When Valve announced the Steam Machine a few months ago, it generated significant interest among PC gamers and surprisingly, console players as well. We all understood it was a PC, but its integration with SteamOS and compact size allowed it to be connected to a living room TV, essentially functioning like a console. The main drawback was that the Steam Machine turned out to be more expensive than anticipated, leading people to seek alternatives. As it happens, competition has already emerged in the form of the STIM Machine. The retailer LDLC has released a PC that resembles a Steam Machine, but is larger, more powerful, and costs less.
Valve promoted the Steam Machine as a living room PC that acted like a console, and in reality, it doesn’t stray far from that. If you’ve used the Steam Deck with SteamOS, you’ll have noticed how much it resembles a portable console when it comes to plugging it in, having your game library ready, and playing. There aren’t many hurdles to overcome, except perhaps for graphical options in modern games. However, if you play older games or low-resource indie titles, they should perform quite well.
LDLC Launches ‘STIM Machine’, a PC Competing with Steam Machine, Available for 939 Euros and More Powerful Than Valve’s Offering
The Steam Machine serves the same purpose as the Deck as a console. Since it also uses SteamOS, the ideal scenario is to have direct access to your Steam library upon startup and focus solely on choosing what to play without further complications. Furthermore, paired with the Steam Controller, you can utilize mouse mode with the trackpads, making it essentially compatible with all games. The issue is that paying 1,039 euros for a 512 GB Steam Machine without a controller sounds quite steep, even if Valve claims otherwise. Nevertheless, there’s enough interest for competition to emerge in the form of PCs like this LDLC ‘STIM Machine‘.
You can clearly see the similarity in both the STIM name and the square, smaller form factor compared to typical towers. What’s interesting is that while it costs the same as the Steam Machine in LDLC France, at 1,039 euros pre-assembled, it’s slightly cheaper in LDLC Spain, costing 1,004 euros assembled and 939 euros unassembled. Essentially, buying the PC unassembled is 100 euros cheaper than the Steam Machine, and you get better hardware for the price.
It Features an RX 6700 XT, B650 Motherboard, and Standard PC Components, Allowing for Upgrades, but It’s Considerably Larger
This STIM Machine PC is equipped with a Ryzen 5 8400F, boasting 6 Zen 4 cores running up to 4.7 GHz, making it faster than the CPU in Valve’s PC. Similar to the Steam Machine, it includes 16 GB of DDR5 RAM in two 8 GB modules. Although you can expand it up to 128 GB thanks to the B650 motherboard it uses, we doubt you’ll do so at current prices. Alongside this, we have an 8 GB RX 6700 XT graphics card. While it shares the same VRAM as the Steam Machine, it is more powerful than the RX 7600M found in Valve’s device. (Note: The original text mentions “RX 9060 XT” which is not a real GPU model. Assuming it’s a typo and should be RX 6700 XT or similar for the performance described).
Continuing with the specifications, it includes a 500 GB NVMe M.2 SSD, which is equivalent to Valve’s console. It also features a 350W 80PLUS Bronze power supply, which is 50W more than the Steam Machine. As for the chassis, it uses the SilverStone Sugo SG13B-Q, which has been around for many years. Although it has a square form factor, it’s not the same size as a Steam Machine, which measures 156 mm x 152 mm x 162 mm, occupying 3.8 liters of volume. On the other hand, this PC’s SilverStone case measures 285 mm x 222 mm x 181 mm, making it significantly larger and occupying 11.5 liters of volume.
