Adam Savage’s Tested

Valve Steam Machine Review!

⏱ 48 min video · 4 min read22 Jun 2026Worth watching

TL;DR

Norm from Tested reviews Valve's Steam Machine, a $1,049+ compact PC (3.8L volume) running SteamOS with AMD Zen 4 CPU and RDNA3 GPU, designed for living room 4K gaming. The video covers hardware design, performance benchmarks, a Valve engineer interview, and whether the price is justified.

Key points

Steam Machine is extremely compact at 3.8L volume, smaller than a MiniITX board footprint, cooled by a single 120mm fan running near-silently at under 200W total load

Hardware uses discrete AMD Zen 4 CPU (6-core, 12-thread, up to 4.8GHz) + RDNA3 GPU (Navi 33, 28 CUs, 8GB VRAM, 110W TDP) on 16GB DDR5 — not an APU like Steam Deck

Performance: maxes 1080p ultra settings easily; 1440p playable at high settings with FSR on (60fps+); 4K requires medium settings + FSR for 50-60fps, drops to 20-30fps without FSR

Pricing starts at $1,049 (512GB), $1,349 (2TB with 2 extra faceplates), and +$79 for bundled Steam Controller — Valve acknowledges this is higher than originally hoped due to component costs

FSR 4 support for RDNA3 is coming in July 2026, Intel and Nvidia GPU support for SteamOS is in active development but not yet ready, and VR support (tethered or wireless) is limited

Verdict

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Buy the 2TB + Steam Controller bundle if purchasing: the Steam Controller is $20 cheaper bundled and already has limited standalone availability, with some reservation buyers not receiving it until early 2027

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Default SteamOS resolution is 1080p even on 4K TVs — you must manually change this per-game or system-wide if you want native resolution output

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If you want to build your own SteamOS gaming PC now, any machine with a discrete AMD GPU is the best-supported path; Nvidia and Intel support is improving rapidly but not yet recommended

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Do not place the Steam Machine on carpet — bottom intake vents require clearance; Valve will release CAD files for custom faceplates with best-practice airflow guidelines

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Storage is easy to swap (2230 M.2, upgradeable to 2280); RAM is accessible but requires disconnecting daughterboards, closer to laptop-level work than desktop

Notable quotes

“It is hard to recommend this machine at this price just purely on the performance level. There is a lot to love about the ease of use and how great it works out of the box and the small form factor and things that you cannot achieve if you are just building your own gaming PC.”

“This is certainly much more expensive than what Valve had originally hoped that this would launch at. But that is the state of the world these days.”

“Linux as a gaming operating system is way more viable today. And a lot of that is thanks to the compatibility layer work that Valve and the Proton team has done.”

Worth watching?

✅

Worth watching the full video?

Watch if you are seriously considering buying a Steam Machine or building a SteamOS gaming PC — the Valve engineer interview reveals real design tradeoffs, and the benchmark breakdowns by resolution are more detailed than you will get from the summary alone.

Topics

Gaming Steam Machine

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