Valve may have found success with Steam Deck but the company’s hardware efforts haven’t always proven so fruitful. It’s easy to forget the company’s prior efforts with Steam Machines but it seems they could soon receive a resurrection of sorts via project ‘Fremont’. Better still, it’ll pack AMD’s latest graphics architecture.
According to leaker eXtas1s, Valve is pouring a lot of effort into Radeon RX 9070 drivers for Linux, alongside AMD. A curious development following the company’s shift to supporting SteamOS on other devices, possibly including desktops too. Given that there’s no fitting a dedicated graphics card inside a handheld, a new Steam Machine seems like the only reasonable outcome.
Optimising for RDNA 4 GPUs should net Valve and its partners a cost-advantage, as Radeon RX 9070 Series graphics prices shouldn’t be nearly as expensive as rival Nvidia GeForce offerings. The value of these pixel pushers could be exponentially higher than prior generations too thanks to FSR 4 and its use of machine learning for upscaling.
Even with the success of the Steam Deck behind it, I wasn’t expecting to see Valve resurrect Steam Machines. Remembering the infamous Alienware model with its $900 MSRP still sends shivers up my spine. However, this was admittedly almost 10 years ago now and both the company and gaming landscape have changed dramatically.
Should Valve make a return to the space, I wonder whether the company will debut its own device or licence designs to partners as it did in the past. I personally would prefer the former approach, given the quality of the company’s hardware thus far and top-notch customer support. It should also avoid any unfortunate pricing gaffs like the one mentioned prior too.
Of course, this is just a rumour for now and it could take Valve years to bring any console plans to fruition. Where is Deckard anyway?
