Sylish Steam Machine configurations are slated for the second half of 2014
Let's kick off the week with some good news, shall we? CyberPowerPC just flipped us a note announcing a pair of Steam Machine configurations that come complete with a Steam Controller and Steam OS, and the cost of entry starts at just $499, the same MSRP as Microsoft's Xbox One console. Pretty snazzy, right? Well, the bad news is that you'll have to wait until the second half of the 2014 before you can buy one - drats!
Wait time aside, CyberPowerPC has put together a couple of respectable configurations to choose from. The first is the "Steam Machine A" with an AMD A6 6400K processor, 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory, Radeon R9 270 graphics card, 500GB SATA 6Gbps hard drive (7200 RPM), and built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi on a mITX motherboard. This is the configuration that runs $499.
If you're willing to pony up $699, you'll be able to pick up CyberPowerPC's "Steam Machine I" system. It's configured similarly to the Steam Machine A box, but has an Intel Core i3 4330 foundation with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 graphics card.
Either way, CyberPowerPC promises full desktop PC performance in a stylish box capable of running hundreds of games currently in the Steam catalog. That's not to say you won't have to make some adjustments to in-game settings, though looking at the specs, both setups should do a serviceable job serving up playable framerates at 1920x1080.