<story><title>Steam Hardware pre-order</title><url>http://store.steampowered.com/hardware</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ekianjo</author><text>&amp;gt; The existing Alienware Alpha (which is basically what the SteamOS box is) benches about the same as an Nvidia GTX 750Ti, which outpowers both the XBox One and the PS4. It should have no problem matching or exceeding either console&amp;#x27;s performance, just like the existing Alpha.&lt;p&gt;Except that it runs on Linux, which has less performing drivers than on Windows, and Linux ports are usually far less optimized than their Windows counterparts as well (which is not hard to understand since most games are made with DX in mind).</text></item><item><author>jcastro</author><text>The existing Alienware Alpha (which is basically what the SteamOS box is) benches about the same as an Nvidia GTX 750Ti, which outpowers both the XBox One and the PS4. It should have no problem matching or exceeding either console&amp;#x27;s performance, just like the existing Alpha.&lt;p&gt;The debut price is about the same as the PS4&amp;#x2F;XBone, but doesn&amp;#x27;t include the monthly fee for multiplayer, and if you look at the long-term total cost of ownership it&amp;#x27;s cheaper than a console, especially when you consider that in the future you can upgrade to new hardware without rebuying your games, which consoles cannot guarantee.</text></item><item><author>cwyers</author><text>The low-end Alienware box has specs that don&amp;#x27;t meet the minimum requirements for Batman Arkham Knight, one of the few AAA titles coming out this year that supports SteamOS. And it costs more than either the Xbox One or Playstation 4, both of which will run Arkham Knight fine. I think Steam Machines are a failure waiting to happen. PC enthusiasts can get a Steam Link for $50 for most of the benefits of this. And people who aren&amp;#x27;t PC enthusiasts have no reason to buy these over a console.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jcastro</author><text>Steam Machines don&amp;#x27;t compete with Windows, they&amp;#x27;re complementary to existing Windows machines (game streaming); they directly compete with Xbox&amp;#x2F;PS4.&lt;p&gt;Most Steam Machines are Nvidia based, which makes sense, they have the best drivers, and they&amp;#x27;re generally 1:1 as performant as their windows drivers. I have a GTX970 in my Ubuntu machine and it rocks, supports my gsync monitor and everything; trumping console performance is pretty much a no-brainer with modern nvidia maxwell stuff...</text></comment>
<story><title>Steam Hardware pre-order</title><url>http://store.steampowered.com/hardware</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ekianjo</author><text>&amp;gt; The existing Alienware Alpha (which is basically what the SteamOS box is) benches about the same as an Nvidia GTX 750Ti, which outpowers both the XBox One and the PS4. It should have no problem matching or exceeding either console&amp;#x27;s performance, just like the existing Alpha.&lt;p&gt;Except that it runs on Linux, which has less performing drivers than on Windows, and Linux ports are usually far less optimized than their Windows counterparts as well (which is not hard to understand since most games are made with DX in mind).</text></item><item><author>jcastro</author><text>The existing Alienware Alpha (which is basically what the SteamOS box is) benches about the same as an Nvidia GTX 750Ti, which outpowers both the XBox One and the PS4. It should have no problem matching or exceeding either console&amp;#x27;s performance, just like the existing Alpha.&lt;p&gt;The debut price is about the same as the PS4&amp;#x2F;XBone, but doesn&amp;#x27;t include the monthly fee for multiplayer, and if you look at the long-term total cost of ownership it&amp;#x27;s cheaper than a console, especially when you consider that in the future you can upgrade to new hardware without rebuying your games, which consoles cannot guarantee.</text></item><item><author>cwyers</author><text>The low-end Alienware box has specs that don&amp;#x27;t meet the minimum requirements for Batman Arkham Knight, one of the few AAA titles coming out this year that supports SteamOS. And it costs more than either the Xbox One or Playstation 4, both of which will run Arkham Knight fine. I think Steam Machines are a failure waiting to happen. PC enthusiasts can get a Steam Link for $50 for most of the benefits of this. And people who aren&amp;#x27;t PC enthusiasts have no reason to buy these over a console.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>girvo</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; Except that it runs on Linux, which has less performing drivers than on Windows&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thats... not &lt;i&gt;quite&lt;/i&gt; true, interestingly enough. Excuse the ZDNet link: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.zdnet.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;valve-linux-runs-our-games-faster-than-windows-7&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.zdnet.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;valve-linux-runs-our-games-fast...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>