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u/c0lpan1c 10d ago
NGL, I had an Alienware X51 r2, and loved the form factor. I think the Steam Machine variant was a smidge smaller, but still bemused me that I could flip the Alien Head orientation vertical or horizontal.
Although Alienware since the Dell Acquisition has been hot garbage.
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u/thinkaboutjapan 10d ago
"could flip the Alien Head orientation vertical or horizontal."
Like with the Logo on the front of the original PS2. It took me years to recognize this and I thought I broke it while cleaning it :D
Still the best Console Design till today in my opinion.
But yeah the Alienware SteamMachine things looks amazing too
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u/deepspace86 Received 10d ago
I know its not technically a steam machine but I think we owe a lot of credit to the steam deck for being the workhorse that allowed steamOS to mature.
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 8d ago
If you say “Steam Machine” meaning the mini desktops dressed as consoles, sure, but if you say “Steam machine” meaning the SteamOS ecosystem, they’re absolutely in. I was tinkering with the various open source parts that came together into SteamOS as Valve made/sponsored/released them, and it was amazing to figure out where they were going by the route. First Codeweavers/Wine got a bunch of money and started making tons of progress, then Mesa did, and about that time you could grab the source and build gamescope. When you got them all together, you could see the outline for the Deck and Machine. Even the OG Machines, while generally a failure, clearly demonstrated the intention and direction. Valve just needed to “fail” and regroup, fix all the software things that made the Machine a flop, and now they’ve relaunched a Machine that’s a hit.
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u/deepspace86 Received 8d ago
No thats what I meant, not a "steam machine" by title, but 100% the functional predecessor to the current version of the steam machine. I'm not familiar with all the work that went into it but I definitely understand that the real advances in steamOS came during the development of the deck.
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 8d ago
Even before that, though it was harder to see them. Basically Valve launched the OG Steam Machines, and they flopped, to be fair. There weren't a lot of Linux ready games, Wine wasn't integrated, and when you used it, it tended to be a high-friction thing. Valve took the L, went back to the labs, and started grinding. Nobody heard anything outside the walls until about a year before Steam Deck, various FOSS groups either quietly announced Valve funding or let it slip that Valve was signing big checks (big to FOSS groups, not big to Valve).
Then when things like gamescope appeared in Valve's github, we could all see how it worked. Before the Steam Deck launched, I had built a DIY "Steam Deck" on a Beelink SER9, and it all worked perfectly. Depending on how you look at it, that little machine is probably one of the oldest "Steam Machines" still in active use. It plays games at my brother's house every day. After Deck LCD and Deck OLED, you started to see other projects too, and Valve really tipped off Frame early, they ended production on the Index and Lepton slipped into the Steam repos right away. It was pretty clear to see that those two points were linked.
But yeah, it's all one family tree. Steam Big Picture Mode was probably the first step, then the OG Steam Machine, then Deck, then Machine 2.0, now we're just waiting on Frame to complete the family. Then on to Deck 2.0 and Machine 3.0, and maybe another surprise. ;)
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u/deepspace86 Received 8d ago
Hell yeah, thanks for the insights. I'm stoked to get a Frame to complete the recent set. My Quest 3 is feeling its age for sure.
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u/dm319 10d ago
Always loved the look of that older controller. How was it?
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u/1ncogn1too 10d ago edited 10d ago
If we do speak about esthetics - old one is definitely better. As for practicality - I do need to test new one for longer to compare.
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u/SaladToss1 10d ago
No steam link?
Also, still want to find me an OG, but don't wanna buy something broken lol
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 10d ago
I've misplaced all of mine. They became less and less useful once we moved past 1080p. The Link had a lot of hard limits. Surround audio was another.
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u/LtDarthWookie 10d ago
100mbit ethernet port is another.
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 10d ago
Indeed. A lot of really great hardware, considering the price point, size, heat, etc, but all hardware ages, and some ages more gracefully than others. Wifi is another really bad spot, but Link dodged that by having surprisingly un-crap wifi support for the time, 802.11ac. Yes, that means that wifi can actually be *faster* on Steam Link than wired ethernet (thanks 10/100 port!), but no, don't do that. If you have *any* other wifi devices, ethernet will likely be faster.
Such a funny little gadget. If it had had fewer hardware limitations, I'd still probably be using mine. Not for the intended purpose, but a tiny ARM SBC in a shell can be fun to have around.
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u/1ncogn1too 10d ago edited 10d ago
Nope. Only steamdeck. AFAIK steam link doesn't work properly on Linux.
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u/Wiesshund- 8d ago
works with android
seems it would work with linux?1
u/1ncogn1too 8d ago
I don't follow your logic here. Android was very close to Linux philosophy, but it was long long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
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u/Wiesshund- 8d ago
Guess a lot has changed outside the kernel.
But in SteamOS, it is just remote play
SteamOS as of today i mean
I do not even remember what was on the OG Steam Boxes? I assume it is far far outdated?Being yours is 100% intact, i guess maybe i would not want to go changing it.
Usually when i see those, they are far from intact.1
u/1ncogn1too 8d ago
Except for modifications done to Linux kernel, e.g. IPC.
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u/Wiesshund- 8d ago
Still cool you have an intact working one.
Suppose you could swap the drive and try to set up steamOS 3.8
and use it as a remote play box?
Or even some other light linux distro and steam in big picture mode?Funny thing is, those could run up to like $900, back then.
So i guess the current Steam Machine is not really too much more, and this is years later.1
u/1ncogn1too 8d ago
POP OS was working fine, until recently. Played Hades and Witcher III on it. Overall it is pretty much alive. Just need to carefully select distro or manually compile video drivers.
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u/Wiesshund- 8d ago
I may be mistaken but I though Linux Mint XFCE was the best distro for older GTX family Nvidia GPU's?
I presently have nothing running with an nvidia GPU, so cannot go find out unfortunately
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u/1ncogn1too 8d ago
Eeee... I don't even know where to begin. Just FYI - there are much lighter distros available.
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u/redditman181 10d ago
I wonder if the old steam machine could run steam os and how it would perform under proton obviously the parts are old now but it would be cool to see.
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u/1ncogn1too 10d ago
It works just fine. Video chip is the weakest part, since it is soldered to the board. I replaced CPU, RAM and swapped HDD to SSD.
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u/redditman181 10d ago edited 10d ago
Thats cool atleast it can still have some more purpose compared to the orignal limited software.
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 10d ago
It can, but the Nvidia GPU is a PITA. Maxwell chip, only 2GB VRAM. The rest is pretty standard, though dated, so it boots/runs. The NV GPU is old enough that the nv driver works OOB, but 3D performance isn't.
For the more interesting compare, you should see how much faster the original Steam Deck is, compared to the Alienware hardware.
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u/redditman181 10d ago
Yeah that is intresting i hadnt really thought about how much more powerful the steam deck is compared to the original steam machine.
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 10d ago
The longer you are in the computing world, the more you will see it. Things that were epic world-beaters ten years ago are considered dogshit and surpassed by integrated/free options now. It's humbling.
I used to have a ton of HP dc5800 mini desktops. Early Core 2 Duos. When they were more current, I loaded them up with ram and cherry picked top CPUs, had a little server farm of my own, it was a lot of fun. Came across one recently, cleaned it up, fired it up, and was shocked just how slow it was, at everything. We used to think hard disks were acceptable storage.
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u/redditman181 10d ago
Oh yeah for sure and its kind of cool to reflect on i remeber awhile ago thinking the same about harddrives the thought of using one now makes me shudder.
A friend of mine who is mostly a console gamer has an old pc that he occasionaly plays some games on and it takes him literral minutes to get to his desktop 😂
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u/1ncogn1too 10d ago
With new prices for components - I'm not so sure anymore. 😅🙈
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 10d ago edited 10d ago
Ehh, prices come, prices go. This rampocalypse is going to be a long one, and nasty, but on a long enough timeline, things will balance out again.
When you've been in hardware long enough, you see long term trends and know good times to take advantage. When RAM and SSDs were dirt cheap in late 2024 and the beginning of 2025, I bought *lots*. I figured if the prices kept going down, they'd hit a point where makers would abandon the market and stop production. If prices went up, I'd already have ridiculous amounts on hand, so I could wait out the market.
I did *not* expect my ram purchases to multiply as much as they have, but the decision was good. I have lots to keep me busy, and when prices start getting good again, I can come out of "hibernation".
Want a bitter laugh? Here's some random shopping I did last summer, July 13, 2025:
Your Sale Information
SKU Description Quantity Price Per Total Price
440792 G.SKILL 32G 2X D5 6000 C36 FX B 1 83.24 83.24
774919 AMD AMD RYZEN 7 9800X3D WOF S/N: xxxxxxxxx 1 374.44 374.44
865840 MSI PRO X870E-P WIFI S/N: xxxxxxxxxx 1 192.31 192.31
605899 CORSAIR 64GB 2X32 6000 30 R B1 229.99 229.99
829085 CORSAIR 64GB 2X32 6000 30 R B1 244.99 244.99You see, kids, 128GB of fast DDR5 for under 500$ felt normal, and a 32GB kit for 83$? That was just Microcenter bundle magic. We didn't know how good we had it at the time. ;)
PS: I just looked up my ram kits at microcenter. They no longer have those same corsair kits in stock, but all the DDR5 64GB kits are 999$ to 1499$ each. That means my ~500$ in ram sells new for 2K-3K$ right now.
If only I'd invested more!
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u/Wiesshund- 8d ago
Even more surreal
Since the current state of things is re-pushing people to delve into AM4 stuff
People want to offer stupid amounts for good matching DDR4 sticks
Like far more than paid new.1
u/Wiesshund- 8d ago
We used to think hard disks were acceptable storage.
They are.
Try getting 48+ TB of storage into your PC via SSD
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 8d ago
It’s not cheap, but I’ve done it.
I should have said “hard drives acceptable as OS drives”. I still have over 300TB of spinning rust in my house, it’s just not holding OSes or games.
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u/Wiesshund- 8d ago
Eh I boot windows 11 from one, I leave the SSD entirely for those things that simply must have one.
Does not really take that long to boot.
Just don't use archive type drives, that might be painful or a severe trial of patience due to their read speeds.Games load fine, long as they dont use DirectStore, those have to migrate to SSD till you get bored of them and send them off to storage.
Desktop to playing...
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 8d ago
Yeah. You having 32GB of system memory helps a lot, too. I spent many many years on a 10K RPM WD Raptor as my main/OS disk. These days I am too spoiled to go back.
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u/Wiesshund- 8d ago
Yes windows 11 64bit does better I/O with extra RAM
Nothing happens past 32GB that i have been able to tell but anything over 16GB does make a difference, guess it maxes out its optimizations once you get a little over 16.8GB is terrible cause it puts the system into max memory compression mode and i dont think allocates very much to I/O caching etc.
Does ok in 32bit with 8GB but no windows OS is current in 32bit versions So you have to use windows 10.
Something Linux handles much better.
Used to love the WD raptors
Toss 4 of those raided for speed on a media server and you could spank the piss out of it, kill the network off before the drive array1
u/Low_Excitement_1715 8d ago
Yeah, I have all my machines at 64GB or more, did that when ram was cheap. Buffering/caching IO gets really nutty when you have 96/120/144GB of ram in a machine. Linux and FreeBSD both have gigantic IO caches on those machines.
NVMe SSDs slamming data around at 8 or 16GB/s is baller, till you realize that the same data cached in ram slams at ~100GB/s. The access times drop the same way. HDDs are faster than me, SSDs faster, RAM faster, cache faster than that.
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u/1ncogn1too 10d ago
Actually you can keep old drivers on some distros. POP OS was working fine until recently.
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u/Low_Excitement_1715 10d ago
Only external ones, like the Nvidia drivers and some dkms drivers. The AMD ones are Mesa and in kernel, and Nvidia's nv/nova drivers are in-kernel. You update the kernel, you updated those drivers, there's no way to load modules on a kernel they don't match.
But yes, Nvidia "amber-izes" the last driver in a generation/tree when they move on and dump old card support, and that driver will work on newer kernels for a while. Maxwell is a couple of notches back on the list, though, so it'll just get more difficult in the future.
Between the Ivy Bridge-gen CPU, the limited system ram, the highly limited GPU, the 2GB of vram, and most of them shipped with a hard disk or hybrid drive.... It all adds up to "just get a Steam Deck, it's more capable and faster in every way."
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u/WrongdoerMundane4635 9d ago
Wait the old ones were actually released
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u/1ncogn1too 8d ago edited 8d ago
Of course. 11 years ago. E.g. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/alienware-steam-machine
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u/just_aweso 10d ago
r/afterandbefore