If you don’t care for the super compact nature of the Steam Machine and the SteamOS, it can’t be argued that the Valve Steam Machine is a pretty bad deal from a gaming performance standpoint. Starting at $1,049.99, the Steam Machine features a GPU that is generally slower than a 3-year-old, entry-level RX 7600, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage. At that price, you can find a prebuilt gaming PC that beats the socks off the Steam Machine while bringing more RAM and storage
The PC we are talking about is the ABS Cyclone Aqua prebuilt gaming PC on Newegg. It comes with an RTX 5060 8 GB GPU, an Intel Core i5-14400F, 32 GB of DDR4-3200 memory, and 1 TB PCIe Gen 4 storage for just $1,049.99
- An ASRock B760M-C/D4
- Wi-Fi 5
- A 650 W 80+ Gold PSU
- An ARGB CPU cooler
- Three RGB case fans
Moreover, since ABS prebuilt PCs use standard components, you can upgrade the GPU or any other component down the line. This is something you can’t do with the Steam Machine, as it only supports expandable RAM and storage
Now, let’s look at the performance difference between the ABS Cyclone gaming PC and the Steam Machine. Our testing of the RTX 5060 and the RX 7600 shows that the RTX 5060 is 45% faster than the RX 7600 in the 3DMark Time Spy Graphics benchmark. There is a similar performance difference between the CPU performance of the Core i5-14400F and the CPU of the Steam Machine
In other words, in games where the Steam Machine struggles to hit 60 FPS at 1080p, the RTX 5060 will easily push above 60 FPS. Combined with DLSS, the RTX 5060 will be plenty enough for even high-refresh-rate FHD and 60+ FPS QHD gaming
All in all, you can hook up the ABS Cyclone to an affordable QHD gaming monitor and a decent keyboard/mouse, and have a QHD-capable gaming setup for less than $1,500
Disclaimer: Notebookcheck is not responsible for price changes carried out by retailers. The discounted price or deal mentioned in this item was available at the time of writing and may be subject to time restrictions and/or limited unit availability
Newegg (linked above), Teaser image
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Fawad Murtaza, 2026-07-14 (Update: 2026-07-14)
