---
title: 'Building a PC to BEAT the STEAM Machine!'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=zvaO4DPM1ZM'
video_id: 'zvaO4DPM1ZM'
date: 2026-06-23
duration_sec: 1063
---

# Building a PC to BEAT the STEAM Machine!

> Source: [Building a PC to BEAT the STEAM Machine!](https://youtube.com/watch?v=zvaO4DPM1ZM)

## Summary

The video compares the Steam Machine—a console-like PC from Valve—to a custom-built desktop PC at the same $1,050 price point. The goal was to see if a DIY build could outperform the Steam Machine in gaming while retaining some of its unique features. After careful part selection, the custom PC shows clear performance advantages in benchmarks, though with some compromises like lack of HDMI CEC support.

### Key Points

- **Steam Machine Price Critique** [[0:00]] — The Steam Machine launched at nearly double the price of a more performant console, but the video moves past that to build a better PC at the same $1,050 price.
- **CPU Selection** [[0:45]] — Chose Ryzen 5 7500F with six Zen 4 cores and 12 threads, similar to Valve's CPU but draws nearly as much power as the entire Steam Machine under light gaming.
- **Motherboard Deal** [[1:29]] — Found an mATX ASRock board with Wi-Fi for $130 due to low sales volumes, offering expandability with future CPU/GPU slots.
- **RAM Decision** [[3:01]] — Used a 16GB DDR5 kit at 6,000 MT/s CL36 for $60, choosing DDR5 over cheaper DDR4 because new AM4 CPU prices are unattractive.
- **Storage Choice** [[5:30]] — Selected a 512GB Adata Legend SSD for $85, planning to upgrade later when storage prices drop.
- **Case Value** [[6:03]] — Found a Zalman case for $30 with USB-C and three fans, an exceptional value due to market desperation pricing.
- **GPU Highlight** [[8:38]] — Chose Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 9600 XT 16GB for $430, offering double the VRAM and newer architecture than the Steam Machine.
- **Missing Features** [[9:53]] — The custom PC lacks HDMI CEC and cannot power on from a Steam controller, key trade-offs for the higher performance.
- **Gaming Performance Lead** [[12:03]] — In FF7 Remake at 4K high, the custom PC runs 50% faster than the Steam Machine.
- **Sleep/Resume Comparison** [[14:30]] — Sleep and resume works perfectly on custom PC, but the Steam Machine sometimes has bugs that affect frame rates after resume.

## Transcript

The Steam Machine just crash-landed on
the market at nearly double the price of
a more performant console. Truly,
it was a dark day for PC gamers.
But
that was yesterday, and today is a new
day. So, rather than carrying a rational
grudge towards an inanimate object,
we're going to move on. And okay, PC
parts, they're not as affordable as we'd
like right now, but if we start with the
price of Valve's latest box, which is
$1,050,
we're going to build a PC that dunks the
performance of the GameCube without,
hopefully, giving up too many of the
creature comforts that make it so
unique. Although we will be giving up
some.
For example, at first glance, our CPU,
the Ryzen 5 7500F, looks nearly
identical to Valve's. Six Zen 4 cores,
12 threads, and even similar boost
clocks.
But the devil's in the details, and to
keep power consumption and noise
extremely low, Valve chose a more
expensive mobile CPU, meaning that
our CPU alone draws nearly as much power
as the entire Steam Machine in a light
gaming workload. With that said though,
we're still talking 65 W, which I don't
think is a major concern for most
desktop users. And the same goes,
hopefully, for size. To find a
motherboard,
we fired up Newegg, filtered by B850
chipset and Wi-Fi, and then sorted by
price.
The PC hardware industry is kind of
struggling with sales volumes right now.
So, if you shop around, you can actually
find some pretty desperate-looking
pricing on motherboards, like this mATX
ASRock board with Wi-Fi for $130,
or if you're willing to go even bigger
to full-size ATX, we tracked down this
board with Wi-Fi 7 for just 130 US
dollars including shipping on Newegg
Canada.
What a freaking deal. We didn't go with
that one though since most folks trying
to build something more console like are
probably going to go a bit smaller than
that. So we grabbed an MATX board for
our demo build here. The exact model is
not too important. It doesn't impact
performance much these days. So don't
overthink it. Just pick a motherboard
that has the IO and the features that
work best with your [music] budget. No
matter what you choose though, it is
worth noting your system will be larger
than the Steam Machine but it should
offer greater expandability with a
socket for future CPUs, a PCI Express
Gen 5 slot for future GPUs, not to
mention extra slots for both storage
drives and for other add-in cards. This
expandability gives us the ability to
match Valve's many antenna approach for
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and their Steam
Controller in the future, [music]
but we opted not to spend our budget on
dedicated cards and we're just going to
stick with our onboard Wi-Fi.
Now for the most painful part,
RAM.
Once again, we filtered and sorted by
price choosing a dual channel 16 gig kit
of DDR5 running at 6,000 [music]
megatransfers per second CL36.
This may be a controversial choice, but
hear me out.
While DDR4 can be had for less than half
of the price of DDR5, RAM is just 1/3 of
the platform triforce and we found that
while DDR4 motherboards can be had for
cheap,
>> [music]
>> the AM4 CPUs that go in them are in such
high demand that brand new pricing for
them is just not that attractive.
Especially when you consider their last
last generation performance. [music] Now
if we were scrap yard warring this and
we were buying second hand like we have
with our previous console killer
machines, DDR4 would likely have been
the better choice.
But we've seen your feedback that many
[music] of you would prefer if we do
these with all new hardware. And in this
case, we felt that due to the pricing of
the Steam machine, that was doable. Just
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With storage prices being as high as
they are right now, I think a lot of
folks are going to be looking at the 512
gig Steam machine today and then plan to
upgrade that in the future once things
cool down. That seems wise. So, we went
spelunking for the cheapest half
terabyte we could find
with a warranty from a reputable
company, which this week happened to be
an Adata Legend for $85.
Would I rather have something with a
DRAM cache and or a more modern PCIe Gen
4 interface?
Yes.
Yes, I would. Either of those things
would give our drive a longer, more
productive life. But, for gaming,
this is hopefully going to allow us to
wait out the storm. Continuing today's
theme, to find a case, we sorted mATX
cases by price and
were pleasantly surprised. Zalman used
to be a mainstay in the enthusiast air
and water cooling space, but in recent
years has made a name for themselves
offering up exceptional value on cases.
And the Qubik's G here is no exception.
$30 for USB-C, three included fans, and
two tempered glass panels?
Desperation pricing strikes again.
And the good news is if Zalman regains
their sanity by the time you're
shopping, there's also the good
old-fashioned Cooler Master Q300L for
just $10 more. It is a worse case than
the Zalman one, but it can be reliably
found for like 40 bucks. So, happy case
shopping. For our part, we're just going
to be throwing our parts onto a test
bench since the case doesn't impact
performance at all.
Our cooler is a bit of a tricky one.
See, that ASRock board that we
highlighted before actually came with a
free Cooler Master Hyper 212, but then
by the time we actually filmed this,
that offer had expired. So, the budget
for it is kind of Schrödinger's $20.
Until you go shopping for yourself,
you're both spending it and not spending
it.
Either way, if you don't get a Hyper 212
for free, there are a lot of other great
options in this $20 price range from
brands like be quiet!, Sama, and
Thermalright.
I know that it can make shopping a
little bit more complicated, but that
free cooler is not the only place that
we saved money by shopping deals. On top
of the low cost of the parts we chose,
we saved an extra $50 by targeting
combos. Now, there are trade-offs to
this approach. Sometimes it can be a
better value to buy all of your parts
from different retailers one by one. But
other times, it's better to just bundle
up and send it even if you don't get
quite exactly the thing you wanted.
Speaking of not quite the thing we
wanted, sadly, we didn't find any great
deals on a power supply. So, we budgeted
about $65 for you to get something
that's not completely bunk and that will
accommodate some of the upgrades that
our custom PC allows here. If you're
looking for a power supply, just find
something that's a good price and then
cross-reference against the labs website
or one of these super handy PSU tier
lists. We found that this MSI MEG A650BN
had a rating of C, which is
not great, but
it is technically a pass.
You know what's going to do more than
pass though?
This GPU. The Sapphire Pulse Radeon 9600
XT 16 gig edition features double the
VRAM of the Steam Machine. It has a
whole generation newer architecture with
vastly improved ray tracing and we got
it for $430,
which
is a lot of money. I would have actually
loved to be able to recommend an Intel
Arc B580 for $290,
but
while Valve is working on seamless
operation with Intel cards, for now,
Steam OS works best with AMD. If you're
ready to venture outside of Steam OS,
Bazzite and Catchy OS are popular
distros that can offer a better
experience with a wider range of
hardware but
we're trying to build a Steam Machine
killer, not a DIY Linux gaming machine.
With that last component installed,
overall, we're looking really good right
now. We've got a faster CPU with bigger
caches, twice as much VRAM on our GPU,
we've got more expansion. I mean, as the
great philosopher and poet DJ Khaled
said, "All I do is win, win, win, no
matter what."
But,
okay, sometimes I do take big fat L's,
and there are a couple that we've got to
talk about here.
Without Valve's specialized hardware, we
are not getting support for HDMI CEC.
That means no automatic synchronization
between my
console here and my TV, audio system,
etc., etc. Also, while I do benefit from
Valve's quick resume feature, and I
>> [music]
>> can wake the system up from a, you know,
USB peripheral, what I can't do is power
on from a Steam controller at this time.
Oh, right. And, of course, for better or
for worse, we had to spec it, build it,
and now we have to configure it to get
the most out of it. And, if it doesn't
boot, we're on the hook for figuring out
why. But, it will, right?
Everything's showing up. All we got to
do is activate expo,
save,
and we should fire up right into Steam
OS. Now, it's time for our side-by-side
comparison. David will be gaming on the
Steam Machine, and I will be gaming on
the
Vapor Contrabption.
Here we get
>> Wait. You're going to need a controller,
and thankfully, Valve gave us a ton of
room in our budget.
>> All right. Yes, it's not cheap.
>> It's 100 bucks stand-alone, 70 bucks if
you get it bundled with your console.
So, for 65 bucks, I'm going with the
Vader 5 Pro, uh a controller that I
really enjoy. It's 80 bucks MSRP, but 65
bucks on the street. This thing rocks.
>> Yeah, this is the like Goku skin one,
but you can save 10 bucks by going with
the black one. It doesn't have track
pads. I'm sorry, I don't use them. I
don't mind that.
How could you?
What do we want to start with?
>> Let's start with Final Fantasy VII
Remake.
>> Okay, let's do [music] it.
Right out of the gate in Final Fantasy
VII Remake, it is close.
You're within the 8 gigs of VRAM of the
Steam Machine,
>> Mhm.
>> but that GPU is just plain not as
powerful.
>> This is a fairly well optimized section
of the game, too. I was seeing drops to
like 30, sub 30 sometimes in other
parts.
>> Both systems are running high 4K with no
upscaling, though. So, in fairness to
the Steam Machine,
it's not like it can't run the game. It
just doesn't run it as well.
Let's move over to something that we can
sort of play around with the settings on
a little bit more. How about 007? This
is going to be the apples-to-apples
comparison.
4K medium quality, FSR set to quality,
motion blur off.
That's another big fat win for the Vapor
Contraption.
This is not close. I mean, I'm running
50% faster.
>> Well, I'm curious how low my settings
need to go to match your performance.
>> Sure.
>> Can I leave that low?
Low.
>> Okay, come on. That's got to be enough.
That's got to be enough.
>> Even that's not enough?
>> That's got to be enough.
That's not enough.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.
I I think we're right on par now. In
fairness,
that's a pretty decent-looking game at
low settings.
But, you can really see how they're
using some cheats, right? Like, there's
a lot more of sort of Vaseline smear
cinematic out of focus on yours.
When actually that's just clearly a hack
for the
lower view distance and lower texture
quality.
And yeah, especially if we look out over
here.
>> Hey.
>> Oh, yeah. I've got way more sharpness in
the details on the hills.
>> It's certainly playable on this side,
>> Oh, yeah.
>> if I had to pick between the two, I it's
no contest.
>> How's our main character? Cuz that tends
to be where they'll they'll cheap out
last.
Yeah.
>> Not too different. Like, you're sharper
cuz you have more internal resolution.
>> Yeah, but it's not by that much. This is
a clear win, but one that I don't think
is going to be that impactful for a lot
of gamers.
Oh, this would be an interesting one for
us to
put the machines to sleep and then
resume.
>> 2 1 go.
Oh.
>> All right.
>> I'm doing pretty good.
>> Holy schnikes.
>> Oh, you're doing really good.
>> [laughter]
>> This is a no offense markedly smoother
experience than what I'm looking at over
there.
>> That being said, I'm still above 100
frames. I would never say this is
anything but a good experience.
>> I mean, here, touch my stick.
>> Huh?
Oh, that's better.
>> [laughter]
>> That's smoother, yeah.
>> That doesn't even look like 100 FPS to
me.
>> No, I
>> I wonder if the sleep and resume didn't
work properly. You know what's ironic? I
was expecting the Steam machine to
actually have an advantage in sleep and
resume but
it works perfectly on here. Other than
that, I can't wake it up with my
controller. Like check this out. By the
time David troubleshoots this, I can
probably put my machine to sleep and off
and wake it.
And I'm back in game and running
smoothly.
>> Way smoother.
Oh, I thought this was going to be like
the one time I got to be like, "Steam
machines are really good use case for
indie games."
And it's I think it still is. It's just
not as good a use case.
>> Yeah, wait, you're locked at 60 now.
>> Yeah.
>> What the heck?
>> Maybe it's worth doing a reboot.
>> Yeah.
>> What? Now I'm getting to 250 frames.
>> Okay, that's more like what I would
expect.
>> Yeah, me too.
>> [laughter]
>> Way smoother.
>> So, we may have found a bug. Sometimes
when the quick resume borks, it seems to
bork more [music] than just your resume
speed.
>> Yeah.
It's good to know that it can get
better. And this is pre-release
software. I expect Valve to fix it, but
>> They're not going to be able to fix this
performance delta.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Yeah, you have over 200 frames per
second, but yeah, I have over 300 frames
per second.
>> [laughter]
>> Both will provide a very good indie
gaming experience.
>> Some just better than others.
This is a game that I'm expecting to
look a lot better on mine.
>> I fully agree.
>> All right.
Here we are. Oh, yikes.
>> Neither of these look very good.
>> [laughter]
>> I mean, some of them look more or less
gooder than others.
>> Well, you have much more performance
headroom too, if you wanted to tweak.
I'm barely hanging on above 30.
>> While it is clear that for the same
price, you can build a much more
powerful PC than the Steam Machine for
gaming, you will be making some
compromises.
Some can be addressed, like we could
have cut down our GPU slightly for a
better quality SSD.
But some of them can't be addressed,
like the complete lack of CEC control.
And for some people, those conveniences
are more important than raw performance.
And for some people,
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If you guys enjoyed this video, hey, go
check out our full review of the Steam
Machine where we dived a little bit
deeper into the performance as well as
some of the features that make this
machine legitimately
completely unique on the market.