Steam Machine: Valve's gaming PC official with custom AMD silicon and compact form factor

[Redaktion]

Valve's long-rumoured Steam Machine refresh is finally here. It is powered by an AMD SoC and comes with 16 GB RAM and up to 2 TB storage.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Steam-Machine-Valve-s-gaming-PC-official-with-custom-AMD-silicon-and-compact-form-factor.1161589.0.html

[Only 8 GB VRAM]

and 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM

After years of proofs that 8 GB VRAM are not enough anymore, and things getting worse as games demand more VRAM (or hosting your favorite local AI / LLM), VALVE comes out with 8 GB VRAM..

Sorry VALVE, but to be able to actually call it custom silicon, you could have at the very least tried to make it at least 10 GB VRAM.

Here is how (and each solution would make it more expensive, but 8GB VRAM is just a no-go) (current hw: 128-bit memory bus width GPU chip / 32-bit per GDDR5 chip = 4 chips, 2 GB each):

• Using higher GDDR6 density: 2.25 GB per chip * 4 chips = 10 GB VRAM (uncommon density)

or

• Using higher GDDR7 density: 2.25 GB per chip * 4 chips = 10 GB VRAM (since GDDR7 is the successor, maybe the memory manufacturers would be "kind" enough to make such densities)

or

• Using higher GDDR7 density: 3 GB per chip * 4 chips = 12 GB VRAM (3 GB chips are already being used in the 5090 Laptop, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_RTX_50_series#Mobile) (and will be used in the SUPER refresh GPUs in 2026)

or

• Using a wider memory bus width: 32-bit per chip * 5 chips, 2 GB each = 160-bit memory bus width GPU chip (this would be a different class GPU, one that would be approx. 33% faster (1.33 = 160-bit/128-bit) than the current one

[Don't spam]

would make it more expensive

Well, you should know by now that valve aren't aiming for high end yet and trying to keep costs down.

So case closed, I guess?

[Only 8GB VRAM big mistake]

It has nothing to do with high-end, with only 8 GB VRAM, more and more games become a stutter show, even at low settings: youtube.com/watch?v=ric7yb1VaoA ("Gaming Laptops are in Trouble - VRAM Testing w/ ‪@Hardwareunboxed‬")

[Worgarthe]

It has nothing to do with high-end, with only 8 GB VRAM, more and more games become a stutter show, even at low settings: youtube.com/watch?v=ric7yb1VaoA ("Gaming Laptops are in Trouble - VRAM Testing w/ ‪@Hardwareunboxed‬")

1/10 ragebait.