Lets Talk Steam Machines ........Again

As you know i may well end up with one of these but the amount of people producing and developing units is staggering and its not a easy choice and can be a tad confusing given the shear amount of units and price points.

Obviously Timey isn't looking for a start up unit and if and when i do buy one then its going to be of the higher spec thats for sure.

So lets start with the Alienware steam machines and people can post others as they see fit to do so.

I just want one that sits connected to my Tv and I'm not wanting to stream things from my Mac just use this Steam machine similar to a console.

Here are the 4 Steam Machines from Alienware

No prizes for guessing which one i would buy either

Not sure if i would go for one of these or another from the 100s of companies doing them.

Certainly won't be jumping in as per usual thats for sure ?

Remember these units are available come November 10.

Edited by time2die (Fri 16-Oct-15 12:05:14)

timey, sadly I think those are a no go, 2gig of vram in 2015 is a bit of a stretch, e.g. the ps4 has 8 gig of vram and current nvidia/amd mainstream cards have at least 3.5gig gig. I would wait to see if they release updated models in 2016.

This is based on the assumption you will be buying AAA 2015+ games.

Point taken matey I'm sure yourself and others more in the know will point me in the right direction nearer release time and when we get some more specifications of these units from other suppliers .

Mate buy or build a normal machine then have steam os installed, you're gonna pay alot of money for something that you're likely to be very disappointed in otherwise!!

Edited by jorkila (Fri 16-Oct-15 13:15:59)

Me Build a Machine.........You having a Giraffe matey

Im lazy and have no interest in building Metal Mickeys .

here you go mate this one seems ok.

http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/steam-machine...

Not sure if that link works tho to take you direct to model.

the model 3XS ST15

Its a overclocked desktop 970 in there.

an example of how the industry has moved.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-09-26-bethesd...

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 16-Oct-15 14:41:35)

Thats got a inferior processor as opposed to the i7 on the alienware,a smaller hard drive and a worse graphic card matey

Oh and did i mention 10/12 years back i bought a 3DX system from scan custom built at around £2000 and it was the biggest piece of junk i had ever owned and within mere months was struggling to play even basic games at high frame rates.

Scan is probably the last place i would visit for a custom built PC or steam machine.

Was you looking at the top end price of the Alienware steam machine and not the basic one.

Edited by time2die (Fri 16-Oct-15 15:10:21)

It's a customised 860m gpu in that top end steam machine you're looking at btw mate so not an inferior graphics card at all!!

Here's a review of that Dell/Alienware rig and although the guy has good things to say about it he's not exactly playing today's AAA titles on it.

IMHO if I were you I'd stick to the PS4 or have a custom pc built and dual boot windows 10 and steam os because that machine just won't cut it when it comes to maxing out or even running at very high on todays games!!

Thats what i thought

You on about the Scan one or the Alienware .

The Alienware mate, did you click the link?

I couldn't see a high spec Alienware machine either mate, dodgy link perhaps?

Buy the X version at the top of this page instead mate.

for gaming gpu is king, cpu does help but is secondary.

Also on that scan model you can customise it, so you can add extra storage and upgrade the cpu to an i7 if you want the hyperthreading.

I5 chips per core performance is very similar to i7, they are almost the same, i7 just offers hyperthreading on top which in a highly threaded game as a best case scenarion can maybe give you an extra 30% or so cpu horsepower. But the cost difference betweem i5 and i7 is way more than 30%.

The gpu is not worse its the reason I recommended it. A desktop superclocked 970 with 4gig of vram is not worse than a mobile 8xx chip with 2 gig of vram.

as jorkila said, the top end alienware machine is already obselete. They need to update their product line.

I think you need to look past the brand and just look at the spec.

The model nelly gave you is good also although a lot more expensive.

Roughly £1100 to build an almost identical rig to that Syber steam machine x

Is that all,i will buy 2 then

That was the U.S. price mate. It's only £1145-00 on the UK site.

£1299 on the uk site, syber.

I prefer the price in your link though although it does only have half the ram compared to the one in my link.

Edited by jorkila (Sat 17-Oct-15 22:42:56)

What's interesting about your link is this:

Don't limit yourself to the overpriced and limited selection of console games. With the SYBER PC Console, you'll get access to any of the over 10,000 Microsoft Windows compatible game title from all major publishers. Access major gaming libraries including Steam, UPlay, Battle.net, Origin and the Windows Games Library.

So as you keep telling Timey, you can play games outside of Steam too and they are advertising as such. Yet at the bottom (my bold) it says:

ADDITIONAL:

- WiFi: 802.11ac/g/n
- LAN Networking: 10/100/1000MB RJ-45
- Power: 600 Watts Power Supply
- Operating System: Steam OS
- Installed Software: N/A

So they're advertising compatibility with all libraries, yet all but Steam require you to install windows and it lists installed software as "not applicable".

I think that's a bit misleading.

I will wait until i see a lot more of them clearly for sale ?

Yeah that's true mate, I hope Timey listens and holds off on one of these steam machines because I can only see disappointment right now.

Don't get me wrong that syber rig will wow graphically but only for a limited time due to the small AAA library currently available to steam o/s, dual boot windows and it's a whole different beast altogether!!

Steam big picture via windows just gets better and better and when I order my 2tb hybrid hdd I plan to dual boot steam o/s and see how it runs.

I won't be rushing in this year mate unless i see a really cool does everything machine.

With Fallout 4,Rainbow Six,Just Cause 3 and a load of other games on the horizon there is no need.

And besides that I'm moving house,trying to put as much distance from Nelly as possible

All the more reason to get yourself a metal mickey to enjoy these games in all their glory I say!!

Mate i can literally say i would never ever consider going back to PC gaming as there is little point and I'm far to long in the tooth to even be bothered.

I like being in the front room playing games on my tv,thats why a smaller steam machine interests me than a tower based PC.

Way to much in terms of gadgets already taking up every conceivable space around the tv as it is.

Im always excited by new Gaming Tech as you well know,but Sony and Microsoft new motion controlled headsets don't interest me and i can tell you now that i will never ever consider buying one because to me this is not the future and i predict this will be a epic fail and will not be the success Sony And Microsoft think.

And besides that I'm moving house,trying to put as much distance from Nelly as possible

Murdoch......Murdoch!

That CyberPower Steam box is like an AV receiver and will fit nicely under your telly or in a TV cabinet. And it's upgradeable. A water cooler wouldn't fit which is the only reason I eventually decided on the Fractal Node instead.

They will build a pc with a spec of your own choosing in that same case, so you don't have to go with any of those. GPU wise, I would personally go with the R9 Nano because it will fit into so many micro ATX cases, and the smaller the better as far as I'm concerned. But Nvidia is rumoured to be bringing out an HBM stacked card next year, so you could wait to see what that looks like, as you've said in the past that you prefer NVIDIA.

I love my ps4. I have some credit on my game card from trade ins, so I need to decide what to get with it. Possibly JC3, but possibly also the new COD as I'm getting barracked repeatedly by my old crew about joining them for the new zombie mode!

And I will definitely be getting Project Morpheus at some point, even if it's in 18 months time, purely for racing games with my placky wheel. Need to see how their frame rate trickery stands up to PC competition, but as long as its not awful it will be my first choice, because I want the whiff and kids to be able to use it without going near my pc!

That Cyber power box looks really nice, not really up on specs but think I would just upgrade the HDD to a SSD and maybe increase the RAM as its not much more. Of course if I had the budget I would max it out, which I just did and it came out at £2154

Reckon what timeys after is not necessarily a steam machine just a compact/console sized PC with a controller. At the moment I would definitely want Windows as well as Steam OS for gaming.

Edited by astateoftrance (Tue 20-Oct-15 22:08:43)