Summary
- SteamOS matters: Valve’s OS and updates let others build and customize Steam Machines.
- Meta PCs’ Steamroller ships with SteamOS, standard PC parts, and runs AAA titles at high frame rates.
- If SteamOS becomes common, builders could drop Windows licenses and shave roughly $100 off prebuilt PCs.
When the Steam Machine arrived, everyone, understandably, focused on the hardware and the price. After all, the Steam Machine will live or die by how powerful it is and how much it costs, so people were very interested in both.
However, there is one thing people are seemingly ignoring: the software. Valve has confirmed that the Steam Machine will run SteamOS and receive updates that will allow others to build their own Steam Machines at home. Well, one company has already taken the initiative and released a pre-built gaming PC with SteamOS, and it might change how we approach high-end PCs as a whole.
The Steamroller is a pre-built gaming PC with SteamOS as the default
Yes, it happened before the Steam Machine even launched
The PC in question is the aptly-named Steamroller from Meta PCs. It’s slightly more expensive than the base-level Steam Machine, so it’s clearly not trying to win over Valve’s offering by undercutting it, but it seems like that extra money goes towards designing a PC you can upgrade over time:
The META PCs STEAMROLLER is a 1080p SteamOS gaming desktop powered by the AMD Radeon RX 7600 and AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, built as an upgradable alternative to the Steam Machine. It runs CS2, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, and Baldur’s Gate 3 at high frame rates, and because it uses standard desktop parts you can swap the GPU, add RAM, or expand storage whenever you want.
What’s exciting about this listing is the concept of manufacturers selling PCs with SteamOS pre-installed. If Valve manages to make SteamOS the de facto OS for gamers, PC makers will naturally use it instead of Windows. And if that happens, pre-built gaming PCs can shave about $100 off the asking price, because the builder no longer needs to pay for the Windows 11 license. We’ve already seen some handhelds come with a cheaper SteamOS option, so it’s not too far-fetched to think the same can happen to PCs.
You don’t have to wait for the Steam Machine – I built my own
I’m too excited to wait until preorders open
