Earlier this week, Valve finally revealed the extent of its highly anticipated Steam Machine, and the reaction was less than positive. For just a 512GB model, you're looking at just over $1,000, while a 2TB model will set you back just over $1,400. That's a lot of money, and there's been talk over the past week of people rigging up their own Steam Machines that are cheaper and more powerful.
It wasn't long before official retailers got in on the action too, and that's exactly what has happened in France. First reported by Eurogamer, a French hardware retailer called LDLC recently announced their Steam Machine knock-off, which they're calling the Stim Machine. In several places it boasts that the kit has the same price, yet more power.
We are already getting more powerful steam engines
Although it appears to have already been renamed, presumably to avoid any legal issues from Valve, you can find the kit on the official LDLC website. You can either buy the kit and assemble it yourself, or buy it ready-made for a bit more, but either way, it still comes in at about the same price as the Steam Machine, albeit with a few differences.
Of course, these differences are CPU and GPU. It's already been noted that the Stim Machine is much more powerful than the Steam Machine, rocking a 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 8400F CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU, both of which are steps up Valve's hardware. The Stim Machine chassis is a little bigger as a result, but I'm sure many would have preferred the bigger box to less power.
The only things the Stim Machine has going against it are that it will probably run a bit hotter since it has more powerful components, and it doesn't connect to a TV as seamlessly as the Steam Machine will. Even then, I'd have to manually turn on my TV if it meant I could run games like Black Myth Wukong and Cyberpunk 2077, something the Steam Machine struggles to do.
It's not a good look for Valve, and I really struggle to imagine who the Steam Machine was even built for. Valve might not have wanted to sell the system at a loss, but if it was going to be a huge success I probably would have just eaten the costs.
- Stamp
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Valve
- Original MSRP (USD)
-
$1,049 (512GB) / $1,349 (2TB) – without controllers
- Operating system
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SteamOS 3 (Ark-based)
- Processor
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Semi-custom AMD Zen 4 6C / 12T up to 4.8 GHz, 30W TDP
- Resolution
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Up to 4K @ 240Hz or 8K @ 60Hz
- Original release date
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2026
