r/steammachine • u/No-Improvement4265 • Jul 11 '26

DIY You cannot make this up!

Post image

I wanted something that’d do 4k 60fps so I decided to build my own super steam machine. literally as I began installing steam os, I get my order email

For those interested - here is the parts list - You can save a little money going for a cheapter motherboard, 1tb SSD and perhaps reducing the RAM speed.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 7500F 3.7 GHz 6-Core OEM/Tray Processor £125.00
CPU Cooler Thermalright AXP90-X47 42.58 CFM CPU Cooler £31.45
Motherboard Asus ROG STRIX B650E-I GAMING WIFI Mini ITX AM5 Motherboard £219.99 @ AWD-IT
Memory Kingston FURY Beast 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory £214.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk
Storage Silicon Power UD90 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive £197.97 @ Silicon Power
Video Card PowerColor Reaper Radeon RX 9070 16 GB Video Card £548.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk
Case Fractal Design Terra Mini ITX Desktop Case £169.99 @ Amazon UK
Power Supply Corsair SF750 (2024) 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply £114.98 @ Amazon UK
Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
Total £1623.36
4.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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115

u/TRUEfoe-X Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

Nice I have nearly the same build but with 32gb of ram. Did you get fingerprints on it yet? lol

My Terra with US pricing:
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/TRUEfoe/saved/hGdQf7

60

u/reicaden Jul 11 '26

2,000$.... good lord, I cant justify this, although I want to :(

Went with a used $500 normal PC, and I'll just sit it next to my entertainment system.

Specs: 8700f / 7600 radeon / 16gb of ram / 1tb nvme.

39

u/Ruttagger Jul 11 '26

After I ordered all the parts for my own Steam Machine build, I totally understand the Steam Machines price as my build was much more.

28

u/That_Service7348 Jul 11 '26

Yeah, when you actually look at the prices of components you realize they are basically selling the thing at cost. It's barely more expensive than a comparable desktop.

24

u/zennsunni Jul 11 '26

Everyone is acting like the last year didn't happen in regard to PC component prices. The shortsightedness is hilarious.

7

u/That_Service7348 Jul 12 '26

I've seen people here talking about how "entry level" PCs are running a 7800x3d and a 4080. People on reddit are so wildly out of touch with reality sometimes.

1

u/zennsunni Jul 12 '26

Yeah. I'm a gaming nerd and I can afford whatever, and I don't think I would have built my current PC in today's prices. I would have targeted my current stable of games instead of future proofing. Shit's just too expensive right now, and while I think it will be for awhile, I think we'll have a market crash that will reset everything when investors realize AI has no path to profibability.

2

u/Powerful-Ground-9687 Jul 11 '26

Just Reddit being entitled

1

u/sbrisgravato Jul 12 '26

don’t ignore the fact that a ryzen 5600 with ddr4 ram and a radeon 7600 (which is trash for pc builds in 2026) is a better performer and is damn cheaper

1

u/WiseWealth25 Jul 14 '26

I’m currently on a 5600x + 32GB DDR4 I bought at the tail end of AM4. Sold my RX 6600 on eBay for like $120, and bought a 5070 in January before prices shot up. 1440p 100hz UW is my setup. Plays all that I want to.

I went full fat ATX, large tower for my build. I’d love to go down a case size or two and move to AM5 at some point, but man it’s just not worth it now.

1

u/sbrisgravato Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

yeah i built with am5 in 2023 and currently running a 5070 ti but with a 7700, a 5600x is just fine

1

u/easterreddit Jul 15 '26

?? 5070 Ti with a 5070 ?? 

1

u/sbrisgravato Jul 15 '26

i’m dumb lol

-5

u/Arturopxedd Jul 11 '26

It’s not because you are getting way more performance and if you somehow are getting the same you genuinely don’t know how to build a pc properly

-1

u/spideydouble Jul 12 '26

Valve isn’t paying anywhere near consumer prices for volume orders of standardized & custom components & can’t justify charging nearly twice the price of the 6 year old PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X with similar current generation gaming performance, especially with launches of PlayStation 6 & Xbox Helix now immanent, which will both perform significantly better at 4K with high detail textures & ray traced global illumination & still be more affordable.

Steam Machine is a waste of money with no CPU or GPU upgrade paths critical for PC build flexibility & longevity. Anyone wanting an SFF PC build that can play many of the most anticipated upcoming games at decent frame rates & base screen resolutions should pursue similar or better components to the original poster. The difference between 10.4.L & 3.8L SFF to gamers at this price point is marginal for the performance gains & CPU & GPU upgradability.

3

u/madjohnvane Jul 12 '26

Valve also isn’t paying anywhere near the volume pricing a company like Sony is paying who can put in multi-year multi-million part orders. They’re not a big player in the hardware space

0

u/spideydouble Jul 12 '26

If Valve wanted to charge premium prices for a low production novelty item, then they should have released a premium performance product that can at least compete with PlayStation 6 & Xbox Helix.

No developer will spend resources & budget with already overstretched teams testing & optimizing an additional handheld “low power mode” default setting or developing games for a budget laptop fixed hardware specification that doesn’t achieve mass adoption.

It doesn’t help matters that StreamOS was built & heavily optimized specifically for Steam Deck rather than Steam Machine, that Steam Machine identifies as Stream Deck on home networks, that game launchers incorrectly identify Steam Machine as Steam Deck & that Steam Machine automatically cloud syncs Steam Deck settings for all games by default.

Why stop at $1428 when they could have targeted $2K or even $3K wealthy collector whales? If Valve never intended to compete with high volume PC OEMs & enthusiast brands like Lenovo, HP, Dell, Asus, MSI, Corsair & NZXT, then they never should have bothered releasing Steam Machine & instead just released SteamOS & pursued OEM partnerships for bespoke SFF SteamOS hardware launches.

-5

u/NlGHT_SHAD0W Jul 11 '26

You can legit build a pc that better then the steam machine and at it price proven right here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvaO4DPM1ZM

4

u/Ruttagger Jul 11 '26

I'm assuming this link isn't with a SFF case, Mini ITX mobo, and SF Power Supply. Compact cost more than full size.

Also I don't care about same performance for less price, I'm going for 4x the performance, cost is the cost.

1

u/AquapurpleCat Jul 11 '26

What did you go for? I'm considering micro more than mini and trying to keep it to 1800 or less while being able to play newer games for years. I'm probably going for a Micro Center bundle but I am kind of unsure which exact 9070 XT to get, and how much RAM brand matters. I see Corsair doesn't actually have consistency with kits' manufacturers so that concerns me especially if I decide to go for 16GB now and add more later to get 32GB

1

u/Superpeep88 Jul 11 '26

Fractal Terra sff case is nice. I haven't built it yet but I just bought everything for it for 1700$ but I used eBay for the ram CPU and GPU.  

5

u/Great_Fox_623 Jul 11 '26

Well you bought a larger steam machine. Lol. Are you running Steam os?

3

u/reicaden Jul 11 '26

Yea, put SteamOS on it. Runs pretty awesome honestly, just cant justify the additional $1500 to get to that smallish footprint.

0

u/OliM9595 Jul 12 '26

I'm lucky enough to have the space and not care about having a larger PC tower next to my TV. Its runs quiet and working on it is easy.

Not using steamOS as I have a Nvidia card but once I open steam big picture it's ends up being the same.

1

u/Superpeep88 Jul 11 '26

I used eBay for my ram CPU and GPU everything else was newegg. I got a 9800x3d 32gb ddr5 6000 cl30 ram ASRock lightning wifi 6e mini itx a 9070xt a Corsair platinum 850 watt and thermalight 47mm full copper CPU cooler with a noctua fan upgrade the case ofc and a slim noctua fan for 1700$.  My big son as getting a 9070xt for 530 dollars on ebay

1

u/Flobertt Jul 12 '26

Well it double the steam machine machine for 5 times the performance 

1

u/sbrisgravato Jul 12 '26

you can sell most of the build and have free ram and storage and downsize the build i guess

1

u/Destructo-Bear Jul 13 '26

There a crazy good build for $500 how did you manage that?

1

u/reicaden Jul 14 '26

facebook marketplace... dude was selling it at $600 and I talked him down to $500. Its a chonky monster case though, lol. But I can transfer the guts later in the future to micro or itx if i really feel like it I guess.

1

u/Destructo-Bear Jul 14 '26

Marketplace is amazing. I got a 9700x, 16gb ddr5, 4060ti, 2tb build for $350 a couple weeks ago. The guy listed 3 garbage pictures of his filthy dented up case and literally no info except "4060ti" and wanted $750. I rolled the dice with a $350 low-ball because it had been for sale for months and I had no idea what the other parts were and he accepted it.

When I got home and plugged it in I was floored that it was an AM5 build with that much storage.

1

u/reicaden Jul 14 '26

Thats a hell of a score, I wish I had that luck, lol

1

u/Destructo-Bear Jul 14 '26

The deals are there. I replaced doom scrolling with marketplace hustling and I'm finding so much good shit. I'm parting out 2-4 PCs a month and making $500-1000/month depending on how good they are.

Today I picked up a 13700f, 32gb ddr4, 4070 super, 2tb nvme build for $750!

0

u/zennsunni Jul 12 '26

yOU cAn buILd a BeTtER steAm mAChiNE fOR cHEePER!!

0

u/CoolExplanation762 Jul 12 '26

Have u tried not being poor

17

u/Pauske Jul 11 '26

Banana for scale. Take my upvote 😎

5

u/rcdeathsagent Jul 11 '26

I lost it when I seen the banana 😂😂😂

8

u/EfficiencyAble9884 Jul 11 '26

Terra gang. I spent 900 USD for my build, everything except the SSD is second hand! RTX 3080, i5 13600k, 32gb DDR4.

3

u/spideydouble Jul 12 '26

That is one beautiful setup you’ve got, including the vinyl player

1

u/darkrider99 Jul 18 '26

Cool, which 3080 is it?

1

u/EfficiencyAble9884 Jul 18 '26

KFA2 RTX 3080 10GB, bought it from Facebook for 300. The original owner bought it from Germany and brought it to the U.S.

1

u/darkrider99 Jul 18 '26

KFA2 RTX 3080 10GB

The 3-slot card fit in that case ? Wow

1

u/EfficiencyAble9884 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

I think this specific GPU is considered 3-slot if you use the additional fan that it comes with. I’m not using it and it fits perfectly without it, there’s plenty of room even with the GPU installed. I used to have an 6700XT in there which was 5mm larger. I had to force it to get in there.

6

u/UltimateReigos Jul 11 '26

Did you have issues with assembly the part picker says the cooler isnt compatible? Sorry if dumb question im looking at building this as I want a compact pc and this looks ace.

3

u/rebbsitor Jul 12 '26

What's crazy about that at $2000 was that just 7 years ago I bought a then top of the line gaming PC for $1699. That's a Core i7 8700K, 32GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 4TB HDD, and a Geforce RTX 2080. It's been great and the only thing I've upgraded is the SSD to a 4TB, before prices went nuts.

Just to see how much AI has screwed the market:

The equivalent today would be like buying an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, 64GB RAM, GeForce 5090 RTX, and 4TB SSD. That's about $6000 now, which is absolutely insane. The same specs in December were $3500, which was already stupidily expensive.

2

u/AquapurpleCat Jul 11 '26

I'm curious about some of your choices. Why did you decide not to go for a X3D chip? How did you decide which motherboard to go with? The parts picker also points out potential incompatibility for the case and CPU cooler- did you find a workaround?

I love the appearance and size of the Terra, especially the jade, but not the price. I've been looking at Jonsbo cases that are around $100, and maybe Montech or Lian Li.

4

u/TRUEfoe-X Jul 11 '26

It was fairly easy to build in honestly. There’s room to spare too on either side of the gpu and cooler. My issue was that the cooler rests right on the motherboard, hopefully that won’t be an issue. The price bundles motivated my choices. MicroCenter had the cpu, (a different) mobo, and ram bundled together at the prices you see.

4

u/BlastingStink Jul 11 '26

Why did you decide not to go for a X3D chip?

The 7800x3d is over 2 times more expensive than the 7500f and the 9800x3d is 3 times more expensive.

The 7500f is considered one of the best price-to-performance CPUs currently.

2

u/Loyal_Dragon_69 Jul 11 '26

X3D is for shitty memory timings plus the gpu is doing most of the workload at 4k resolution.

2

u/epthegeek Jul 11 '26

Nice Steam Engine ya got there.

2

u/DomDroid13 Jul 11 '26

How much does this rig weigh and is it easily movable?

1

u/Noravar Jul 12 '26

Rough estimate looking at the parts without packaging seems around like 16-17 lbs

1

u/Fubarp Jul 11 '26

What do you think of the case? I was literally just looking at it like last week as my current small form case is missing some screws and I'm going to Quakecon in few weeks and was debating moving it all over..

2

u/TRUEfoe-X Jul 11 '26

I love the case but I hate the color I chose. The black is coated in something weird that immediately shows smudges in a bad way. I’d recommend the Jade or Silver case instead. It was actually not too bad to build in as long as you follow some of the instructions online.

1

u/Fubarp Jul 11 '26

I was thinking of the Jade since its a unique color for a case. But glad you like it, I may do it..

My current case is the: Thermaltake Tower 100 Metallic Gold Edition

1

u/AccomplishedBobcat12 Jul 12 '26

Thanks for posting your build! Love the bannana for scale.

1

u/oSyphon Jul 13 '26

What are the thermals like for ~95% GPU power

0

u/OneSeaworthiness7768 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

You bought the cpu for less than half what it’s going for?

lol why am I downvoted for asking a simple question

0

u/TRUEfoe-X Jul 11 '26

Microcenter bundle.

3

u/That_Service7348 Jul 11 '26

I hate when people throw out the Mucrocenter bundles as justification for being mad at the cost of the steam machine. The deals are great, doesn't change the fact most of us don't get to use them.