A prototype for the upcoming iBuyPower Steam Machine has been shown off along with information regarding its specs and price. iBuyPower is one of the first third-party companies to come out with its Steam Machine details, especially since the device is still a prototype and has only been in the works for a relatively short period of time.
The $500 Steam Machine will come with a multicore AMD CPU as well as an AMD R9 270 GPU. These specs are similar to what you would find on a mid-level gaming PC, which makes sense considering that all of the upcoming Steam Machines will be more like PCs than traditional consoles.
Even though the Xbox One and PS4 are receiving the vast majority of attention from gaming enthusiasts, the Steam Machine is the type of device worth paying attention to, since it could end up competing against the mainstream consoles in a way that even the Wii has never been able to.
Whenever a pre-made gaming device is unveiled, whether it be a Steam Machine, Xbox, or PlayStation, specs are not the whole story. This is true for practically every console that has been released, since if you were to take similar components to what is in the Xbox and put them in a PC, the performance would be significantly different, as there is a lot more going on behind-the-scenes.
That being said, iBuyPower has made it clear that its Steam Machine will run Steam games at 1080p without any issue in terms of frame rate. This is good to hear, as many gamers will jump at the ability to play Steam games on a TV for the same price as the Xbox One.
We still do not know when the iBuyPower Steam Machine will be available but once it is, the system will be released with the Steam controller which Valve showed off earlier this year.Image Credit: iBuyPower