A $600 DIY Steam Machine hits 1440p—and sets a bar for Valve

A homemade Steam Machine from enthusiast ETA Prime has quickly turned into a tangible reference point for Valve. Just a day after news broke about a mini‑PC Steam Machine slated for early 2026, the creator assembled his own version for $600–650. Most notably, this compact SteamOS rig already drives modern AAA titles at 1440p with confidence, a timely nudge for the official effort.

The build leans on a budget pairing of an ASRock DeskMeet X300 and a Radeon RX 6600 sourced on AliExpress, which turned out to be a reflashed RX 6600M with 8 GB of VRAM. Inside are a Ryzen 5 5600, 16 GB of DDR4‑3200, a 1 TB NVMe drive, and a stock 500‑watt power supply. The case is a little larger than Valve’s unit but remains ultra‑compact and perfectly suited to daily desktop use—a sensible parts list that prioritizes value over flash.

Valve’s official Steam Machine is said to target a Zen 4 APU with a 30 W TDP and integrated graphics roughly on par with a Radeon RX 7600M. The DIY system suggests that, for the same budget and with used components, you can land on competitive performance. In testing, Elden Ring, Spider‑Man 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and The Witcher 3 all hit 60 FPS at 1440p with FSR enabled, and some titles climb past 100 FPS when FSR is paired with frame generation—numbers that set a firm bar for any upcoming official box.

Despite its thrift, the build checks the boxes Valve cares about: compact form factor, SteamOS, quiet acoustics, and confident performance in today’s games. It also underlines that Valve’s target—4K at 60 FPS with upscaling—doesn’t demand a sky‑high price if the hardware is chosen wisely. In other words, this feels less like a proof of concept and more like a practical baseline.

The real question now is whether Valve can top that experience at the same price.