Modders give the Steam Machine a Radeon eGPU and water cooling, because why not

[Daniel Sims]

In brief: The Steam Machine's software is fully customizable, allowing users to install non-Steam apps and even different operating systems. However, the living-room PC's locked-down hardware is far from high-end, an issue some users have addressed with ambitious modifications.

Two recent modding projects aim to substantially boost the Steam Machine's performance. One modder discovered a roundabout method of adding external graphics, while another built a water block from scratch to achieve dramatically lower temperatures.

Valve's Linux PC offers a comfortable living-room experience with a controller-friendly interface and a tiny form factor, but its 8GB RDNA 3-based graphics card struggles with high-end games, especially on 4K TVs. Most other desktop PCs would allow users to resolve the issue via upgrades, but the Steam Machine's unique chassis makes this significantly more complicated.

For example, many likely wish that Valve had included external graphics support out of the box. Handheld PCs from other manufacturers can be docked into high-end desktop graphics cards via USB4, OCuLink, or Thunderbolt 5 ports, none of which the Steam Machine includes.

However, Redditor "Large_Customer_3840" successfully connected an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT to the device by running its M.2 drive through an OCuLink adapter. Since the Steam Machine's sole M.2 drive manages the system's boot storage, he had to reroute the NVMe SSD through a USB-C adapter.

While the process introduces some quirks, Large_Customer claims that the PC booted up immediately. The new GPU ran Crimson Desert at between 40 and 100fps on high settings at 1440p, though there were audio glitches, likely related to SSD bandwidth. The modder recommends that anyone else interested in repeating the process seek an NVMe enclosure with active cooling and at least 40Gbps of bandwidth.

Meanwhile, a recent video (above) from German YouTuber Techmagnet outlines how to completely disassemble the Steam Machine and insert a custom-built water block. A subsequent video on Reddit shows the construction of the water block using 3D-printed components.

While the process leaves large tubes protruding from the Steam Machine, Techmagnet claims it lowers temperatures by 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. However, using the extra headroom for overclocking would require a custom BIOS. With additional work, water cooling the SSD might also be possible.

Ultimately, the Steam Machine's biggest weakness is its price, which starts at $1,049 due to soaring memory costs. While the RAM crisis has affected virtually every hardware manufacturer, Valve was particularly vulnerable due to its relatively small presence in the hardware market. Still, the company is selling as many Steam Machines as it can build, and new orders are currently waitlisted.

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Modders give the Steam Machine a Radeon eGPU and water cooling, because why not

 

[yRaz]

Off all the things that bothered me about the steam machine, the lack of an extra m.2 drive was one of them. I hardly keep anything on my boot drive and try to run everything from a second drive. This mostly came from the habit of "restoring from an image is easier and faster than fixing the problem" and guess where I would keep that image? And while I could partition the drive, having a second physical hard drive insulates me from catastrophic failure and I have had a boat load of hard drives laying around since basically the early 2000s

And as this article has shown, an m.2 port is just a PCIe 4x connection.

I'm fine with the SMs other features, it's perform is fine, not good, but fine. It's price is an unfortunate consequence of the market we are in but most of the people I see complaining about it are either gaming elitists and their opinion doesn't apply to midranges hardware or AI tech bro investors. And to the AI tech bros, of you're getting so rich off of AI then why does it matter what the steam machine costs?

 

[m4a4]

Off all the things that bothered me about the steam machine, the lack of an extra m.2 drive was one of them. I hardly keep anything on my boot drive and try to run everything from a second drive. This mostly came from the habit of "restoring from an image is easier and faster than fixing the problem" and guess where I would keep that image? And while I could partition the drive, having a second physical hard drive insulates me from catastrophic failure and I have had a boat load of hard drives laying around since basically the early 2000s

And as this article has shown, an m.2 port is just a PCIe 4x connection.

I'm fine with the SMs other features, it's perform is fine, not good, but fine. It's price is an unfortunate consequence of the market we are in but most of the people I see complaining about it are either gaming elitists and their opinion doesn't apply to midranges hardware or AI tech bro investors. And to the AI tech bros, of you're getting so rich off of AI then why does it matter what the steam machine costs?

I get what you mean with leaving the boot drive to not have your main data/programs.
But then my response to not having another NVMe drive directly attached would be to just use the USB-C (10 Gbps) at the back. Unless I'm missing something, that's more than fast enough for storage for a livingroom PC.

Or, because it isn't my main machine, just not worry about it. Nothing important would be lost if the drive was to die. Just treat it like a console lol

 

[yRaz]

I get what you mean with leaving the boot drive to not have your main data/programs.
But then my response to not having another NVMe drive directly attached would be to just use the USB-C (10 Gbps) at the back. Unless I'm missing something, that's more than fast enough for storage for a livingroom PC.

Or, because it isn't my main machine, just not worry about it. Nothing important would be lost if the drive was to die. Just treat it like a console lol

You jagoff, you just gave me a reason to put 10gig on all the gaming machines in my house and build a performance gaming NAS. I already have 2 25gig ports on my router

 

[m4a4]

You jagoff, you just gave me a reason to put 10gig on all the gaming machines in my house and build a performance gaming NAS. I already have 2 25gig ports on my router

Lol, now you're over thinking it!

 

[yRaz]

Lol, now you're over thinking it!

You're lucky I'm thinking at all!

 

[Watzupken]

The 2 biggest fail of the Steam Machine are,
1. 1x M2 slot. This is not a handheld console, so I cannot understand why they cannot add a second M2 slot.

2. Ease of upgrade. Steam made a conscious decision to gimp the machine by populating only 1 of the 2 RAM slot. Then at least make it easier to upgrade the RAM. It is likely they were forced to just populate 1 ram slot due to the current shortages, but I think it is also quite short sighted to make upgrades so difficult.