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View Full Version : SteamMachines more powerful and cheaper than consoles within 2 to 3yrs



DanglingPointer
November 26th, 2013, 05:11 AM
Hi All,

I was just thinking logically, Kaveri APU's will be out next year and eventually it may get an octacore paired to the GCN-Mantle capable iGPU or the next architecture after Kaveri gets the octacore.
The R9-290(X) is ALREADY orders of magnitude more powerful than both consoles even if you combine the PS4 and the XBONE together the Hawaii cards would still be much more powerful.
Now with AMD releasing their AMD-Spec-SteamMachines next year paired to proper-mature FGLRX drivers (yet to be seen though); the consoles could still have the upper-hand due to price.

HOWEVER...
within 2yrs to 3yrs; APU performance + Mantle games for most of the AAA games being developed by EA, Rebellion, Crytek, etc; plus the usual drop in price of APU chips as they mature; could mean a brand new SteamMachine running SteamOS or Ubuntu with Steam could cost less AND be MORE powerful than any of the mass-market consoles!

What do you think? By the end of 2015 or 2016, SteamMachines can sell for cheaper prices and be much more powerful than consoles due to Mantle!
Food for thought huh!?

UPDATE:
Come to think of it, after giving it more thought, perhaps as early as the end of next year or early 2015 if prices go south! A medium to low priced APU plus lets say a cheap 270X at end of 2014 year prices. If games are guaranteed to work via SteamOS/SteamMachines, then there really is no reason to get a console especially if the top games are developed using Mantle which is virtually the same paradigm for console game development.

King Dude
November 26th, 2013, 09:00 PM
PC is tenfold better than any console (except for maybe Nintendo, because it's in a league of its own). The only upperhand the consoles have had was the extremely lightweight operating system, which was dedicated for gaming. Now that PCs have a gaming-dedicated OS of their own, the consoles are now basically straight up inferior from a hardware/software standpoint. Not to mention that since the OS is open-source, and there is a ridiculous amount of funding coming from Valve, this will probably be the closest to the bleeding edge of technology you could probably get.

My suggestion? Learn a programming language like Assembly, C, C++, Python, or Perl and begin contributing towards Linux as much as you can. If you are too lazy, and your pocket book is reasonably large, you could always help fund Linux by joining The Linux Foundation (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/). A little can go a long way.

DanglingPointer
November 27th, 2013, 07:30 AM
It actually may come even early next year! We just need better FGLRX drivers and an easier way to update them without dramas and having to sudo-write commands! The process needs to be dummyfied so anyone can just click a button to update the driver!
Here's the first and it is already cheaper than the consoles and slightly more powerful!!!...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2013/11/26/this-is-ibuypowers-499-amd-powered-steam-machine/

sffvba[e0rt
November 27th, 2013, 09:29 AM
Looking at how long the PS3 and XBox 360 was out and how dated the graphics there is in relation to PC hardware I agree that the Steam machines will always be either more powerful or cheaper (and perhaps even both)... If this is going to make any kind of difference remains to be seen.

DanglingPointer
November 27th, 2013, 10:56 AM
Well traditionally the problem with PC games are that you had to configure settings, drivers, hardware; things may not work; etc. A headache!

With SteamMachines, games will need to pass a minimum config-level-spec determined by Valve. So all games are guaranteed to work following pre-defined specs which can be unit-acceptance-tested by developers prior to game publication. Thus games will just work with minimal fuss almost as easy as say... putting a game DVD into a XBOX 360 and starting the game.
That has never really happened with PC games.

Also since Mantle is now available the advantages of the consoles are gone! The PS4 and XBONE will have no advantage since Mantle will allow the same paradigm of console-like development (direct-to-metal).