Build Your Own Steam Machine with Four Configurations, from Budget to Premium

The Steam Machine looks like an incredible bit of kit - but it's also expensive, understandably so given the price of RAM and SSDs these days. Creators Valve have been keen to stress to us that they want people to see the pre-built Steam Machine as just one option though, and they're working with other partners to create alternatives - perhaps with different specifications or at different prices.

In the meantime, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais told us that "SteamOS is ready" to support enthusiasts building their own systems with discrete AMD graphics cards, so that's exactly what we've prepared here: four builds, from a budget AM4 PC in the cheapest Micro ATX form factor to a more powerful and upgradeable AM5 Mini PC.

We've centred three of the builds around the best-supported AMD graphics cards, while the fourth is a wild-card Nvidia alternative that gives you the option of better features while dual-booted into Windows. All of these builds were specced out on PCPartPicker, and we've included links for each one so you can use them as the basis for your own builds.

DF DIY Steam Machine #1: Budget (AM4, Micro ATX)

The concept behind this build is saving on RAM to bring initial costs down, as we go with the Ryzen 5 5600, 2x8GB of DDR4-2666 and a Gigabyte B550M motherboard. The total cost of £783 is pretty low for a full gaming PC that comes with a decent RX 9060 XT graphics card, though at the Micro ATX form factor we're not quite as compact and living room friendly as the proper Steam Machine - and upgrade potential caps out at the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, but not anything faster. Let's fix one of those problems with the next build.

DF DIY Steam Machine #2: Upgrade (AM5, Micro ATX)

By going with the more modern AM5 platform, we actually don't spend any more money on our CPU and we get a big performance increase with the Ryzen 5 7500F. However, our upgraded Gigabyte B650M motherboard is around £20 pricier, while the RAM cost is £60 more - for only a single stick of DDR5-5600. Two stick setups, which are demonstrably faster in CPU-limited tasks, come at a £20 premium. The rest of the components remain the same, with our new total at £856.

DF DIY Steam Machine #3: Compact (AM5, Mini ITX)

Mini ITX motherboards, cases and power supplies can be more expensive than their full-size counterparts, but that's the price we pay for something that's more compact. Here, our selected cube-like case - the Fractal Design Node 304 - actually supports full-size ATX power supplies, so we manage to sidestep the need for a dearer SFX alternative. We do still end up paying more for our Gigabyte B650I motherboard though, with this and the more expensive case contributing to a total cost of £953. We're now more expensive than the Steam Machine, though our build ought to be more powerful.

DF DIY Steam Machine #4: Dual-Booter (AM5, Mini ITX, Nvidia GPU)

Our final variant is for fans (or owners) of Nvidia graphics cards. By swapping in an RTX 5060, we get access to better upsampling and frame generation solutions, albeit at the expense of compatibility - as SteamOS doesn't officially support Nvidia GPUs. However, we could run Bazzite or CachyOS instead if needed, and have a reasonable experience on Nvidia hardware - while also retaining the option to dual-boot into Windows for games that aren't well supported on Linux, something that all our other builds can do too. Our final total is a little cheaper at £926, as the RTX 5060 is available for under £280 versus the £305 we spent on the RX 9060 XT in the other builds. Of course, you'll have to source your own legal version of Windows.

Which build is your favourite? What changes would you make with your own equivalent PC? Let us know in the comments below.

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