Steam  Machine. But accounting for today’s pricing and accessibility by the general “id10t” consumer (I use that tongue in cheek) I didn’t think the pricing was so bad. It’s just gotten ridiculous to try and price/build anything right now. 
 

(I have 12 as I was trying to go into business full time as repair/sales/in home tech but there’s no room for another tech right now out there. So slowly selling them off.)

[Draco1962]

I think the JayZ rant sums it up. Valve moved too slow and when it came time to put out the kit, they were priced out.

[tthurman]

I wonder how this impacts the Half-Life 3 launch, it requires dual channel memory for maximum Source 2 efficiency 🤡 

[Draco1962]

Change is a-comin'! Will have to wait until 2027 probably. Valve Brings Official SteamOS Support to NVIDIA Desktop GPUs

I do not hold out much hope for older Nvidia drivers, whereas AMD support from the Linux open-source drivers shines. 

 

[Draco1962]

Per the video author "In this video, I put that question to the test by trying to install SteamOS on one of the most iconic gaming desktops of its time: the Dell Alienware Aurora R4. Powered by an Intel Core i7-3930K and the legendary GTX Titan, this machine was once a dream PC for gamers. But after more than a decade, can SteamOS bring it back to life for modern gaming?"