Steam Machine's $1,049 Price Sits Between Consoles And Gaming PCs For Good Reason
It's $1049 with a 512GB SSD, or $300 more with a 2TB SSD and some extra faceplates. You can optionally order it with a controller for exactly $30 discount over buying the controller separately, which is to say that it's $70 over the regular price of whatever Steam Machine you choose, putting those packages at $1128 USD and $1428 USD respectively. Of course, you're welcome to bring your own controller to the machine.
There's no denying that the price is high for the hardware specs. Or is there? The truth is, with the component market the way it is, the best you're going to do to match the specifications is around $100 savings, and that doesn't get you a system with all of the features of the Steam Machine, like its minute size, LED lightbar indicating update status, integrated SD card reader, and integrated Steam Controller wireless adapter.
You might be able to beat the price with a laptop that hasn't been marked up since before the RAMpocalypse, but looking strictly at the hardware specifications, the Steam Machine is broadly plus or minus a PlayStation 5. You can still get one of those for $649 with a disc drive as of this writing.
However, that comparison falls apart quickly when you start to analyze the value proposition of the two systems. The PlayStation 5 has a very limited game library compared to the Steam Machine, and it's also drastically less compatible with peripherals. The Steam Machine is, for all of its console-like qualities, fundamentally a Linux-based PC, and so you can do whatever you want with it from day one. The hardware specs aren't a clear win in favor of the PS5 either, with the Steam Machine having overall more memory as well as newer CPU and GPU architectures.
That latter point is important, because AMD just announced FSR4 for RDNA 3 (Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs), meaning that the Steam Machine will very soon be able to benefit from AMD's latest AI-powered FSR upscaling tech for massively improved image quality. You can read more about that over here.
It's obvious that Valve never intended to launch the Steam Machine into a furious memory shortage affecting both RAM and flash memory markets. IGN's Jacqueline Thomas got to sit down with Valve to talk about the Steam Machine, and she was told that the diminutive PC got hit with a price increase that was "probably similar" to the one afflicting the Steam Deck. As that site says, the Steam Deck was around 35% more expensive after the recent restock; that would make for an original MSRP of around $749 for the Steam Machine.
At that price it would have been a bombshell deal; at $1049 it's ... well, still a pretty decent deal compared to the state of the DIY market. Frankly, if you're looking for a living-room gaming PC and considering the Steam Machine, we wouldn't fault you if you fell for the system's small size and sleek SteamOS interface. It's likely to be a great gaming experience, which we know because we simulated it late last year.
However, if you're more value-conscious, we'd strongly recommend you to shop pre-built PCs. There are some serious deals, like this CyberPowerPC desktop with a Ryzen 7 8700F and a Radeon RX 7700 16GB card for $1199. That's a faster CPU, a faster GPU, and a more upgradeable chassis—and you can still put SteamOS on it if you want. Valve's apparently planning to fully launch SteamOS as an option for AMD-powered PCs with the upcoming 3.8 release, so, in the company's words, "you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want."
That's going to be challenging for a lot of people with the DIY market the way it is, but plenty of folks have plenty of PC hardware already, and we're eager to see how SteamOS plays out on any random collection of parts we slap together. For right now, though, if you want an official Steam Machine, head over to Valve's store page to sign up for the opportunity to buy one. You must have a Steam account in good standing, you must have made at least one purchase on Steam before April 27 2026, and you can only order one per household.
