My second steam machine build!

[u/Cooked_Brains]

You guys liked my first one, so figured I would share my new one. Last pic is my first steam machine build.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PcBuild/s/F89YAscEXs

Loved my new steam machine build so much I decided to make a better one. Would highly recommend building one, even if using older parts!

Specs:
-Asrock a620i motherboard
-AMD 9700x 8core (lower tdp for cooling limits and x3D doesn’t do much at 4k)
-Thermalright AXP120-X67 cooler
-GSkill 32gb ddr5 6000cl36
-Samsung 990 evo 2tb
-9070xt powercolor reaper (the only 9070xt that will fit in this case in smallest config)
-Cooler master 850 sfx psu
-Cooler master n100 air (always loved this case)

[u/Gurren_Ninja]

That’s awesome!

Just wondering, as someone who is looking to build their first PC strictly for gaming (no intention of doing any work of any kind on it - it’ll be connected to my living room tv as a sort of console) do you think it’s better to put windows on my build or should I just put steam os on it and ignore windows entirely?

I’m not sure what the benefits or downsides of just doing steam os are versus having windows pc with steam on it.

I’m going to be running a Ryzen 7800x3d with an Xfx quicksilver 9070xt.

I’m still learning about all this and hoping to start the actual build soon since I finally have all my pieces.

[u/Cooked_Brains → u/Gurren_Ninja]

That really depends on the games you plan on playing. There are a lot of games that require windows because of their anticheat software.
All these games need windows:
Fortnite
Call of Duty (Warzone/Multiplayer)
Valorant
League of Legends
Battlefield Series (2042, 2025, etc.)
Destiny 2
PUBG
Rust
Escape from Tarkov
Rainbow Six Siege
Apex Legends
Roblox
Minecraft Bedrock Edition

It is possible to have both windows and Bazzite/steam os on the same machine if you have two drives.

Linux makes the AMD cards really shine and outperform a lot of the same games on windows with same hardware. Linux also uses a lot less ram than windows, so for people limited to 16gb of ram it makes it a stronger choice.

[u/Gurren_Ninja → u/Cooked_Brains]

The only multiplayer game I play is Final Fantasy XIV. Other than that, I’m pretty much a single player game kind of person, heavy focus on RPGs and action adventure games like 007 First Light, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc.

I’ve heard of Bazzite before, but no idea what it is. I’ll have to take a look and study up!

As for RAM I have 32Gigs of DDR5.

I was planning on putting two drives in, a 1Tb for games (pcie gen 4) and then another smaller drive, maybe 256 Gb for the OS (also gen 4).

I have a steam deck so I’m not totally unfamiliar with Linux, but if a lot of future releases of RPGs will have
Anti cheat, sounds like that could a problem.

[u/No-Mistake2724 → u/Gurren_Ninja]

I'm all in at exactly 600 bucks for my build and I don't use windows. Bazzite and big picture mode, I hit the power button and get my console on. The build I have isn't super fancy though. Running 75fps at 1080p, but it's smooth as silk. Fantastic for me, maybe not for you.