Steam Machine 2TB + Steam Controller

Small and cute — basically Chiikawa

The price is not cute, though. I also picked up an AW2725D that happened to be discounted on Amazon.

Picking up the controller and having Steam just wake up — that was a genuine little aha moment. It feels like a console.

I wanted a performance comparison against my PS5 Pro, so I bought Nightreign (which I’ve been playing to death there) on a Steam sale and gave it a run.

Heavier games are still a stretch

Impressions after clearing the main boss run in Nightreign:

• A few times, after suspending and resuming the next day, the frame rate at the Roundtable Hold turned into a slideshow.
• Plenty of moments where I could feel the frame rate dip — cresting a cliff as the view opens up, that kind of thing.
• Noticeable lag between an attack landing and the result registering. Though that might be less about the Steam Machine and more that PSN is just good — or that I’d enabled out-of-region matchmaking because the player count is low.

It felt unstable enough that AAA titles probably belong on the PS5. This box seems best for retro games and indies. It’s just not priced like a casual little indie box, and that’s the painful part.