Steam fans, it’s time to party. Valve’s Steam Deck has been a go-to for any gamer looking to take their Steam gaming library on the go, and now the company is looking to get folks back into their gaming chairs with a newly-announced PC and controller. This is in addition to the Steam Frame VR headset Valve revealed today, which should give gamers a highly impressive arsenal for everything related to its gaming platform.
The new Steam Machine is a small PC that’s going to be a desktop version of everything folks love about the Steam Deck, but with significantly more power. Promising to provide easy streaming connections, solid specs, and more, the new Steam Machine also has a few more tricks up its sleeve thanks to its compatibility with the new Steam Controller, which has its own surprises to offer.
Currently, there is no price set for either the Steam Machine or the Steam Controller, though fans can expect both devices to release sometime in 2026. Without a proper price tag at the current moment, don’t recycle your desktop gaming rig just yet, but there’s a lot under the hood of the Steam Machine that can potentially make this a must-have for certain gamers. From playing Xbox games remotely to even playing Nintendo Switch games, there’s a lot you can do with a Steam Deck, and it’ll be interesting to see if the Steam Machine has the same versatility.
Valve introduces the Steam Machine
Valve’s new Steam Machine is essentially the big brother to the handheld Steam Deck, especially as the company is promising six times the power of the handheld device. Under the hood, the Steam Machine has some rather impressive specs for a desktop device that sits just 6 inches tall. Even better, the power supply is built directly into the device, so you don’t have to worry about managing a giant power brick.
Running on SteamOS –- though Valve claims you can install other operating systems and apps -– the Steam Machine boasts a “semi-custom” AMD Zen 4 6-core CPU with up 4.8 GHz speeds alongside a semi-custom AMD RDNA 3 GPU with 28CUs and sustained clock speeds of 2.45GHz. For RAM, you get 16GB of DDR5 alongside 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM. Users can choose between a 512GB or 2TB NVMe SSD for storage, though both options include a microSD card slot.
For displays, the Steam Machine comes equipped with a single DisplayPort 1.4 capable of up to 4K at 240Hz or 8K at 60Hz, though folks can also utilize the HDMI 2.0 port with up to 4K at 120Hz connection and support for CEC, FreeSync, and HDR. There are also plenty of USB ports, including two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports on the front and two USB-A 2.0 and a single USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 on the back. Only time will tell if you’ll be able to use the USB-C port the same as you can use a Steam Deck’s USB-C port.
New Steam Controller and more
Along with the introduction of the new Steam Machine, Valve also presented its new Steam Controller, which connects to the PC’s built-in 2.4GHz wireless adapter and works with the Steam Deck as well. The Steam Controller features four assignable grip buttons, L & R analog triggers and bumpers, A/B/Y/X buttons, and a D-pad. This is also on top two full-size thumbsticks with capacitive touch, four haptic motors, and two square trackpads that are configurable for click strength. The device also includes Grip Sense, a different type of input method that provides gyro features along with capacitive touch.
The new controller is charged via USB-C and the device itself promises up to 35 hours of battery life. Along with USB charging, the Steam Controller also has a new Steam Controller Puck that connects via USB-C and can link up to four controllers per device while also acting as a charging connector for a single controller.
Though some may find the 8GB of VRAM available on the Steam Machine to be rather disappointing, the fact that the device will be capable of linking to other devices -– such as the Steam Deck -– via Steam Link may win them over. Should they not find it sufficient, Valve is also going to start providing ratings for Steam Machine, giving specific games a rating in order for gamers to best understand how it may run on the new device. We hope to learn more about both products as we get closer to a more specific release date.
