14 DAY TRIAL // Valve is committed to releasing a new console / PC, and if the price point is similar to the one used by iBuyPower with its prototype, it would make Linux and Steam true contenders for Microsoft and Sony. The battle for the gamers' attention is slowly moving away from the PC desk to the couch in the living-room. The undisputed champions are now Microsoft, with its Xbox line-up, and Sony with PlayStation. Things might change a bit when a new “player” comes to visit, that is Valve's Steam Machines.
A new report is now saying that a new Steam Machine prototype built by iBuyPower features some interesting hardware characteristics and a very good price point that would put it in the same category as the newly launched consoles, Xbox One and PlayStation 3.
The proposed price for the iBuyPower' Steam Machine is $499 (€367) and it comes with an undisclosed AMD CPU (with multiple cores), an AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card, a 500 GB hard disk, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Valve has already released some guidelines for the hardware specs proposed for the upcoming Steam Machines and it is looking into far more powerful machines that will primarily be running with Intel and NVIDIA hardware.
Valve will also ship 300 prototypes and this is its hardware:
- GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660 - CPU: some boxes with Intel : i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3 - RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB DDR5 (GPU) - Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD - Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold - Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high
If prototypes, like the one from iBuyPower, manage to stay in direct competition (from a quality point of view) with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, while providing a huge array of games from the Steam library, Valve and its Linux-based SteamOS will soon rule the living-room.