You can still buy a gaming laptop, that out performs the steam machine while still being same price or cheaper.

What's the point when MS and other companies have the ability to modify or kill it whenever they see fit?

A yes. I was in particular interested in BanditKeith2's "better specced" mini PC variant. Those are here ( in Germany) mostly on the low power side, roughly the size of 5-10 CD jewel cases and could never drive (or even house) a RX 7060, or 3060(TI). Background was, that I've hoped to find some tips for my brother, who wants to replace his existing mini PC with something more powerful.

The magazines I was referring to where not any youtube channels but all leading German PC (and console) print magazines, which are incidentally all part of my Readly subscription and had tests of the Steam machine.

You are probably right. I'm not trying to defend the Steam machine but just wanted to explain that it can't be as cheap as it was expected when it was first announced. I have also no interest in buying one, but it could be interesting for people who want a fully configured gaming machine, and it could be even more interesting for developers, since it comes with a fully defined setup (at least on the hardware side), just as consoles, and not with a bazillion different configurations in hard- and software, like PCs.

They should have offered a RAMless model to show how much the RAM companies are screwing people over and for when the AI bubble pops so people can buy and affordable version of this.

LOL, what a pile of junk, err, I mean what a cute little economy-tier computer!

I'm sure the fans will be buying them in droves (and then spending years telling everyone how this is "awesome" and "exactly what they expected and wanted", and "better than anything in its class", and so on).

Was Away as for my mini pc

Direct Comparison Highlights CPU Monkey
Spec Steam Machine
Ryzen 7 7840HS

CPU cores/threads 6C/12T
8C/16T

CPU max freq 4.8 GHz
5.1 GHz

GPU RDNA 3 28 CUs, 8 GB GDDR6
Radeon 780M iGPU

Multi‑core CPU perf ~27% of 7840HS
100%

GPU perf (FP32) ~2.2× 780M
100%

But the graphics difference of the 7840hs largely is easily fixable for gaming by allocating more mermory as vram and still have 7GBs more system based ram as mine and its listing I referenced come with 32 GBS ram

while the storage is 1tb

Sure it lacks a gpu and likely wouldn't be as suitable for 2 or 4k but 1 studios show barely anyone uses 4k and the human eye really doesn't pick up differences past 2k , with 2k being not that noticeable a upgrade to what once was referred to as 1k. But anyway it still easily handles the most graphic demanding games if set to medium in most cases save for afew cases

Anyway I say its better specs as the main drawback is easily handled with allocation of vram to make it basically on par with the Steam Machine and still far more cheaper then the Steam

Also raw performance magazines or tech youtubers/influencers I found from my testing of games on both pc and ps5 was BSing as I can easily run all of the ones I got thats also on ps5 looking and playing better then on console despite many saying that the 7840hs igpu wouldn't handle such anywhere as good.. I can only assume they didn't do more ram allocation or something ..

But ya as is if one doesn't game past 2k or lower its easy to currently get atleast where I live tech far cheaper thats on par or better then the Steam machine and/or ps5

This is why I hate the price being so much when other similar and better specced pcs are cheaper , as if this was better priced I could have easily seen Steam/valve managing to leverage such to publishers and devs as a ''standard limit'' to aim for on pc games/ports to pc similar to how the Steam Decks success seemed to get devs/publishers to optimize for the Steam Deck

this topic is still up?
GOG was never big enough to become a hardware maker.... or rubberstamp it anyways. most of the actually good OLD games already work on cheap PCs/laptops, whether you run it on linux or not.

though now they seem to have cut support for older Windows( WinXP/Vista/7/8 ), so i can no longer download installers that work better on older OS if i want to?

Vavle/steam basically did the same as the Steam launcher officially doesn't support any windows below 64 bit windows 10 or Linux equivalent last I check so any game listed as fine with older hardware without workarounds won't work in general

but for GOG games from what I gather most will still work on older OS's fine if they once stated as such , its just basically for legal/support based logistics mostly the listings was changed on OS matters

You can install Linux on pretty much any machine, unless something has changed..
I get what you're saying. I was just saying they could have sold the device at a loss and definitely made up for it with software sales. Honestly, I'm surprised by this price; I thought it would be around 800 or something, not over 1k.

How much good does that do when you have to show your papers to authorities that can deny permission as they see fit?

What other purpose is there for universal ID?

Thank you for the detailed explanation, in particular the allocation of additional VRAM and the importance of the used resolution. Certainly a path to pursue further.

I concur also with your second post.

Yes, one can dream... but Gabe is also dreaming, perhaps of at least a helipad for his latest mega yacht. <lol>

One of the biggest things about Gabe Cube seems to be that it is dead silent and runs cool. All the tests that I've seen of it state. The loudest it is around 30 decibels, even on load.

Most of the gaming laptops I've seen get pretty loud on loads.

I imagine that, had the AI companies not bought up most of the available supply of RAM and storage production for the year then we probably would have gotten a $700 - $799 USD Machine (which would have been reasonable given it's size and relative performance).

Now gamers who might have been interested are in a unique bind: do they buy at the current price or wait? And if they wait, will the price go down? Or, like the half-decade old consoles, go up? It's a tough sell right now - it might be easier to swallow in a year or two; then again it might be even worse in that time.