I had a very similar reaction to everyone else when Valve announced their new hardware this month: cautious excitement. The Steam Controller and Frame are super cool pieces of tech in their own right, but the real star of the show, for me, was the Steam Machine. Valve have tried to make a Steam-forward living room PC in the past, but it was essentially just a small ITX PC with off-the-shelf components with branding from different system integrators. This iteration of the Steam Machine is fully Valve's, and while their attempts at producing their own hardware have only become better with each passing release, I'm still wary of buying Steam Machine, and there are 4 main reasons for that.

The GPU specs

They're a bit underwhelming

The GPU on board the Steam Machine is what Valve is calling a "semi-custom AMD RDNA3" chip that features 28 CUs, a max clock speed of 2.45 GHz, 8GB of GDDR6, and a TDP of 110W. Upon an initial glance, this doesn't strike confidence in me. These specs have been likened to an RX 7600, and for all intents and purposes, that's pretty much what this will be.

"semi-custom" doesn't mean AMD have made a completely different architecture or have redesigned one for this device. It just means they've taken an existing RDNA3 design, asked AMD to fuse off parts of the silicon that they don't need/want, and soldered it onto a custom motherboard.

The RX 7600 isn't a great GPU. It's good, and for the purposes of what the Steam Machine is supposed to be, it'll likely be enough given the form factor. But I can't imagine it will age that well, especially when you consider it only sports a measly 8GB of VRAM. That's simply not enough for some games right now, let alone for games that release 2 or 3 years from now.

Reliance on FSR

It's not currently known what version is being used

Perhaps the biggest thing about the Steam Machine that makes me nervous (besides the last thing on this list) is the fact that their marketing material mentions targets of 4K at 60 FPS. With the GPU that the Steam Machine has, that's an unreasonable ask, but with upscaling it should be possible to hit with some tuned settings. I still don't like the reliance on upscaling to reach those playable framerates with what could be described as an under-powered card for that resolution, but it's likely the only way they can keep costs down a bit.

It's also unknown what version of FSR the Steam Machine will be using. Based on the fact that it's sporting an RDNA 3 GPU, it's likely that it'll be reliant on a modified version of FSR 3. Despite the fact that AMD have said otherwise, FSR 4 does indeed work on RDNA 3, but still, I doubt that the Steam Machine will feature it. There are some rumors that FSR 4 will eventually come to RDNA 3, but this is more likely to come on descrete hardware first.

Components are soldered on

Nothing is upgradable besides storage

Such is the case with ultra-compact computers like the Steam Machine and Steam Deck, most of the components on-board are soldered on, meaning they're not able to be upgraded by conventional means. That means no CPU or GPU swaps, and no RAM upgrades.

I don't love this from Valve in the case of the Steam Machine, but I do understand it. In order to fit within their desired form factor, you have to make certain concessions, and upgradability is one I can understand compromising on. When you factor in what's currently featured within the Steam Machine, though, I don't exactly have a ton of confidence that this thing will age very well if the only upgradable part is storage.

The price

It's unknown, but signs point to it being a bit higher than people think

The consensus I've seen from users online on forums and in livestream chats is that they're hoping that the Steam Machine is priced around $500-$600, and that anything higher will be a disappointment. Unfortunately, if you also think that, you should prepare for disappointment.

Based on a conversation Linus Sebastian of LinusTechTips had with Valve employees during their visit to Valve HQ, the "vibes" say that the price is well above a conventional console. To me, for a computer that doesn't have impressive specs, anything over $700 USD is a pretty significant ask, and when you compare it to Deck pricing, it's clear that the Machine is at least going to be quite a bit more than the handheld.

The one thing that does give me hope in regard to pricing, is that Valve are no strangers to taking a hit on pricing in order to gain market share. They did it with the Deck, pricing it extremely conservatively, with thin margins in order to capture a huge swath of a market that, quite frankly, didn't even exist yet. The difference with the Steam Machine is that the market is there already, but I'm not so sure that console gamers will want to pay $700+ for an entry-level ITX computer that comes with a controller.

I'm still optimistic

If there's any company that's earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to new hardware releases, I think it's Valve. I'm not so sure about how the Steam Machine will age given its specs and lack of upgradability, but I do have some faith that they can pull it off, and make the Steam Machine into something that living room gamers can actually use.