Insider claims Steam Machine release date delay possible because of rising memory prices

[Redaktion]

Gamers had assumed that the Steam Machine would be available by early Spring 2026. Unfortunately, there are rumors that the memory shortage may interfere with its release date. An insider has heard that, along with a higher Steam Machine price, a delay is not out of the question.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Insider-claims-Steam-Machine-release-date-delay-possible-because-of-rising-memory-prices.1184970.0.html

[technerd88]

Absolutely not! Please stop watching SLOP youtube videos and then claiming it's true. Think about this and use your brain. As a journalist, this is your responsibility. You aren't there just to copy and paste BS. The thing has 16gb of ram in small modules. It's not a large amount and won't matter. It will be like a 30 buck difference if that. Valve won't apple greed monger us.

[Phil995511]

DDR5 is cursed... it was too expensive when it first came out to attract people's interest, and now it's the same story again due to excessive speculation around general artificial intelligence, which certainly won't be born for several decades. Developing robots as we do now is one thing, but wanting to compete with the human brain is on a whole other level...

Since the Steam Machine's CPU-GPU combination (AMD Zen 4 CPU / AMD RDNA 3 GPU) is not the latest generation, they could perhaps use motherboards with DDR4 for the time being, at least until DDR5 prices come down. 

[aaaa884]

By the time DDR5's price drops back, steam machine's already outdated cpu + gpu will have become completely obsolete. That's just fever talk. Why not switch to DDR4 then? The price is roughly half of DDR5, and the performance difference is only a couple percent points. Make it 2 x 8GB for better performance. We don't need any upgrade room. With a weak laptop cpu, and an un-upgradable gpu, what's the point of upgrading the ram? Bottomline, the cpu and gpu are pretty much 2023 AMD models. They are old already. Release the machine ASAP!

[Phil995511]

@aaaa884

Yes, we don't know when DDR5 prices will drop; that will depend on political and commercial decisions.

What is certain is that RAM manufacturers and other players in the IT market have every interest in urgently increasing DDR5 RAM production, otherwise PC sales will plummet. With prices too high, people will stop upgrading their machines even though Windows 10 is reaching the end of its life and Windows 11 requires new hardware to run. The only good thing is that it will give Linux an even bigger boost :)

Steam has every interest in releasing its Steam Machines as soon as possible and selling off the hardware it has already produced, even if it is equipped with DDR5, and switching to motherboards with DDR4 as soon as possible to bring prices down. Otherwise, this Steam Machines V2 will be another flop...

Personally, I'm only interested in their new Steam Controller v2. I hope it comes out soon, at least before Microsoft launches its new console and controllers. Microsoft is expected to announce new products in January, it seems...