Is the Steam Machine's RDNA 3 GPU powerful enough to run every game on Steam in 4K?

With Valve announcing a trio of new Steam-optimized hardware today, it's the upcoming Steam Machine set to launch in early 2026 that is garnering the most attention. The reason for this is simple: you're looking at a small, compact cube-sized console version of the Steam Deck that's six times more powerful and can easily slot underneath a modern 4K TV just like an Xbox or PlayStation.

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In terms of hardware, the Steam Machine, like the Steam Deck, is powered by custom AMD hardware that includes a notably more powerful RDNA 3 GPU with 28 Compute Units (CUs) running at 2.45 GHz with a 110W TDP and 8GB of VRAM. From a spec-sheet perspective, this is the GPU equivalent of 87.5% of AMD's mainstream Radeon RX 7600 GPU from 2023, with a lower clock speed and power draw.

Valve states that with AMD FSR upscaling, the Steam Machine is capable of running every game on Steam in 4K at 60 FPS. For those who have experienced the Steam Machine firsthand, this translates to Cyberpunk 2077 running at a stable 4K60 with FSR, using Medium graphics settings, basic Ray Tracing, and upscaling from 1080p with FSR 3's Performance preset.

• Read more: FSR 4 support comes to SteamOS and Proton, hinting at Steam Machine support
• Read more: Assassin's Creed Shadows PC specs, GeForce RTX 4090, DLSS required for Full RT in 4K

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For a tiny machine that Valve also claims runs silently during gaming, it's impressive - especially when you compare its performance to that of the Steam Deck. However, comparing performance to the Radeon RX 7600, the mobile Radeon RX 7600M, or even NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 only gives us a baseline picture of the hardware's capabilities.

One of the secret ingredients of the Steam Machine, like the Deck before it, is that it will run the Linux-based SteamOS with Proton by default. As previous benchmarks and tests from multiple outlets have shown, games run up to 30% faster on SteamOS with the same hardware compared to Windows. This means that even though it's a PC, SteamOS is built for gaming in much the same way a console like the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X is - two consoles powered by older RDNA 2 hardware.

On that front, Steam Machine performance should sit somewhere between that of the Xbox Series S and the Xbox Series X - two consoles that rely on upscaling to deliver their 1440p and 4K output.

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That said, even with FSR, there are some notable limitations for Valve's new console-PC hybrid. The DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 ports mean that even when playing an older title like Half-Life 2 or Portal, you are limited to 60 FPS or 60 Hz, with no option to push 4K 120 FPS on a modern HDMI 2.1 TV. Additionally, the 8GB GPU is technically built for mainstream 1080p gaming, so for the most part, the Steam Machine will require FSR to render games in 4K with Medium-like settings in visually demanding titles. And when it comes to ray-tracing, RDNA 3 unfortunately will limit this to light or minimal RT, as even the Radeon RX 7600 struggles on this front.

Limitations aside, including the fact that, unlike a PC, there's no upgrade path to swap out the GPU with something more powerful, the hype for the Steam Machine is huge, with most of the discourse from press and the community being positive. As a happy Steam Deck owner with a huge library, the prospect of a potentially affordable (pricing for the Steam Machine 512GB and 2TB models is TBC) console-PC running SteamOS sounds like the perfect loungeroom addition. It also ships with Valve's new Steam Controller, making the Steam Machine really feel like the realization of the company's decade-long dream of creating a "Steam PC as a seamless console" a reality.