The first PC-Consoles appear

[cobito]

With the announcement by Valve of an operating system especially designed for games, a machine to run games and a gamepad, a new era may have begun in the world of gaming where a hybrid between PC and console makes its appearance.

According to they say around here, one of the first PC-consoles will be the Piston, a machine whose hardware is not entirely clear.

Xi3, the company that has developed it, has been collaborating with Valve and its SteamOS.

Its price will be $999. a price that is probably very high given the alternatives but justified by the novelty and the design in which the hardware is distributed in 3 interchangeable plates.

[Tecnho]

Here is a half-dissection

[amd125]

This is starting to get at least interesting ;D

[Yorus]

I had read about the AMD Termonuclear CPU in the article from "The Inquirer", which made me go back to the header again, not "The world today". Next time I won't take off my glasses until I'm in bed :ugly.

Well, seriously, as long as I don't have keyboard/mouse games or steering wheel, I'm not too interested. For my favorite control games, my super VIA C7 (8 and 16 bits) is enough.

[cobito]

Phoronix has done several benchmarks on the machine, in case you're interested:

[Phoronix] SteamOS vs. Windows 8.1 NVIDIA Performance

[Phoronix] SteamOS vs. Ubuntu 13.10 - Intel HD Graphics Performance

[Phoronix] AMD Catalyst Graphics Do Work On SteamOS

[Phoronix] It's Easy Getting Intel Graphics To Work On SteamOS

[Phoronix] The Steam Controller Works "Out Of The Box" On Linux

Now all that's left is for a decent catalog of triple A games to appear because as I read someone say out there, what's the point of using a system where I can use 10% of the games when on Windows I can use them all?

There's still a way to go, but there's no doubt that Valve is taking it very seriously.

[Obione]

@Tecnho:

Aquí un medio despiece

1000 pavos? WTF No digo que no innove algo pero vamos… ITX y GPU de referencia? Por esa pasta te montas lo mismo con mejor hard y refrigeración, si no es que importe mucho el tamaño es un full :facepalm:

[cobito]

If Steam Machines are really not that important. It's just a "gimmick" to show it off in the living room. What's really interesting about all this is the OS. It's like if Sony or Microsoft allowed you to download an ISO of the operating system they use in their consoles and it could be installed on any PC. Probably few would buy their hardware.

The machine only serves to give a physical sense to the whole thing, but it's not mandatory.

[deeiivid]

Well, I like it, it looks well built.
It looks like it could be a great HTPC+Console, but for me it would be much better if they had put the 3.5 inch hdd in… it offers much more potential.

If size doesn't matter, there are clearly many better options.