Valve has made a bold claim about its upcoming Steam Machine: a hardware engineer says it matches or beats the performance of 70% of gaming PCs tracked in the Steam Hardware Survey.
In a recent Adam Savage’s Tested podcast, Yazan Aldehayyat explained how Valve chose the specs. They analyzed the Steam Survey to benchmark average home PCs, landing on hardware that’s “equal or better than 70% of what people have at home.”
Quick Specs Recap
- CPU: Semi-custom AMD Zen 4, 6 cores/12 threads, up to 4.8 GHz (30W TDP)
- GPU: Semi-custom AMD RDNA 3, 28 Compute Units (similar to RX 7600), 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM (110W TDP)
- RAM: 16 GB DDR5 + 512 GB or 2 TB NVMe SSD
- Performance Target: 4K/60 FPS with FSR upscaling (6x Steam Deck power)
Aldehayyat also confirmed it runs all Steam games, focusing on compatibility over max settings.
Why 70% Makes Sense
Steam Survey data shows:
- 33.4% have 8 GB VRAM (matching Steam Machine)
- 67% have 8 GB or less
- Popular GPUs: RTX 3060, GTX 1650 (weaker than Steam Machine’s RDNA 3)
Valve tuned it as an entry-level gaming PC/console hybrid launching early 2026 alongside a new Steam Controller.
No price yet, but it’s positioned between Steam Deck and full PCs—compact, quiet, and SteamOS-powered.
What do you think—good enough for most gamers? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Source:Â via Notebook Check
