I was thinking about buying a Steam Machine, but its price has put me off. This PC seems like a better option to me

Yes, we already know the official prices of the Steam Machine. I really liked the concept of a tiny PC that I could have in the living room connected to the television, ideal for enjoying my gigantic Steam library (hello, digital Diogenes), but the price is much higher than expected. To contextualize it a little, its price is higher than that of PlayStation 5 Pro despite his last rise and its performance is quite far from the Sony console.

So, to be honest, I wouldn’t buy the new Steam device, even though I really like the idea and I love how well it works, for example, Steam Deck. For a little less, there are computers like this PC Neo that can offer similar performance and, although it loses the concept of a compact PC along the way, has many other strong points. It is available, by the way, for 999 euros.

NEO Gaming PC Ryzen 5 5500 RTX 5060 Ti SSD 1TB 32GB

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An alternative to the Steam Machine if you are looking for a conventional PC

We must start from the basis that they are two very different PCs (despite having a very similar price), but knowing that this Neobyte equipment can be a very good alternative if what you are looking for is to have a conventional PC to place in your setup with two monitors as is my case. First of all, let’s look at the prices of the Steam Machine in its different configurations to fully understand what the outlook looks like:

The processor used by this computer is an AMD Ryzen 5 5500. It has 6 cores and 12 threads like the one used by the Steam Machine, although what matters here is the architecture. In that sense, the Steam team’s CPU uses Zen 4 architecture and the Neobyte Zen 3 team, so the Steam Machine clearly takes the point there. The same does not happen on the graphics card.

As explained Digital Foundrythe graphical performance offered by the new Steam Machine is between an RX 6600 and an RX 7600 from AMD. Both GPUs are one step below PNY’s RTX 5060 Ti which uses the PC Neo that we are using in the comparison. Graphics card that, in addition, It is compatible with DLSS 4.5a technology that can help us have much better performance when playing.

And how are they doing by memory? The Steam Machine uses 16GB of DDR5 RAM in a single module, while the PC Neo comes with 32GB DDR4 memory. In addition, the most basic version of the Steam Machine (which costs 1,039 euros) has 512 GB of storage, while the other gaming PC has 1TB.

Finally, there is the issue of SteamOS, which is the basis on which the Steam Machine and Steam Deck are based. This operating system is comfortable to use and great for playing, offering the user an experience very similar to that of a console. Windows is not at that level, but we can use the Big Picture mode of the Steam app itself to achieve a result that, although not the same, provides a similar solution.

So which option is better? There is no easy, universal answer for everyone. Personally, I think this Neo PC from Neobyte is a better option. It will offer performance very similar to the Steam Machine, although with the advantage that we can change your graphics card or processor (or basically any component) in the future.

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PcCom Lite AMD Ryzen 5 5500 / 16GB / 1TB SSD / RTX 5060 V2 / Windows 11 Home

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COOLPC Black I – Ryzen 5 5500 / GeForce RTX 5060 8GB / 16GB DDR4 / SSD 500GB / W11

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Images | Steam, Artiom VallatNeobyte

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