Hi everyone!
I had been a Playstation user since the first one and I own the fifth one.
After using Linux for years on weak computers for my admin, I decided to try Linux gaming in 2025 and bought a used LCD Steam Deck.
While I’ve been enjoying the Steam Deck, it hurts my neck and isn’t powerful enough for sim racing games.
Naturally, I was happy to learn that the Steam Machine was coming and was willing to invest up to CHF1000.- (~$1236) to get it.
Sadly, it’s not available to order in my country, Switzerland.
So now I have to choose between finding ways to order a Steam Machine or buying a prebuilt computer since I don’t want to source components to build something myself.
My priority would still be the Steam Machine, but I’d be open to alternatives.
What are your advices, what would you do if you’re in the same situation?
Thanks in advance for your help.
What others are saying plus install bazzite
The only way to get steam hardware, according to support, is to have a credit card, address and steam account from an EU country or other supported country. Or wait if a local reseller (like digitec) gets their hands on them.
Look into MiniPCs!
I’m not sure what will have availability in your country, but MinisForum, GMKTec, AOOSTAR would be where I’d start looking.
If you go for a MiniPC with an OcuLink external port… well, then you can get a GPU cradle and a small PSU for it, plug that in to MiniPC when you need the graphical power.
Its hard to find exact numbers on this, but basically, OcuLink appears to perform better than Thunderbolt 4 as a kind of eGPU data transfer method… there is some efficiency loss as compared to directly slotting it into a MoBo, but in practice, its often 10% or less.
And, now that FSR 4 works on 7000 series AMD GPUs, you may be able to find such a GPU that is cheaper, yet still performs somewhere between a Steam Machine and a more powerful PC.
This kind of setup is about as spatially small as a Steam Machine, and allows you the ability to upgrade to either a new GPU or MiniPC when you want to.
The MiniPC will be the CPU and storage memory and RAM.
MiniPCs often use laptop style SODIMM RAM and M.2 SSDs… so… if prices for those remain high, you can at least take those out of your old MiniPC, and then get a new ‘barebones’ MiniPC based around a newer CPU, and slot them into it.
So they sell the steam deck in your country now? You can probably just wait a good while for them to sell the console in your country.
If you wait long enough they might offer a barebones kit kind of like the old Intel nuks. You can get for cheaper and buy your own ram and storage. Its rumored that the failure for many ai data centers to come to fruition, will line up with the ram manufacturers getting new facilities up, will cause a crash in hardware prices. Don’t know if that means cheap ram or if it gets more expensive in the wacky economy anymore, but its something to gain or lose from when you wait long enough.
I would definately not buy from a scalper though. The thing is barely worth it to me at 700 dollars as a fan boy who would love a new toy from valve. I could not imagine paying close to double for it, or risk getting just scammed. I’m sure I could do something like a charge back, or having to get on some Ai customer support to get my money back but its not worth it to me anymore.
Even if it available in my country I still wouldn’t buy it at the current price, nothing is special about steam machine it’s basically just a box standard computer. For 1500$ I can get a 5060 laptop that come with a decent screen keyboard and probably faster too even with Linux driver overhead
Small note. If you’re building a PC for Linux avoid Nvidia GPUs. AMD and Intel GPUs have native built in drivers. Avoiding the fragility of babysitting Nvidia proprietary drivers really makes the experience better.
Just for your information: the steam machine is not availne anywhere right now.
I honestly really want one and will wait some months, to see how the supply situation changes.
That’s not what’s happening to OP. It’s not that they can get into a raffle and wait their turn. As I’ve said elsewhere, 90% of Steam users can’t even get to the raffle as the Steam Machine is not sold to their region. Due to the hardware supply chain constraints. Fuck AI.
I just installed SteamOS on a mini PC that costs about half what the Steam Machine does (and less than the Deck under current pricing), and runs on an AMD 7840HS with 32GB of RAM in a form-factor that’s the size of 3 stacked pieces of bread.
While that APU is likely powerful than the Steam machine’s with its dedicated VRAM, I did test a few games and it definitely outperforms the Deck and the higher system RAM makes it potentially more versatile than either.
If you want to keep sole ownership (ie. invoice in your name, your CC etc.) and can’t go through a friend/relative in a neighbouring country - you could use a VPN and a freight-forwarding service in said country?
I’ve utilised similar methods in the past to get EU-only goods here into Australia.
BUY A DOCK. CONNECT TO YOUR TV OF CHOICE.
Once you have that set up, pair a controller/keyboard/mouse to the deck. You just replaced your PS5. Not in the sense of complete power or graphical fidelity, but its bananas what the games pumped through my docked steam deck look like on the tv.
I have been linux gaming for a couple of years. I was in a transition away from Playstation already due to expense of multiplayer and the general value that I WASNT receiving from Sony. I was a day 1 adopter of the original deck, and it has worked very well for me in handheld mode, so I bought a dock to try it out. I only use my desktop gaming PC for true keyboard and mouse games that make me want to be close to the screen.
That’s clearly something that I’m already doing and enjoying.
Still I need something more powerful for sim racing even if all my other games work well docked.
But yeah the Deck can be surprisingly good when docked, especially if like me you don’t mind 720p and 30fps👍
Gruezi, I built my own steam machine, with the following specs:
- AMD ryten 7 5800X cpu
- 16GB DDR4 leftover memory (2666MHz)
- AMD RX 9070 XT graphics card (they’re a great deal at the moment compared to other graphic cards, great bang for bucks e.g. https://www.brack.ch/acer-grafikkarte-predator-bifrost-amd-rx-9070-xt-16g-oc-1841447)
- Lian-Li A3-mITX case (can accomodate graphic cards up to at least 32cm)
- asrock b550M pro-4
- be quiet pure rock slim 3
- lian - li edge gold 850W PSU (I bought this as it was advertised SFF on galaxus but it is in fact a regular ATX, which still fits but prevents graphic cards of 32cm or larger, mine just barely fit).
The main difference with the steam machine is that it is larger, does not have HDMI-CEC (which turns on your TV automatically when the pc turns on, but I don’t mind), or the official valve support, but frankly, my experience with steamOS has been stellar, I’ve run it for multiple months and I really love it. But with the official steam controller (which I’m also waiting on) I’m sure my experience would be close enough to perfect for myself. Good luck!
You built a pc, don’t call it a steam machine, even if you are a zombie consumer.
Why not? It’s rubbing steam os. There were multiple versions of the original stream machine. It’s just a desktop computer running steam os
It is a very poorly specced pc, that is not easy to maintain, comes with a single dimm of ram, is overpriced, and contains proprietary parts. The steam machine is a significant step backwards for personal computing.
I think you may be looking at it wrong. Its less of a “pc” in the traditional sense and more of a console that you can tinker with/repair. Thats more what demographic its trying to appeal to.
I dont disagree that its overpriced, but that’s all computer parts or PC’s right now. Its certainly not perfect, but I don’t think its a step backwards at all. I think having more options for gamers to game on their couch is a good thing.
I haven’t seen anyone suggest Bazzite here so I will. Especially if you like racing titles, compatibility with most racing peripherals have better support under bazzite as its goal is to support the most devices it can while steam OS is purpose built for a few specific devices.
If you’re savvy enough to, check out some channels like eta prime on YouTube. Maybe that can inspire your purchase.
I personally run a minisforum BD 775Si motherboard with a mobile ryzen cpu in conjunction with a Radeon 7800xt sapphire nitro + as my Bazzite box for the past two years now and it’s been a pretty stellar experience.
Yeah VALVe seems not to like Switzerland, as no hardware has ever been released here. Additionally, they do not allow resellers, so you literally cannot buy it with proper warranty.
What I did with the Index was ask a friend in Germany to order and ship it to me. This time, I will use my legal entity in Estonia. Costs a bit of extra shipping and taxes, but there is no other option.
I’d suggest joining the EU.
Build one! If you’ve already got the money, building a computer is not as hard as it might seem. You can put SreamOS on there but Bazzite and CachyOS are good gaming options too.
As I’ve told others, ‘it’s like really expensive legos’. Cpu go in cpu hole. Ram go in ram hole. Nvme go in nvme hole. Success!
Accurate as long as you use something like pcpartpicker to ensure compatibility.
Yeah, I tell my friends to use pcpp for drafting builds, although the component list is not great for older stuff, or for server gear (I just rebuilt a server, and while they claim to list Supermicro boards, mine and variants didn’t show up, while it is a standard micro atx). So trying to research what to build around, say a mobo and cpu that you grabbed from a thrift shop, can be hard if you don’t know what specs and compatability to look for. For new typical builds though, it takes a lot of the confusion and worry out of it for new builders.
A few years ago now, I used pcpp to draft a friend’s first pc, get funding for the project, and then helped the friend + father from box to boot (and way beyond, but) over a video call, and the most either had done before was replace a gpu. Booted first try, too.
Legos! :D
“Oops, I ordered Duplo.”
A moment of silence for the fallen 😔
The only real reasons to get a Steam Machine are if:
- You really want your computer to be a 6" cube
- You really want HDMI CEC support
- You really want to give your money to Valve instead of some other company
Otherwise, something else will be cheaper and/or faster, at the cost of being a more normal desktop size and shape.
I haven’t had a prebuilt desktop since I was 15, so I would definitely build my own. (In other words, if the thing stopping you is being nervous about screwing it up, don’t be because it isn’t actually hard.)
Otherwise, I don’t have any specific prebuilt brand recommendations for you, but I’ll echo the advice to get something with a Radeon 9060 XT (or better). Alternatively, if you think you might want to do AI things with it too instead of just gaming, consider a small-form-factor PC with a fast APU and a lot of unified memory (e.g. like the Framework Desktop or Minisforum MS-S1 Max) or a Radeon RX 7900 XTX (with 24GB RAM), but be aware that those would be a lot more expensive right now.
Not op but to give my perspective, I’m not a computer person, and I’m on the waitlist for a steam machine for a few reasons:
- I’m terrified of breaking the expensive computer parts if I tried to build my own computer. That’s potentially a lot of money to waste
- I don’t even know enough about computers to know which parts are good. I’ve looked into it, and I could probably create a decent grocery list for myself, but I have no personal sense of what’s good or bad
- I want to switch to Linux gaming and the steam machine offers Linux gaming in a prebuilt package. I don’t have to download Linux or proton myself, or pick which distro I want to use. I want to just boot up the steam machine and have things work. (I got Kubuntu for myself on my laptop to try Linux but even that was scary for me. Progress takes time and the steam machine offers an easier learning curve)
- I get valve support if something doesn’t work or needs fixing
I’d like to one day get to the point where I can build my own computer and be confident on Linux. But for now, the steam machine offers an ease of access that I’m willing to pay more for. Hopefully the steam machine can inspire people who’ve never even considered trying Linux to give it a go on their other devices as well
Building a pc is no doubt scary if you are not used to it. It does make sense to own a pre-built first, just so you can become more familiar with the parts, but once you build, you are very unlikely to want a pre-built, and will also look at the specs of the steam machine and wonder why anyone would even consider it. Gaming is very easy on linux due to steam, you just install it and play games. Distro selection… well everyone has an opinion. I use Manjaro KDE because it is very user friendly.
I understand being intimidated. Under normal circumstances I’d say maybe try building a cheap computer for your first time, but there kinda aren’t any right now. That said, my first one was a reasonably high-end machine for the time, and it turned out fine.
I feel like the biggest sticking point is actually #2, not #1. I was the kind of kid who was obsessively reading tech magazines/websites/newspaper ad flyers and knew exactly what I wanted and where to get the best deal on it. So yeah, I definitely recommend doing your research first.
But good news: you’ve got it easy these days with YouTube showing you what to get and how to assemble it instead of having to read. The parts themselves are easier these days, too: no jumpers to set, and almost everything is keyed to only fit one way. Short of being really inept/careless and bending CPU pins or snapping the edge connector off a PCB or something, you’re not going to hurt anything.
The bottom line is, if you want to do it eventually you might as well do it now, because there really isn’t that much to it.
All good and valid points!
As you say, progress takes time, have a good journey!
Thank you!
