News - Valve’s Steam Box “Piston” is unveiled at the CES?

[HEXUS]

Valve invests in grapefruit sized modular PC system made by system builder Xi3 Corp.

Read more.

[jimbouk]

Looks like it's finally happened!

[Jake_UK]

Awesome (both the look of the box and the concept)!

"Xi3 told us that its 7-Series with a quad-core processor would sell for $999."

From: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computi...#ixzz2HP59rsbF

Obviously Valve would bring in bigger production runs lowering costs and may even subsidise the HW like the console manufacturers but that's quite a price!

[Ulti]

Looks really interesting, would love to see a review from Hexus when it's complete!

[Noxvayl]

I want one, perhaps I'll be buying one of these instead of upgrading my current system...

[TheAnimus]

Isn't this the same firm thats been punting these boxes for a couple of years now?

I thought the complaint was fairly universal, expensive, limited and noisy?

[avi8tor]

But can it run Crysis?

[Platinum]

Copy and paste from GameGrin forums :

If this is the Valve box then wow I am impressed.
It might not look much and the specs may not seem much (Basically a AMD A10 GPU from what I can tell) but the modular nature of it has impressed me a lot and made me think why hasnt this been done before in the console space?

As PC enthusiasts we have known the benefit from having a modular machine i.e the PC for many years, new game comes out that hammers your GPU, buy a new GPU, run out of memory, buy more memory, not like a console where you have to replace the entire unit.

This should help Devs as well, a new version of OpenGL comes out with new features, no worry's, Valve have just released a CPU / GPU module that supports this, get coding.

The user then if they want the new features buys the module and replaces the one in the machine keeping the chassis and i/o modules ect.

Games wise if you cant afford the new module then no worrys, the new game detects you have the older one and scales the graphics settings accordingly.

Win win in my book and if I were Microsoft I would be worried.

Why?, well to push this Valve will need to convince devs to code there big titles for Linux (as that's what it will run on), if most of the big titles start coming out and work on Linux (Ubuntu) with Steam can you see all the gamers sticking with Windows? I would jump ship no doubt

If Valve can pull this off and if this is the Steam Box (I think it is, it failed its Kickstarter project and now Valve are backing it) then I think it could cause a major shake up in the gaming industry and the PC in a strange way could be on top again


I would be tempted to get one for under the TV to play all the games I traditionally have a Xbox for and then still have the PC for shooters / hardcore gaming session with all the details ramped up ect.

Interesting times ahead here that's for sure

[Jingee]

If you get one, I'd like to nominate myself to review it

[jim]

Isn't this the same firm thats been punting these boxes for a couple of years now?

I thought the complaint was fairly universal, expensive, limited and noisy?

I'd wager that Valve are willing to throw money at those problems though.

Will be very interested to see how this turns out, although I doubt I'd ever buy one.

[Terbinator]

So everyone is okay with an AMD gaming machine now then?

[Matsy]

Isn't this the same firm thats been punting these boxes for a couple of years now?

I thought the complaint was fairly universal, expensive, limited and noisy?

Yep it is, but that doesn't stop steam/valve (w/e) trying to pull one over on customers by using their brand to sell these things.

[kingpotnoodle]

Sounds like the shrink per $ has gone a little wrong, they made it really small but $999 is a lot for a trinity box with what I assume is spinning storage if its got 1TB. A flat box with a laptop motherboard in could be half that price.

IMHO the steam console badly needs to go SSD and get a load time advantage over the others - like a PC.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The system uses an SSD:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...nd-made-by-xi3

I expect the high cost is due to the small production runs of the Xi3 systems. It will be interesting how much the cost could be brought down with a larger run and more economical construction and materials.

[directhex]

Copy & paste from reddit:

Here's my predictions.

• No, it won't have all those ports. Those ports are on the Xi3 X7A. Some will go on the shipping Steam box, to save a few cents. Nobody will mourn their loss.
  CPU will be an AMD A10-4600M. It must be AMD. Nothing else makes sense. Intel HD4000 is just too slow, and it's too expensive/hot to use an NVIDIA GPU with AMD or Intel CPU. As a result, AMD will SERIOUSLY ramp up their Linux drivers, like, imminently.
• All Valve's work is on 32-bit. Don't expect more than 2G RAM in the initial hardware. (edit: Einmensch reminds me, quite correctly, that the RAM is shared by the CPU and GPU, so the GPU will need a gig of its own. So bring that up to 4GB total RAM.)
• To keep costs low and performance high, it'll ship with an SSD and the ability to use USB storage. I expect 32G or 64G of onboard storage, as standard. (The Deluxe Wii U has a similar configuration).
• The OS will be Ubuntu-based. It will not be locked down to any significant degree.
• Price will be in line with other home consoles at launch. The A10-4600M is a $106 part when you order five of them, when you order half a million it'll be rather less. I'd be astonished by a launch price above $400
• edit Another prediction: Something along the same lines as the "Windows Experience Index" will be used to mark Steam Box performance. Games will say "Requires 2 points, recommended 4 points", that kind of thing. Third parties will be encouraged to produce their own competing hardware running the same OS, typically higher end systems for those with more money.

[kingpotnoodle]

Nice, a 1TB max SSD size... large SSD would explain the cost too. That article says with 12Gbps so that has to imply a RAID-0 solution of SSDs is used to get to the 1TB, 2x SATA-III. Probably likely as 1TB SSDs are not that good.