Valve’s highly anticipated Steam Machines have finally been revealed at CES 2014. As an attempt to bridge the gap between PC gaming and consoles they appear to be on the right track. Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve recently took to the stage at CES 2014 to announce the 13 manufacturers who will be creating the new machines, and also shared some specifications about what to expect from these designs.
Dell’s Alienware is apparently onboard, but with absolutely no details on what the box has on the inside; or how much it will cost. However, it does manage to retain the Alienware aesthetic and will probably come in a range of different specification.
Gigabyte is also producing a Steam Machine, and the “Brix Pro” might be the smallest of the lot. Barely wider than a DVD, it lacks the graphics cards found on other machines. Instead, the Intel i7-4770R comes with the Intel Iris Pro 5200 integrated graphics. Which might put a damper on those who want to run the most demanding games. It does have 16GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD to make up for the lack of graphics power. It might also be cheaper than the others.
The Origin PC “Chronos” may just be the most ridiculous machine to ever call itself a console. There is no price tag on it, but you are free to draw your own conclusions from specifications that include an Intel Core i7 CPU, two NVIDIA GTX Titans, 32GB RAM and 14TB of HDD storage.
As far as prices go, they range from US$499 to a known upper limit of US$6,000. Not exactly console killing prices, but it might come down before the official launch. Otherwise it might be difficult to convince console gamers that these machines are worth shelling out the extra cash for.
[Images from Engadget; Source: Engadget]
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