- Valve’s new Steam gaming machine is expected to launch in the spring of 2026, but the price has not yet been announced.
- The specs highlight the key differences between the new system and Steam Deck.
- The Steam Machine’s processor and specs suggest that this could pose a challenge to current generation consoles.
It’s been literally years since rumors surfaced about Valve’s plans for new hardware after the Steam Deck 2022 launch, and rumors are growing about a system that would double as a hybrid console and PC gaming setup. And now we finally have our answer: the new Steam Machine is expected to hit the market in the spring of 2026. One of the biggest questions, however, is how it compares to the Steam Deck.
According to the specification, the Steam Machine (not to be confused with the discontinued series launched in 2014) is “more than six times more powerful than the Steam Deck”, thanks to a new CPU and GPU that offer performance beyond what a laptop can offer.
In short, the Steam Machine is not a portable device. While a comparison between the two systems may not be obvious, this is the first system to follow the Steam Deck OLED while running SteamOS and may hint at what’s to come for a portable successor in the future.
It should be noted that the specifications may change before the final release. But first, let’s talk about the key differences between the Steam Deck and the new Steam Machine…
1. Steam Machine has a significantly more powerful CPU and GPU
The Steam Deck LCD and Steam Deck OLED have never been considered powerful portable gaming devices, but they have managed to stay in the rankings of the best portable consoles, where some would even say they are the best, thanks to their affordability and ease of use.
Valve isn’t kidding when it says the Steam Machine is more than six times more powerful than the Steam Deck; The LCD and OLED models use a 4-core Zen 2 CPU and an RDNA 2 GPU with only eight processing units (the CPU and GPU are combined in the APU).
With the Steam Machine, Valve aims for significantly higher performance and uses a 6-core AMD Zen 4 processor and a “semi-custom” AMD RDNA 3 GPU with 28 compute units. Not only is there a big architectural jump from Zen 2 to Zen 4, resulting in higher clock speeds, but the Steam Machine also has 20 extra compute units, which is closer to what’s in the PS5 (36 compute units) or even a lower-end Nvidia RTX GPU.
While these specs aren’t everything, they’re enough to differentiate the Steam Machine and Steam Deck in terms of power and performance, which you’d expect from a PC designed for desktop and benchtop setups.
2. Steam Machine supports ray tracing and 4K gaming at 60 frames per second
While the Steam Deck can play some games with ray tracing settings enabled (or at 4K resolution while maintaining a good frame rate), there aren’t many games that can do this without running into single digit frame rates or having to use aggressive scaling.
It looks like the Steam Machine will change that, as the spec sheet specifically mentions support for ray tracing and 4K gaming at 60fps using AMD’s FSR scaling method.
Currently this should be FSR 3, as AMD does not yet support FSR 4 hardware for RDNA 3, but that may change when the Steam Machine launches (especially since the FSR 4 source code has been accidentally leaked).
With ray tracing and 4K gaming at its core, this is once again beyond the reach of the Steam Deck.
3. Steam Machine has more RAM for system and games
Although the Steam Deck has 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a maximum of 4 GB can be used for games (or rather for the GPU).
For the Steam Machine, the specs suggest that 16GB of DDR5 RAM will be available as general system RAM, while 8GB of GDDR6 appears to be for gaming RAM.
Overall, this should improve performance with updated CPUs and GPUs, giving more room for sustained frame rates while reducing stuttering issues, which is what the Steam Deck helps with when switching from the standard 1GB to 4GB.
4. Steam Machine connectivity highlights the nature of the hybrid PC and home console.
As if that wasn’t obvious enough, the Steam Machine departs from the portable nature of the Steam Deck, where a gaming setup on a couch or desk is the way to go. The Steam deck could be connected and used to a gaming monitor or TV, but this had the disadvantage of reduced performance at resolutions above 800p.
With the Steam Machine, Valve has clearly designed it as a dedicated home console that can be used on a gaming monitor or TV, with two display output ports via DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0, plus others like 4 USB-A ports and 1 USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port.
There’s no sign of HDMI 2.1, but HDMI 2.0 (with chroma subsampling) still enables 4K gaming at 120Hz. DisplayPort 1.4 also supports 4K 240Hz, a big plus for any gamer with a monitor setup.
There will be much more information to come, as there is no information on pricing yet, and the question remains whether Valve’s new gaming system will replicate Steam Deck’s affordable pricing model.
