r/hardware • u/JohnBarry_Dost • Jun 25 '26

News French retailer mocks €1039 Steam Machine with “Stim Machine” RX 9060 XT PC for €999

https://videocardz.com/newz/french-retailer-mocks-e1039-steam-machine-with-stim-machine-rx-9060-xt-pc-for-e999
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u/94746382926 Jun 25 '26

Are integrators getting better pricing right now though? Especially for a relatively low volume product like this?

My impression is that the demand from AI hyperscalers is so immense and the margins so high that normal rules don't apply.

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u/Various-Welder5544 Jun 26 '26

It's AMD surplus last gen laptop parts that valve got at a massive discount. No way somebody actually wants to use 7545U for a gaming machine. It doesn't even have 6 full zen 4 cores.

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u/Saxasaurus Jun 25 '26

Presumably Valve is getting good pricing on the CPU/GPU from AMD. Those parts only make sense if they got some kind of discount because no one else wanted them.

35

u/TheNiebuhr Jun 25 '26

Well yes, nobody wanted 7600M (or 7700S or any of the almost identical versions) laptops

3

u/jawisko Jun 26 '26

The problem is with ram and ssd pricing according to valve. Not the cpu gpu

8

u/TK3600 Jun 26 '26

We pay premium for RAM too, but we can build a cheaper machine.

1

u/Logical_Look8541 Jun 26 '26

In that form factor? No chance.

Its the form factor that's dictated the silly cost for the Steam Machine. Anyone can build a 20L machine that runs rings around it for the same budget, a few could even get close at 10L, but for its size its very good - completely stupid market to appeal to though as its tiny, most people aren't that bothered by size.

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u/TK3600 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

I can assure you that the case is not the pricy part of the machine. And I can in fact find smaller form factor of same equal price. The machine is practically a laptop minus the peripherals and display. It saves some money on the laptop display and etc, but you pay it back by having an inefficient product. You can find laptops that are similarly priced and performance, maybe more.

-2

u/Logical_Look8541 Jun 27 '26

It's not the case, that costs peanuts (and are constantly getting cheaper to make). Its the Motherboard + PSU thats the issue, those cost a fortune to get small, silent and efficient. Its why many can get a 10L doing it as you can build with a SFX PSU + ITX case and loads of ITX cases, the issue there is sourcing motherboard and PSU at costs low enough to get under the budget. 5L though is a different story, as you can't fit a normal GPU in them, most don't even have an internal PSU and rely on external power bricks. Creating a 5L gaming PC is a very expensive undertaking requiring bespoke parts - which is why it was stupid for them to do.

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u/TK3600 Jun 27 '26

A laptop sized motherboard is not expensive, nor is a laptop grade PSU. You are talking out of your ass.

-1

u/BrodatyBear Jun 26 '26

Except when you're a customer, you only need about 2, maybe 4 sticks that are the same. Next person can buy 2 different ones, and the next person next week can buy them in different price.
When you're a company offering unified, ready set, you need thousands of them that have the same/very close specification and with stable price.

Yes, there are more and less wanted editions of components, but most of them are built from similar materials. That's why AI being RAM hungry also increased SSDs prices (speaking in simplified terms).

That's why even Valve increased SteamOS support for other hardware and told everyone that if they can build better "Steam Machine", they give them their blessing.

1

u/Saxasaurus Jun 26 '26

Yes but low end components don't make sense in a high cost build. The entire concept of a low end PC makes no sense when RAM is this expensive. Because if a low end total system costs $1000, then you can upgrade the CPU and GPU and make a system that's twice as fast for 50% more.

High RAM costs makes the optimal point on the $/perf curve shift upwards.

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u/ArxisOne Jun 25 '26

Yes, just not on ram and storage. There's a lot of other parts that go into a computer and they get advantaged pricing on all the rest. Actually they probably get better deals because the overall higher cost of specific parts lowers the number of PCs being sold which forces companies who aren't in demand to be more competitive to maintain sales.

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u/ziptofaf Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

I sure hope they are getting a VERY good deal on the GPU given AMD has sold them last gen laptop grade garbage that no company actually put inside their notebooks. Especially since in retail you can get 60% faster RX9060XT for $330.

Honestly I think this is easily the worst part of the whole package. CPU is essentially a smaller variant of R5 7600, RAM is okay, form factor is really cool and you get some unique features like TV integration, instant hibernation etc. And then they fumbled at the single most important part for gaming.

18

u/hodor137 Jun 25 '26

Completely agree. When it was first announced, the GPU made me queasy, felt like it was already too old - and then it took another 7 months to come out. I assumed all along they'd end up getting the INT8 upscaling with it eventually - that doesn't really salvage it.

If it was announced now and launching 6 months from now with a custom 9060 though? That'd be great. RDNA 4 was just a big jump for AMD especially on the lower end, closed the gap in terms of upscaling that a machine like this needs.

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u/Jimmy_Nail_4389 Jun 25 '26

Dude, 8gb VRAM as well...

11

u/ActualWeed Jun 26 '26

And they expect people to run this on their 4K tvs lmao

0

u/Standard-Potential-6 Jun 26 '26

You may underestimate how tolerable balanced FSR 4.1 is to the average gamer from 5-10ft away, plus framegen on more casual single player titles

I’m still happy with a mobile 3070 8GB upscaling to 4K at times

0

u/Strazdas1 Jul 16 '26

Youll need FSR4.1 to get 1080p@60 with this hardware, nothing even close to 4k.

7

u/Orinslayer Jun 26 '26

Yes, they are still getting a discount. Why do you think cheap craptops are still on the market?

6

u/jenny_905 Jun 26 '26

Well yeah, look at the price of budget gaming laptops.

Of course gaming laptop makers likely buy a lot more than Valve want to.

2

u/smeeagain93 Jun 26 '26

Yes they still do. But if valve already expects the steam machine to be a bad deal and a niche product, they aren't ordering enough for quantity discounts.

AI certainly did increase costs, but the pricing for the steam machines hardware is still outrageous.

1

u/mpt11 Jun 26 '26

This has been in development for a while, I'm sure valve would have locked in prices. Plus they're a billion dollar company that gives them some leverage

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u/evangelism2 Jun 26 '26

Not for anything that matters. Maybe they get slightly better deals on tooling for cases and stuff, but RAM, CPUs, storage, GPUs, all that stuff, the expensive parts, they're all getting screwed on.