Valve confirms how much more powerful the Steam Machine is than the Steam Deck

Valve has published an update on the highly anticipated Steam Machine, which will be the PC company's foray into the console space, but as a PC/console hybrid.

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In the update, posted to the Steamworks Documentation website, Valve explains the upcoming PC/console hybrid will be powered by a discrete semi-custom AMD desktop-class CPU, which we know will be AMD Zen 4-based, and a semi-custom AMD RDNA 3 GPU. Valve will target 4K 60FPS in select titles on the Steam Machine, while developers must hit at least 1080p at 30FPS to receive a Steam Machine verification badge.

As for the Steam Machine's power, Valve hasn't released any performance metrics, and the device's performance hasn't been independently verified through extensive testing. However, Valve did give us a hint of what we can expect from Steam Machine performance, as the company wrote in the Steamworks Documentation update that the Steam Machine will be approximately six times more powerful than the Steam Deck.

That "6x" statement checks out, since the Steam Deck's official specs list an AMD Zen 2 4-core/8-thread APU with an 8-CU RDNA 2 GPU rated at 1.6 TFLOPS FP32 and an APU power range of 4-15W. By comparison, Valve's Steam Machine is using a 6-core Zen 4 CPU and a discrete semi-custom RDNA 3 GPU with 28 compute units, 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, up to 2.45GHz, and up to 110W GPU TDP.

Doing some rough napkin math on the GPU performance, 28 CUs x 64 shaders x 2 ops x 2.45GHz = approximately 8.8 TFLOPS, which works out to be around 5.5x the Steam Deck's 1.6 TFLOPS. So, when factoring in the newer architecture in the Steam Machine, along with separate VRAM, stronger CPU, and a larger power budget, Valve's claim of approximately 6x does seem reasonable.

However, that 6x figure doesn't mean every game on the Steam Machine will achieve 6x the framerate, as many other factors come into play, such as in-game settings, per-title optimization, resolution, CPU/GPU bottlenecks, Proton optimization, memory use, etc. That said, the Steam Machine will offer significant performance improvements over the Steam Deck, as expected.

Now, the big question with the Steam Machine is price, but unfortunately, Valve has yet to reveal pricing for the upcoming device. Although the latest rumor is the Steam Machine's price is "nowhere near" what Valve originally planned. Despite the lack of a price attached, Valve confirmed the Steam Machine is on track to release "this summer".