A new contender has entered the compact gaming PC market, with a French hardware retailer launching the Stim Machine. This device directly challenges Valve's Steam Machine, aiming to provide superior performance at the same €1,039 price point and in a similar cubic form factor.
The Stim Machine is configured with off-the-shelf components, featuring a 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 8400F CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU. This combination offers a notable performance increase over the Steam Machine's internal hardware. The RX 9060 XT, a generation ahead of the Steam Machine's GPU, can deliver up to 70 percent more performance, according to benchmarks, and benefits from higher power headroom.
Despite its hardware advantages, the Stim Machine is larger than the Steam Machine, measuring 222 × 181 × 285mm compared to Valve's 156 × 152 × 162mm unit. This larger chassis likely allows for better thermal management, enabling its more powerful components to operate at higher potential without throttling, a constraint faced by the Steam Machine due to its compact design and focus on low power draw.
Where the Stim Machine falls short is in its integration with televisions. The Steam Machine supports HDMI CEC technology, which allows it to function much like a console. This enables seamless interaction with a TV, such as powering the TV on or off by controlling the Steam Machine, and ensuring the TV recognizes the device when switching inputs. PCs, in general, struggle with this level of TV integration, and the Stim Machine does not appear to implement a similar solution.
Valve has also recently released a standalone version of SteamOS 3.8, allowing users to build their own Steam Machine-like PCs with custom components. However, this approach does not overcome the inherent limitations of PC-to-TV communication protocols like HDMI and CEC, and requires users to manage driver updates and system maintenance, tasks that Valve's official Steam Machine handles more autonomously.