Valve's Steam Machine may cost more than today's Steam Deck OLED

[midian182]

Rumor mill: It's the most debated question in the gaming community right now: how much is Valve going to charge for the Steam Machine when it finally arrives? The answer, according to a reliable leaker, is probably a lot more than you'd think.

Brad Lynch, who has a history of Valve-related leaks, posted a concerning warning on X yesterday.

"Take this with a grain of salt, because it was just whispers in my ear But back when I was told a figure for what Valve's estimated price they'd have to set the starting price of Steam Machine, it was still higher than today's Steam Deck prices.. And that was 2 months ago."

– Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) May 27, 2026

Yesterday brought the welcome news that the Steam Deck OLED was finally back in stock, but it came with an unfortunate caveat: the price of the 512GB variant has risen from $549 to $789, while the 1TB model has climbed from $649 to $949 – a hefty $300 increase.

Even when it was first announced in 2025, there were questions over the Steam Machine's price and whether it would offer a compelling value proposition compared to a similar PC. And that was before the memory crisis really took hold.

Lynch does include the "take it with a grain of salt" warning in his post, but there are plenty of reasons to believe what he says. Since memory manufactures started allocating production to the high-margin AI industry (the RAMpires, as Linus' Riley Murdoch put it), we've seen price hikes on RAM kits, SSDs, laptops, GPUs, consoles, and more.

When Valve announced the Steam Machine, 16GB of DDR5 would have cost about $50, about the same price as a 512GB SSD. Today, the cheapest single stick of DDR5-4800 on Newegg is priced around $150-$200.

In our This is Why You Won't Buy a Steam Machine in 2026 feature, we estimate that in order for Valve to make a profit on the Linux PC, it would likely have to charge at least $800, if not $900. Based on Lynch's tweet, it's possible that the 2TB Steam Machine model will be $999 or more. That's going to be a hard sell to PC fans for a machine with 16GB of DDR5 and 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM.

A recent report from Insider Gaming claimed that Valve has been "going back and forth internally on pricing and whether they would be willing to take a loss on the cost, at least in the short term." That could be the company's best option right now.

Back in March, Valve insisted that the Steam Machine was still on track to launch this year, though its self-imposed deadline of shipping it in the first half of 2026 is about to pass.

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Valve's Steam Machine may cost more than today's Steam Deck OLED

 

[yRaz]

Wow, in the era of hardware costing 3x as much as it did 6 months ago, the steam machine is more expensive than expected. I can't wait to see the comments saying it isn't worth it and valve should eat the cost.

Short business lesson. Unless you're an AI company with a money furnace, businesses don't make money by selling products at a loss. This is what things cost now. If you do not like it, don't buy it.

 

[poshflamingos]

If it's gonna cost $1000+ anyway, might as well go all the way and swap the GPU for a 9060 XT (16 GB), or at least a 6700 XT/7700 XT equivalent with 12 GB, so it's not hindered by the 8 GB GPU it was announced with.

 

[yRaz]

If it's gonna cost $1000+ anyway, might as well go all the way and swap the GPU for a 9060 XT (16 GB), or at least a 6700 XT/7700 XT equivalent with 12 GB, so it's not hindered by the 8 GB GPU it was announced with.

Availability, probably. And they probably put an order in for these over a year ago before while they were still designing it. And a 9060 would be hard to do as it is made on a newer node.

 

[Notmare]

These types of articles are getting old. There's a memory chip crisis happening that we're all well aware of. Stuff like this is not news.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

These types of articles are getting old. There's a memory chip crisis happening that we're all well aware of. Stuff like this is not news.

- If there is one thing I've learned as I've aged, is that there is no more false a statement than "We're all well aware of".

Things often need to be repeated at least a dozen times before they even start to sink in for people. People have no idea how business procurement etc works and think "Valve is big, they'll sell at a loss or they secured dirt cheap RAM for a million machines before this all blew up".

And lastly of course is everyone's favorite quote "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt"

 

[Notmare]

- If there is one thing I've learned as I've aged, is that there is no more false a statement than "We're all well aware of".

Things often need to be repeated at least a dozen times before they even start to sink in for people. People have no idea how business procurement etc works and think "Valve is big, they'll sell at a loss or they secured dirt cheap RAM for a million machines before this all blew up".

And lastly of course is everyone's favorite quote "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt"

The article can basically be summed up as "there's a memory chip crisis raising prices, so Valve might need to increase the cost of their hardware."

"Valve's Steam Machine may cost more than today's Steam Deck OLED" :/

 

[GodisanAtheist]

The article can basically be summed up as "there's a memory chip crisis raising prices, so Valve might need to increase the cost of their hardware."

"Valve's Steam Machine may cost more than today's Steam Deck OLED" :/

- Hey Techspot writers still need to eat. Once they're all replaced by AI then they won't even have that excuse.

 

[Kirby1]

Even with the market being what it is, $1000 for a PC that is less powerful than a base PS5 on the GPU side is way too much.

 

[toooooot]

May cost... Will cost!

 

[BobHome]

May cost... Will cost!

And the (rich) fanboys can't wait to put down their credit cards. I suspect the first batch will be an instant sell-out.

 

[MasterMace]

Guess they gotta partner with CXMT to get cheaper RAM

 

[toooooot]

And the (rich) fanboys can't wait to put down their credit cards. I suspect the first batch will be an instant sell-out.

Scalpers buy first. And it is not like they lose a lot of money if there is enough for all, they just sell it for 10-15% less.
So yeah, it will probably sell quickly.

 

[poshflamingos]

Availability, probably. And they probably put an order in for these over a year ago before while they were still designing it. And a 9060 would be hard to do as it is made on a newer node.

Sure, there's not much they can do about the components they already ordered. But they could at least offer a second SKU with an upgraded GPU as an option, since the CPU is already pretty competent. If it's gonna cost $1000 for a 7600-based GPU, and say $1100 or $1200 for a 7700/9060-based option, that latter is vastly more attractive at those prices.

 

[human7]

They should just cancel the Steam Machine, come back to the market in a year or two with updated specs and a sane price.

 

[Megalomaniac]

Personally, I feel like every single GPU release has been met with artificial inflation.
First it was crypto mining.
Then Crypto mining got worse.
Then when crypto mining wasn't an issue: scalping was.
Then Congress tries to shut out China...

It doesn't stop.

And the sad thing is: we are supposed to be seeing performance gains with price decreases.

 

[yRaz]

Sure, there's not much they can do about the components they already ordered. But they could at least offer a second SKU with an upgraded GPU as an option, since the CPU is already pretty competent. If it's gonna cost $1000 for a 7600-based GPU, and say $1100 or $1200 for a 7700/9060-based option, that latter is vastly more attractive at those prices.

Go look at pre builts with those specs. $1500 is entry level now. Valve is also trying to control the performance floor. There are AAA titles with a steam deck graphics setting. This isn't about just making money selling a PC, it's about extending the life of all PC hardware. I see comments in here all the time of people saying they aren't upgrading. Valves emphasis on the performance floor will benefit everyone who doesn't want to upgrade with these absurd prices.

 

[poshflamingos]

Go look at pre builts with those specs. $1500 is entry level now. Valve is also trying to control the performance floor. There are AAA titles with a steam deck graphics setting. This isn't about just making money selling a PC, it's about extending the life of all PC hardware. I see comments in here all the time of people saying they aren't upgrading. Valves emphasis on the performance floor will benefit everyone who doesn't want to upgrade with these absurd prices.

The price of prebuilts from other companies is inconsequential here. If Valve can offer the Steam Machine with a RX 7600 for $1000, then the GPUs I suggested would be feasible for $100 to $200 more. A RX 7600 is $280 right now, a 7700 XT is $410, a RX 9060 is $450.

That's not a perfect comparison, the GPU they're using isn't really a RX 7600 (same chip but fewer CUs enabled and a lower power budget), the upgrades would also likely have to be cut down as well (e.g. harvested 7700 XT with more CUs disabled, 9060 XT cut down to a 96-bit 12 GB memory setup, etc). But if the Steam Machine is $1000, there's no way that class of GPU would balloon the cost by another $500. They absolutely can offer a GPU upgrade for say, $200 more, and in the current market it would make the value proposition much better.

 

[pcnthuziast]

This thing was dead in the water on day 1.

 

[Watzupken]

I never expected the Steam Machine to cost less than a PS5. The business model is quite different. As I recalled, Sony and Microsoft tend to subsidize the cost of the console because the only way to buy games on their console is through their store. So they are making money back from store purchases. Steam may come with Steam as the main interface, but because underlying is Linux (Steam OS), there are ways to go around the Steam store exclusivity. Furthermore, both PS5 and Xbox Series X's hardware are pretty dated by now, so I would expect it to be cheaper.

 

[Watzupken]

This thing was dead in the water on day 1.

I think this Steam Machine is a decent system at the right price. Unfortunately, given the current ridiculous pricing of RAM and NAND, the pricing is not going to be enticing. This is not something within their control.

 

[dangh]

From my pov this is just too expensive. For long time we have better options well below 1k usd (but take your own ram ) : AtomMan G7 Pt, https://aoostar.com/products/aoostar-gody-7940hx-7600xt, and so on.

If you play some older games and integrated gpu is enough, you can get aoostar maco minipc for like $350. SM is simply not good enough for the price.