Valve Steambox Details

[Drown Babies]

Valve released some of the specs for their beta Steamboxes today. There's a thread on this from the front page news, but this seems like a good place to discuss these machines, especially given their dimensions.

The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components:
GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660
CPU: some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU)
Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD
Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold
Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

Aside from some pretty impressive specs there are a few things that stick out. I'm guessing the PSU is a Silverstone SFX unit; unless it's something custom I don't think anything else would fit in there.

And those dimensions look interesting; it seems we might finally get some more cases in the AV unit size range that a lot of people have been clamoring for. In metric units that's: 305 x 315 x 74mm (~7.1L).

I'm guessing the layout will be similar to the other options we've seen in this area (X51, Tiki, etc..., though I hope the cases will be less gaudy): an ITX board with the GPU on an angled riser. It would need to use a pretty low profile CPU cooler, too.

It'll also be interesting to see if they come up with something smaller, not just these console sized cases.

 

[crABtoad]

Those boxes are only 431.52 cubic inches (7.07135L), and that's a lot of power for something that small.

Definitely piqued my interest, waiting to see what kind of temps and price they'll have. If we can get some more game adoption under Linux...these could have some real effect.

 

[vipz]

The chassis is only 1 cm thicker than an SFX PSU, so it's pretty obvious how the internal is laid out - the only variable is which way the PSU is facing.

...I'm hoping there's nothing stopping me from booting Windows or OSX on it.

 

[Seroman]

Looking at how cramped the X51 is and how crappy the components are, but still decent for such a small case. Yet Steambox is smaller, yet it can fit a GTX Titan, INTERNAL 450W PSU (unlike X51 power brick), and the rest of the stuff.

Did Nvidia release a mini series of Titan and the GTX700 series?

 

[Zap]

INTERNAL 450W PSU (unlike X51 power brick)

Yeah, I was never a fan of huge external power bricks, but I guess many are accustomed to everything having AC adapters. Personally I prefer using just a power cord.

Did Nvidia release a mini series of Titan and the GTX700 series?

No.

 

[sliv]

...I'm hoping there's nothing stopping me from booting Windows or OSX on it.

Same here. Also hoping their controller works well and is not just a gimmick

 

[Drown Babies]

...I'm hoping there's nothing stopping me from booting Windows or OSX on it.

Is this even possible? Is there some way to block regular consumer hardware from booting Windows? I know there was a big thing about UEFI being used to block non-Windows OS's, but I don't know that the reverse is possible.

 

[JoeH823]

I'm excited to see how it comes out; it definitely sounds a lot like some of the cases certain people (like myself) here have been hoping for and seen pretty rarely.

This part sounds especially interesting:

(We'll also share the source CAD files for our enclosure, in case people want to replicate it as well.)

...Not that I personally could do anything with those CAD files, but I'm sure people more talented than myself could.

 

[crABtoad]

That's exciting, I really want to see how the internals are laid out.

Is there any word on what cooler is being used? Maybe one of those low profile Intel blowers? AIO cooler? Standard HS+fan?

They need to pump some stimulus cash into Linux devs though, maybe give out some kickbacks for hosting Linux games on steam at reduced prices or something. Otherwise people are just going to install Windows on these things and the SteamOS is going to fail. (I use Linux as my main OS)

E:

Is this even possible? Is there some way to block regular consumer hardware from booting Windows? I know there was a big thing about UEFI being used to block non-Windows OS's, but I don't know that the reverse is possible.

I've seen some laptops/prebuilt computers with firmware that seeks to prevent people from booting from alternate bootloaders. The worst one I saw was actually an old Dell machine that refused to boot anything that wasn't a "Dell Recovery CD/DVD" There have been some criticisms aimed at Secure Boot, but it seems like it's possible to disable Secure Boot on systems that aren't ARM architecture. This isn't really related either, because we're *trying* to install Windows in this case. I don't trust M$, but I don't really think Valve would try to screw people into using their OS either.