Linux-based Steam Box would be epic

[sub]Gaben at LinuxCon

Apparently there's a rumor that the Steam Box (or something similar) is going to be announced next week.

I don't really care about rumors, but the Steam Box gets my jollies off.

I'm hoping for a 65W GT3e part in there, but Kaveri wouldn't be bad. We've only seen Kaveri motherboards so far, but Gigabyte has announced a BRIX PC with Iris Pro 5200. Since that's only available in the 65W GT3e CPUs, then it may be an indicator of their impending presence!

If Apple has finally stopped swallowing all of the GT3 & Crystalwell supply, then we may see more machines like the BRIX or Steam Box with kickass iGPUs!

Is anyone else getting a little stiff thinking of a Steam Box?[/sub]



I was teh wrongzars.

I expected the Steam Box to be announced this week. Instead, Valve is going for software with SteamOS.



It's basically gaming-optimized Linux. But it's Gaben-approved, so fuck all you haters.

Up-Date Part Deux



Bewm, hardware via Steam Machines.

Win one of 300 beta machines by following the link and doing a bunch of shit.

ove: Gaben is going to reinvent controllers next.



Mmmmmm, dem uhpdaitzzzz

Not worth a thread, but purdy hawt...



Apparently Gigabyte fit a 170W 760 into that box.



The TechReport said that the sales rep was emphatic that it was the desktop 760, not the 760m. Anandtech (and other sane folk) have their doubts. The 760m has a more reasonable 55W TDP.

55W plus the 47W from the CPU is a clean 100W. Still a large amount more than the 65W put off by Candles' version of BRIX. Trying to cool >220W with a desktop 760 would be pretty ridiculous.

Even if it uses a 760m, it's still a pretty shitty config. I get that mobile parts provide better thermals and that chassis is thermally challenged, but why not use GM107? And the CPU, yes, two higher clocked cores will beat 4 lower clocked cores in most gaming loads, but surely they could've saved a little cash by using a desktop CPU without sacrificing performance. The power savings from Maxwell probably would've handled any increase in thermals from the CPU. Equivalent (or slightly higher) performance for less money (unless Maxwell is bonkers pricey) and the same thermal budget.

 

The fuck is a steambox?

 

Gaben's console.

 

Et tu, Gaben?

 

Such a little steam box would be a nice thing to replace your desktop PC with, IF IT WASNT RUNNING LINUX.

 

But, but muh /root .

Still better than macshit though.

 

I feel the same way, Microsoft is a cult.

 

my need for qts keeps me on windows. Can't get girls using gentoo.

 

All the girls flock to Mint users.

 

Yeah, I'm interested as well.

Xi3's aptly named "Piston" PC is like $1000, but it only has an embedded version of ~35W Trinity.



If Gaben can provide a ~$400 GT3e-based Steam Box, then I'll cum buckets.

Yeah, I think there's a quote of Gaben saying that this Steam Box movement is to cheapen PC gaming and provide a nice supplementary home theater gaming rig.

 

All things considered, I can easily see Valve selling the console itself at a strong loss and using the power of Steam sales to make the profit. I could see them selling itself for a loss of more than 50$, maybe more than 100$ per and easily making the rest up from the games themselves because of how much control they have over the actual distribution and selling of the games.

 

Which is exactly what Sony is doing with the PS4, and what they had to end up doing with the PS3. Actually I think all next gen consoles are sold at a loss but the price is made up through the sale of eksbawks live/Sony Plus memberships.

 

Yeah, that's why they might get a decent price on it.

 

The main difference between this and the other consoles is how much easier it will be, I presume, to buy games for it and how powerful the Steam store is. I'm thinking Valve could safely sell the console itself for even more of a loss than the other console manufacturers could because of that.

 

But since Gaben doesn't do hardware r&d every day, costs might be higher than those for the consoles. Perhaps they'd be high enough to negate any aggressive pricing that valve could do.

There's a lot that we don't know.

 

But he does hire electrical engineers to do that kind of work for him. When Valve does something, it either does it live, or it does it slowly and meticulously. I get the feeling this would be more of the slow and meticulous way.

 

Up-Date!

No SteamBox, Linux-based SteamOS instead.