Earlier this month, Valve sent out 300 Steam Machines to lucky beta testers across the U.S. While the chances of you getting one were incredibly slim, one of the iFixIt team members somehow managed to get his hands on one. Of course, that means they also tore it apart to see just how repairable Valve’s new console/PC hybrid is.
It should be noted that Valve sent out a number of different Steam Machines to its 300 beta testers. Some were equipped with the very latest graphics technology and processors while others featured older GPUs from Nvidia’s GTX 600 line. In the case of iFixIt, they received one of the more powerful units that came with a GTX 780 and an Intel Core i5-4570.
The Internal hardware is confirmed as being pretty powerful, but what about its I/O panel? In the Steam Machine iFixIt received, the I/O panel featured a PS/2 port for a keyboard or mouse, two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort outs, a S/PDIF out, eSATA, ethernet port, Wi-Fi and 3.5 mm audio in. In short, the Steam Machine will be able to handle all of your display needs.
As for the motherboard, the Steam Machine only has one PCI slot for the video card, two RAM slots for a total of 16GB, and the CPU socket. Considering this is a mini-ITX board, it’s not surprising to see it not have a lot in the way of expansion. That being said, the motherboard can support up to two SATA hard drives, but it only ships with one.
So, how’s the repairability of Valve’s first foray into hardware? iFixIt gives it a score of nine out of 10, and it’s not at all surprising considering that the Steam Machine is just a PC. The only two issues they had with the Steam Machine was that it was hard to remove the RAM due to the tight fit and that reassembly could be an issue without a manual. In comparison, both the PS4 and Xbox One received a score of eight out of 10.
Image via iFixIt
