News - Twelve Steam Machine hardware partners revealed so far at CES

[HEXUS]

New partners include Alienware, Gigabyte, Zotac and Scan Computers.

Read more.

[Attila the Bun]

Typo highlight HEXUS...iBuyPower is listed in the main group and the following sentence.

edit:

Hi there...me again...doesn't that make it "14 varieties"...or is there another name not yet listed?

[sir_markus]

The last version of steam OS i have seen did not play nice with AMD at all. They better fix that before release.
But i'm still not able to see this as anything more then yet another prebuild Alienware like overpriced pc. The only difference is the OS

[Platinum]

$499 and more power than a PS4, Time for me to look smug at all the people that told me you cant build a PC for the price of a console

[Odeas]

That cyberpowerpc case is horrendous even for a gaming machine.
Seems only to be a product render but looks like a ps3's been sandwiched between some cheap white plastic and then 'pimped' with green neon lights.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ehh,nope?? The $499 has an A6 6400K dual core and a R9 270X. Its going to be utter fail with titles like BF4 and Crysis3. It would not surprise me if a Athlon II X2 270 would be a faster CPU. The A6 6400K is going to be slower in such titles too than the 1.5GHZ to 2GHZ Jaguar cores in the PS4. Even if only 6 were used,the A6 6400K would be more of a bottleneck.

Its a horrible spec and I would not touch it with a bargepole.

That is also ignoring the other custom features the SOC has:

http://techreport.com/news/24725/ps4...-amd-processor

Cerny says the PS4's custom silicon incorporates not only the CPU and GPU, but also a "large number of other units." The chip has a dedicated audio unit to perform processing for voice chat and multiple audio streams. It also has a hardware block designed explicitly for zlib decompression. The main processor is backed by a secondary chip that enables an ultra-low-power mode for background downloading. In that mode, the CPU and GPU shut down, leaving only the auxiliary chip, system memory, networking, and storage active.

A 256-bit interface links the console's processor to its shared memory pool. According to Cerny, Sony considered a 128-bit implementation paired with on-chip eDRAM but deemed that solution too complex for developers to exploit. Sony has also taken steps to make it easier for developers to use the graphics component for general-purpose computing tasks. Cerny identifies three custom features dedicated to that mission:

An additional bus has been grafted to the GPU, providing a direct link to system memory that bypasses the GPU's caches. This dedicated bus offers "almost 20GB/s" of bandwidth, according to Cerny.
The GPU's L2 cache has been enhanced to better support simultaneous use by graphics and compute workloads. Compute-related cache lines are marked as "volatile" and can be written or invalidated selectively.
The number of "sources" for GPU compute commands has been increased dramatically. The GCN architecture supports one graphics source and two compute sources, according to Cerny, but the PS4 boosts the number of compute command sources to 64.

The GPU is further enhanced for compute purposes,and even an additional bus.

Moreover,do people really think that 100% of all PC titles in 6 years time will run fine on even the $699 spec SteamBox?? A PS4 will run every title made for it fine. Will a PC be simple plug and play like a console??

Moreover,as usual hardware enthusiasts on forums don't get a thing about longevity and I am the sort of person who likes keeping their desktops for longer than normal too. Consoles have far greater hardware lifespan than gaming PCs,and all the SteamBox is a competitor to Windows gaming PCs,and will follow the same hardware upgrade cycles. AMD,Intel and Nvidia have no interest in making their desktop hardware(especially GPUs) last longer as it means less MONEY for them. They WANT people to upgrade hardware on the desktop sales,as it means more money for them.

I really don't understand all this illogical hatred of consoles. It seems to be worse with this generation than the last one,and I have an inkling why it is the case.

[Iain162]

Before complaining about spec's do you even realise what the steam OS is for ? its a Linux based OS completely designed for streaming from a desktop PC to a living room machine, this IS NOT a replacement for desktop PC's.

This will be able to natively run Linux games, but games which need windows will get streamed across the home network.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Before complaining about spec's do you even realise what the steam OS is for ? its a Linux based OS completely designed for streaming from a desktop PC to a living room machine, this IS NOT a replacement for desktop PC's.

This will be able to natively run Linux games, but games which need windows will get streamed across the home network.

Then people should not be complaining about the specs of the PS4 then shouldn't they??

People are compairing chalk and cheese TBH. The consoles are designed with long lifespans in mind and are designed to be easy to use,ie,no fiddling around with drivers,etc.

The SteamBox and SteamOS are a hedge from Valve in case Steam gets more competition under Windows in the future. Its target is Windows gaming PCs.

Since the end of 2005,I have spent far more on hardware than a XBox360 owner will have needed to.My main system in early 2007 was a overclocked Core2 dual core, and a X1900GT(and before that a 7900GS) with 2GB of DDR2. I doubt it could run many of the games an XBox360 or PS3 can still run.

[shaithis]

Before complaining about spec's do you even realise what the steam OS is for ? its a Linux based OS completely designed for streaming from a desktop PC to a living room machine, this IS NOT a replacement for desktop PC's.

This will be able to natively run Linux games, but games which need windows will get streamed across the home network.

Do you realise what the SteamOS is for?
They are taking on consoles and therefor are planning and praying on supporting as many titles as possible.

As has been said, the A6 spec is pants. It's lesser silicon (CPU/GPU) than the next gen consoles and is lacking the embedded SRAM or GDDR that the XB1 and PS4 have, which makes a big difference to performance again.

I wonder if we will see mATX/ITX FM2+ mobos soon with the possibility of a VRAM expansion card?

[Corky34]

Moreover,do people really think that 100% of all PC titles in 6 years time will run fine on even the $699 spec SteamBox?? A PS4 will run every title made for it fine. Will a PC be simple plug and play like a console??

While not all games may run on the $499 box in 6 years time, I'm not going to be forced to dump my 6 years worth of games because they wont run on my new device. Seeing as some peoples collection of games can run into $1000+ i know what i would prefer, but it depends on how many games you buy as to what would work out cheaper.

[Iain162]

Then people should not be complaining about the specs of the PS4 then shouldn't they??

People are compairing chalk and cheese TBH. The consoles are designed with long lifespans in mind and are designed to be easy to use,ie,no fiddling around with drivers,etc.

A games console is just that, a console designed for home use geared towards people who don't want to deal with the cost or "Fiddly" nature of PC gaming.. if someone even tried to give me a console I'd tell them to go get it refunded or give it to someone else :/

I don't care or complain about them in the slightest just refuse to give them the time of day.

But this is just a prime example of complaining before anyone even knows all the facts, I've been following the idea since its conception so I know what this idea was intended for from day one.. it just does what the NVidia shield does, which is to stream over a network what it cant natively run on its operating system, the beauty behind this idea though is that people can just build their own low end SFF PC for the living room and install the SteamOS for free, even if they don't want to stream games the OS may have other uses after its finished.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

While not all games may run on the $499 box in 6 years time, I'm not going to be forced to dump my 6 years worth of games because they wont run on my new device. Seeing as some peoples collection of games can run into $1000+ i know what i would prefer, but it depends on how many games you buy as to what would work out cheaper.

You mean like some of the older Windows games which have issues running under newer versions of Windows?? Sorry,but I see far more game hoarders among PC owners. All the console gamers I know buy less games and complete a greater percentage of them,and the best thing is those older consoles are still supported for years. I know plenty of people using multiple generations of consoles and some of those are like 10+ years old.

Again that SteamBox in 6 years time is not guaranteed to run 100% of PC titles,but a PS4 will run 100% of PS4 titles fine.

The whole point is that longetivity is not what Intel,AMD and Nvidia want for desktops. They are there to make money and long upgrade cycles are counterproductive to them.

Why sell one £150 graphics card every 5 years when you can sell three of them over 6 years??

Consoles are made for long lifespans and plug and play gaming. This is why PCs and consoles can never be compared.

[GeorgeStorm]

Obviously one of the major appeals of PC gaming is the cost of games themselves, which may counterbalance the reduced power/increased cost of the pc when compared to the console.

I'm going to be keeping an eye on it as it will be interesting to see how they do and what things they try to implement to try and draw buyers in.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

$499 and more power than a PS4, Time for me to look smug at all the people that told me you cant build a PC for the price of a console

Ehh,nope?? The $499 has an A6 6400K dual core and a R9 270X. Its going to be utter fail with titles like BF4 and Crysis3. It would not surprise me if a Athlon II X2 270 would be a faster CPU. The A6 6400K is going to be slower in such titles too than the 1.5GHZ to 2GHZ Jaguar cores in the PS4. Even if only 6 were used,the A6 6400K would be more of a bottleneck.

Its a horrible spec and I would not touch it with a bargepole.

Before complaining about spec's do you even realise what the steam OS is for ? its a Linux based OS completely designed for streaming from a desktop PC to a living room machine, this IS NOT a replacement for desktop PC's.

This will be able to natively run Linux games, but games which need windows will get streamed across the home network.

Then people should not be complaining about the specs of the PS4 then shouldn't they??

People are compairing chalk and cheese TBH. The consoles are designed with long lifespans in mind and are designed to be easy to use,ie,no fiddling around with drivers,etc.

The SteamBox and SteamOS are a hedge from Valve in case Steam gets more competition under Windows in the future. Its target is Windows gaming PCs.

Since the end of 2005,I have spent far more on hardware than a XBox360 owner will have needed to.My main system in early 2007 was a overclocked Core2 dual core, and a X1900GT(and before that a 7900GS) with 2GB of DDR2. I doubt it could run many of the games an XBox360 or PS3 can still run.

But this is just a prime example of complaining before anyone even knows all the facts, I've been following the idea since its conception so I know what this idea was intended for from day one.. it just does what the NVidia shield does, which is to stream over a network what it cant natively run on its operating system, the beauty behind this idea though is that people can just build their own low end SFF PC for the living room and install the SteamOS for free, even if they don't want to stream games the OS may have other uses after its finished.

It is a prime example of not reading all the posts in a thread first!

[crossy]

The SteamBox and SteamOS are a hedge from Valve in case Steam gets more competition under Windows in the future. Its target is Windows gaming PCs.

Not the case as far as I'm aware. The SteamBox - from what I've read here and there - is designed to be a minimal hassle way of being able to play games from Steam. It's not designed to be a general purpose computer than can also run games, such as a Windows PC is expected to. Valve are saying that it'll be locked down by default, but they're happy to allow "enthusiasts" to tinker. (although since it's Linux based, it'd be hard to stop tinkerers!)

Since the end of 2005,I have spent far more on hardware than a XBox360 owner will have needed to.My main system in early 2007 was a overclocked Core2 dual core, and a X1900GT(and before that a 7900GS) with 2GB of DDR2. I doubt it could run many of the games an XBox360 or PS3 can still run.

Ugh! I've spent enough last year to buy one of the new gen consoles and a reasonable selection of games - even at the ridiculous prices that those go for. The PC platform is definitely not the "budget" route to video gaming nirvana!

Actually that's one thing I'm still not clear on. One of the Steam platform (Box and OS) USP's is that you can hardware spec to whatever limit your wallet allows - trading bucks for a smoother/higher-res "experience". But that brings up the point that you make - are they expecting users to do a PC-style yearly upgrade to allow their "console" to be powerful enough to run the latest crop of blockbuster games.

PS like that CyberPowerPC box a heck of a lot more than the XBone! Although those hardware specs are pretty naff.

[wyte_w0lf]

No experience on the apu side of things but im currently running a gtx260 ( the oc+ version) and i can still game happy on that with a q6600. Maybe not every game is maxed out but they look better than current consoles. The thing with a pc is you spend to your budget. Dont complain if you spent £1000's as it is always a choice. Same with consoles.

Most users here have a good gaming rig so the apu system would end up being a streaming system, depending on the look of the thing could be a very tempting htpc.

Personally i like the idea of the pc getting into more living rooms. Better support and hopefully more gaming innovation.