A new line of Steam Machines just announced will pack a high-end GPU, a 500GB hard drive, a multicore AMD CPU and will be priced at $499.
The new system, manufactured by iBuyPower, challenges the suggestion that sophisticated living-room PCs will cost gamers far more than an actual games console. iBuyPower’s Steam Machine will be sold at the same price as Microsoft’s Xbox One, but still $100 more than Sony’s Playstation 4.
The Steam Machine’s graphics card – an AMD Radeon R9 270 – typically costs $180. According to tech site The Verge, the unit also comes with Valve’s Steam Controller, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support.
A release date has not been announced, though Valve has previously said Steam Machines will begin to roll out in 2014.
Key to driving down the unit price is the removal of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, which typically costs consumers around $100 to buy outright. Steam Machines instead come installed with Valve’s own Steam OS – a custom Linux operating system designed for the living-room.