You're still paying the premium for getting a low power parts in a small form factor. At half the price it's a lot easier to justify to someone who doesn't really care. But at almost twice the price that FPS per dollar difference is a lot higher.

This random ass power spec computer is going to kick the shit out of the steam machine. Again if size isn't a concern. And I'm sure actual oems have smaller pcs with less compromised performance.

Same for me. I was expecting like $1200 for the base model which nobody should pay that much for such middling specs.

But still $1k is way more than I'd pay for an HTPC. I'd much rather the steam link approach and use streaming to my already nice and powerful desktop. I guess this is a nice thing to point newbies who want a box that should "just work" and don't already have something and don't want to build.

Obviously, no shit. I never meant to imply that this was targeted at me. But I know multiple people who already have a high end computer who would also like this for their living room.

If it was $600 like I'd originally hoped I'd be interested. I wasn't going to get one day 1, but I'd have picked one up once they're consistently in stock. But $1000 for mid specs is rough for anyone. Just like the steam controller, Valve has made another hyper niche device.

The frame sure aint gonna be cheap hardware. 0% chance it can match the quest in price. But since it doesn't need as much storage I'm hoping it'll be 700-800. But I wouldn't blink if it's $1000. Valve just doesn't have the economies of scale Meta will.

That was before the RAM shortage. It's going to be at least 1 full year before RAM price start going down and they can offer discounts. Unless the AI bubble pops. And that'll have huge economic consequences.

I ran into a whole list of games I wanted to play that don't work right when I tried last.

Off the top of my head I know Forza Horizon 5 from the microsoft store doesn't work. Being from the MS store has nothing to do with it, it's the splash screen. The controller works great for the 5 seconds it's up. But when the game actually opens then steam input decides to stop working, even though steam knows the game is still open. Valve could easily fix this by just applying steam input forever until the program quits. But they don't. So if I want too play that game I need to use a 3rd party steam input wrapper just to make the damn controller act as a controller.

It’s not always accessible. Not all tables have built in outlets in spots that’d reach where I need to be.

Meetings. Have you never had a day where you’re constantly bouncing between meetings, or helping others?

But do they have the same performance per watt under real life workloads?

Intel CPUs are great at 100% idle, and 100% load. Anything less than that and they tend to fall on their face.

My 12th Gen. Intel laptop gets about 4 hours of battery life just doing Remote Desktop. Going full tilt it’s fairly efficient. At 100% idle it can be good. But a simple task that keeps the CPU lightly busy and it falls on its face.

I have many complaints about the steam controller. Build quality isn’t one of them.

It’s not 12-14 hours of straight working. It’s 12-14 hours without charging. Sometimes it’s just not convenient. Do you always go home from work and remember to charge your laptop? Never forgetting, consistently every day doing this?

Plus thanks to S0 standby using so much power just the laptop being in sleep is a decent battery drain.

I don't know about you. But when I get home my work laptop stays in my backpack, and I don't think about it. I need a laptop with enough battery life that I can get into work the next day and get through a 4 hour meeting without worrying if it's going to die regardless of what I was doing the previous day.

Microsoft confirmed your computer will boot just fine, it’s just that secure boot is effectively off.

It’s no different from like 80% of Linux distros that don’t support secure boot at all. Except for those you have to actually manually disable secure boot to boot.

Not all work properly.

Pretty much any game with a launcher or a splash screen won’t work right.

Yeah did it ever natively play h265? You’ve always had to pay the $2 for it, had an OEM computer that they paid for it, or gotten it from something else. It was the exact same in windows 10.

How often are you creating new Apple IDs on phones without any previous cell connections?

And why not just create the account in settings after you set up the phone? There’s no reason to reset the phone just to make an Apple ID.

The gift was for the kid not the parent.

Is this a gaming computer, or a computer for work?

If you're doing some heavy CPU intensive tasks for work the 5950 is still a great CPU. But if you're gaming then it's usually worse than the single CCD 5800x, and MUCH worse than the 5800x3d which is the best gaming CPU for AM4.

Also a hard drive and no SSD? That's going to be a painful computer to use in 2026. Skip the HDD, get the cheaper (and better) CPU and get a cheap NVME SSD.

Also why are you buying windows 10 in 2026? It's EOL. Pirate it if you're going to use 10, or if you want fully legit buy 11. Don't pay full retail for an EOL pproduct.

Does the machine have thunderbolt? You can put a fast NVME SSD into a thunderbolt/USB 4 40gbit enclosure and write basically as fast as the SSD can.

Even a normal USB 3 10/20gbit adapter will be infinitely faster than any USB stick. They put the worst flash imagineable into USB drives. Sure they read fast, but outside of their cache they’re painfully slow.

If you really insist on a USB “thumb stick” I’ve had good luck with the “SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.2 Solid State Flash Drive” they write infinitely faster than most junk you’ll find.

It is quite possibly the least ergonomic controller I’ve used. I like to sit at my desk with my controller on my lap right in front of my stomach. The grips are so vertical that my wrists are almost at a 90 degree angle. The only comfortable way for me to hold it is at the top basically squeezing it, and at the bottom almost not touching it at all to get a decent angle on it. Even then I have to sit back to give enough room to stretch out my arms so I don’t destroy my wrists.

The joysticks are also very far inwards. My hands aren’t gigantic, but they’re definitely not small. I’m a 6’1” guy for reference. I’ve found that to comfortably use the joysticks my hands need to be positioned more on top of the controller than along the side. So pair the weird angle with my hands being on top of the controller and I HATE the ergonomics of the thing.

The trackpads are cool to some people, but I don’t care since my mouse is right next to me. The software doesn’t even work right and I’m still waiting for them to fix my issue.

But besides the horrendous ergonomics I like it enough to use it. Eventually when the elite series 3 comes out I’ll probably switch to it (as long as it’s got TMR)