Following the success of the Steam Deck, Valve is further expanding its hardware line-up with the Steam Machine – a small PC designed to sit in your living room, rivaling the likes of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox series consoles.

The Steam Machine sounds appealing — a PC in a console shell that Valve claims will run games at 4K 60 FPS, with access to Steam’s entire library without the tinkering and hassle that comes with building your own rig. However, the latest leaked benchmarks paint a different picture, and they make me wonder if Valve can deliver on its promise.

Steam Machine’s CPU results are disappointing.

Multi-core performance appears to be very low.

Steam Machine officially launches in eight days, and hardware reviews are already out. Along with the hands-on on PC, Steam Machine’s CPU benchmarks have also been unveiled, and surprisingly, they don’t look good. Codenamed Valve Fremont, Steam Machine’s 2 CPU benchmark results were posted on Geekbench (via x).

For reference, the Steam Machine’s CPU is based on the Zen 4 architecture, has 6 cores: 2 Zen 4 and 4 Zen C cores (lower clock cores), clock speeds up to 4.8 GHz, and runs at a maximum TDP of 30W.

According to the benchmark results, the Steam Machine’s single-core performance is strong and almost 40% higher than the PlayStation 5, but it’s important to keep in mind that the latter is now a 6-year-old console. However, the new home console falls short in multi-core performance, with the PlayStation 5 leaving it slightly behind.

Are these CPU scores a cause for concern?

Steam Machine is no slouch – but don’t expect 4k 60FPS gaming as promised by Valve

Now, I’m not saying that the Steam Machine is weak by any means – it’s not a bad piece of hardware. CPU aside, the RDNA 3 GPU with 8GB VRAM and 16GB DDR5 RAM definitely makes this a capable PC. However, 16GB of DDR5 RAM runs on a single channel because it is a single module. You’ll still be able to game at 1440p with decent FPS and graphical settings, but don’t expect 4K 60FPS gaming, even with upscaling as Valve claims.

If anything, with current specs, the Steam Machine will only perform well in CPU-bound or open-world games due to limited memory bandwidth. According to Digital Foundry Testingis the CPU of the Steam Machine. Slower than the entry-level AM4 processor, the Ryzen 5 5600X, which is a cause for concern. Overall, the Steam Machine performs more or less the same as the PlayStation 5.

Specs wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t for the price

The steam engine is about 2-3 years too late.

Credit: Valve

The thing is, the Steam Machine is an expensive piece of hardware: it starts at $1050 and goes up to around $1500 — and at that price, it’s natural to expect high performance. Regardless, I can hardly blame Valve for this. Current hardware prices are driven by the AI ​​boom, which is why the Steam Machine will cost more than intended—the same market pressures have also forced the Steam Deck to sell for as much as $950.

However, with the specs and performance levels, Steam Machine looks like a late release. The console would have been an instant success if it hadn’t been raised a few years earlier — the specs would have stayed the same, and the hardware wouldn’t have been as expensive as it is today. Steam Deck has already set the bar very high for Valve and, judging by the way things are right now, Valve won’t be able to pull off the same magic again.

The result

If Valve intended to target console gamers, they may have failed miserably, but that’s not their fault either – the current hardware market is tough on any manufacturer. The average consumer isn’t going to pay $1050 for a PC-console hybrid that doesn’t live up to its 4K 60FPS promise, and besides, it can’t even run most multiplayer games because SteamOS, being a Linux-based OS, lacks kernel-level anti-cheats. However, Valve has a solid reputation in the gaming industry, and Steam Machine will sell well – just don’t expect the same impact as Steam Deck. At the very least, I think the future of PC-based home consoles is bright, and the next-gen Xbox could learn a thing or two from the Steam Machine and take advantage of the situation by learning from its inception and avoiding its own mistakes.

CPU

AMD Zen 4 CPU 6 cores, 12 threads

Ram

16GB DDR5

Steam Machine is Valve’s latest hardware offering that combines the best of the PC and console worlds, all in a small box designed to sit in your living room, delivering 4K 60FPS gaming performance.