While technically anyone with the skills can create their own Steam Machine with Valve's version of its SteamOS right now, only 300 people in the US got a chance to get Valve's own prototype box that was shipped on Friday. One of those 300 people is Corey Nelson and since receiving his Steam Machine this weekend he has been quite busy posting up videos of his experiences on YouTube.
The first unboxing video shows that Valve spared no expense in packaging their Steam Machine; it was shipped in a wooden crate with lots of odd symbols. Inside the box there's the black Steam Machine itself which definitely resembles Microsoft's Xbox One. It also comes with a prototype of the Steam Controller, a USB cable, a HDMI cable, a power cord, a Wi-Fi antenna and manuals.
Yet another clip shows Nelson tearing down the Steam Machine box to show what's inside. It's basically a PC box with parts that can be purchased off the shelve, with a massive NVIDIA GeForce graphics card taking up much of the case. The tear down shows that there is room for a second hard drive.
Nelson also showed how the included Steam Controller can be used in a Windows-based PC, as he plays Saints Row IV. Windows apparently sets up the controller as if it were a mouse which makes some sense.
The latest video shows that Nelson has now installed a second hard drive inside the Steam Machine and has installed Windows 7 Enterprise, allowing the device to boot and run both operating systems. Nelson also ran 3DMark benchmark demos on the Steam Machine with Windows 7. The high end Fire Strike demo scored a 7858, which according to 3DMark is a little slower than a high end gaming PC mark of 9131. The Steam Machine's benchmark is still better than 70 percent of all PCs tested by 3DMark.
The demo shows that third party Steam Machines will likely be able to run Windows 7 in addition to SteamOS with little problem, which might be a big selling point when they go on sale sometime in 2014.
Source: Corey Nelson
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