For all that we already know about SteamOS and the Steam Machines it powers, Valve’s ambitious effort to drag PC gaming into the living room has been mostly shrouded in mystery since its announcement. Consider the hardware: Sure, we know details about a handful of prototype devices Valve itself is making, but retail Steam Machines will be made exclusively by third-party PC makers, and we don’t even know which PC makers are embracing Steam boxes—until now.
Late Thursday, custom PC maker iBuyPower unveiled a prototype of its own Steam Machine. Underneath the sleek white exterior—which the Verge says is “bigger than a PlayStation 4 but smaller than Microsoft’s Xbox One”—lies a fairly potent gaming rig, with a multicore AMD processor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 500GB hard drive, and an AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card (which costs about $180 retail all by its lonesome). More good news: The power supply is integrated within the body of the Steam Machine, rather than relying on a bulky external power brick.
