Valve’s unveiling of the Steam Machine has many of us excited about the yet-to-be-released gaming PC. Rocking an AMD Zen 4 CPU, an AMD RDNA 3 GPU, and up to 16GB of RAM, the box-shaped hardware isn’t slated to hit shelves until sometime in 2026 — giving gamers plenty of time to obsess over specs and the arrival of Steam’s new VR headset, announced alongside the Steam Machine.
That said, some of us are already a bit baffled by an elephant in the room: The Steam Machine’s HDMI is only 2.0-certified. For those unaware, HDMI 2.1 has been available since 2017, and is the type of connection you’ll find on modern consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, as well as many gaming PC graphic cards. It’s definitely odd that Valve’s new gaming rig is classed as a 2.0 device, but oh, how the plot thickens.
Looking closer at the Steam Machine’s specs, one will see that the HDMI 2.0 port delivers up to 4K/120Hz and supports HDR, FreeSync, and CEC. Those are all HDMI 2.1 specs — which technically means the Steam PC is HDMI 2.1-compatible. The only reason the new hardware can’t boast the official 2.1 classification is that the HDMI Forum will not allow HDMI 2.1 on Linux devices, the OS that powers all Steam hardware.
HDMI 2.0, or HDMI 2.1 in disguise?
Does this mean you’ll be able to connect the Steam Machine to an HDMI 2.1 port on a 4K TV without issue? The truth is, we really don’t know, at least not until we get to test it. But we do know that Steam’s latest hardware will also boast a DisplayPort 1.4 connection, an alternative some users may opt for when hooking up the Machine to a PC monitor. On paper, DisplayPort 1.4 beats HDMI 2.0 in terms of bandwidth capabilities, with the former supporting up to 32.4Gbps and the latter delivering just 18Gbps.
None of this is to say that gamers still won’t get excellent performance from the Steam Machine’s HDMI 2.0 port, which looks to be an HDMI 2.1 in disguise. 4K/60Hz and even 1440p/120Hz are still visually stunning, and that’s before features like FreeSync enter the equation. Still, because we’re forced to contend with the HDMI 2.0 label, some gamers may end up judging the port by standards it doesn’t really belong to anymore.
While the Steam Machine’s HDMI port may be going through a bit of an identity crisis, the Steam Deck’s USB-C port has numerous tricks up its sleeve, and they’re all happy surprises.
