Valve's official Steam Machine prototype isn't cheap,
but it won't be the only Steam-powered video-game console available
come 2014. This morning, iBuyPower revealed a prototype of its own
upcoming Steam Machine, which will go on sale for just $499 next year.
For the price of an Xbox One,
the computer will offer a multicore AMD CPU and a discrete AMD Radeon
R9 270 graphics card — that's a $180 GPU all by itself — and come with Valve's Steam Controller as part of the package deal.
The company says the box is
bigger than a PlayStation 4 but smaller than Microsoft's Xbox One, and
comes standard with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a 500GB hard drive. The glossy
white case also has a fully customizable light bar running down the
center channel, and an integrated power supply. You won't have to find
room for a power brick on your home entertainment center shelves.
For the price, you won't be getting Windows, only Valve's Linux-based Steam OS,
which could be an issue starting out. While Valve has quite a few games
running on Linux already, and says that major game developers will be building triple-A game titles specifically for Steam OS in 2014,
it's not quite the same as having the entire Windows catalog as a
fallback. Still, iBuyPower says that existing Steam for Linux games
should run quite well, at full 1080p resolution and 60 frames per
second. We're looking forward to see just how much power iBuyPower can
provide for under $500.
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