{"id":14278,"date":"2026-09-17T00:54:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T21:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=14278"},"modified":"2026-09-17T07:46:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T04:16:30","slug":"valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming\/","title":{"rendered":"Valve&#8217;s New Hardware Was Meant to Be the Start of Something Great for PC Gaming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">All of Valve&#8217;s new hardware is now out in the wild, and while I&#8217;ve enjoyed everything from the Steam Controller to the Frame, it&#8217;s hard to recommend any of it to anyone right now. That problem isn&#8217;t exclusive to Valve either. Across the entire industry, getting any hardware that can run video games is significantly more expensive than it was a year ago, and that&#8217;s spoiled some otherwise awesome gadgets. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">But while prohibitively high prices might have lessened the immediate impact of Valve&#8217;s hardware, its goal of expanding SteamOS support and offering a baseline configuration for developers to target still gives me hope for the future of PC gaming. <\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Steam Frame \u2013 Hands-On Photos<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2896921488 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming.gif\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3027214138 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\"><\/span><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<h2 data-cy=\"title2\" class=\"title2 jsx-1903782357 jsx-3735650234\">Everything&#8217;s Expensive<\/h2>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Back when Valve revealed its 2026 trifecta of hardware, I was excited to see Valve essentially create its own gaming ecosystem, free from the subscriptions and data harvesting that we&#8217;ve all grown used to on other platforms. That alone is still a pretty good reason to buy into something like the Steam Machine. But its relatively weak performance with a comparitively high price is a huge barrier, and I can&#8217;t really blame anyone for balking at the idea of spending $1,049 on it \u2013 and that&#8217;s without a controller.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Outside of Valve, Intel launched its new handheld chips, led by the Arc G3 Extreme, and it&#8217;s a force to be reckoned with. When I tested it in the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, it absolutely trounced handhelds like the Xbox Ally X and the Lenovo Legion Go 2, but it costs $1,899, and for that price you can get a pretty decent gaming laptop, at least until those go up in price too.  <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">That&#8217;s before mentioning graphics cards. The high-end Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, which first retailed at $1,999, is going for about $8,000 these days due to its huge amount of VRAM and how good it is at powering AI models. Even the RTX 5070 has gone up to $850 when it&#8217;s supposed to cost $549. There are shaky rumors that Nvidia will release its new graphics cards early next year, but even if it does, who would be able to afford one?<\/p>\n<h2 data-cy=\"title2\" class=\"title2 jsx-1903782357 jsx-3735650234\">The Hope for PC Gaming<\/h2>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">If prices across the industry were what they were a year ago, Valve&#8217;s hardware and Intel&#8217;s handheld chips would have been hugely impactful. I know I&#8217;m not the only person in the world who&#8217;s ready to drop Windows 11 \u2014 with all its little bugbears, like needing to be online to get past setup and the pervasiveness of Copilot \u2014 altogether. I&#8217;d love to adopt SteamOS or another Linux distro full time. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Making it easier to play PC games on SteamOS was Valve&#8217;s primary goal with this wave of hardware. I still believe that the Steam Machine gives game developers a good baseline configuration to target their optimization toward. That&#8217;s why the Machine has specs that largely line up with what the majority of Steam users already have. <\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"poll-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<section class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\"><\/section>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The Steam Frame is also all about expanding SteamOS software support to ARM hardware. While the standalone performance of Valve&#8217;s new VR headset is lackluster, thanks to an aging phone SoC, the company was still able to use Proton and Fex to get Windows games running natively. And, now that Valve has been working on Nvidia driver support, its future vision of SteamOS running on everything is actually in reach.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">And I think that&#8217;s the worst part of the high prices on Valve&#8217;s hardware. If the Steam Machine was able to come out at $750, it might have been more expensive than the PS5, but it would have at least been more affordable than it is now, Valve would have been able to get its hands on more RAM to get more Machines out there, and it may have made more of an impact to Linux gaming support writ large. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">I don&#8217;t think that progress has been completely kneecapped, though. Even if buying a Steam Machine is off the table for a lot of people \u2013 maybe even most people \u2013 the work being done on SteamOS and Bazzite carries over to other hardware. You can still build a relatively decent alternative to the Steam Machine and install the operating system yourself, even on older, used hardware.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"null\" class=\"progressive-image article-image article-image-full-size jsx-1809694635 jsx-2338608387\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming.gif\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Ironically, that older, used hardware is the future of PC gaming, at least in the short term. Over the last few years, there&#8217;s been a huge focus on the most powerful current-generation hardware and its ability to run games on the highest possible settings with ludicrous frame rates. I&#8217;ve contributed to that myself. But, maxing out games is mostly just a way to help justify spending thousands of dollars on a high-end rig. If you&#8217;re willing to tweak some settings, most PC games will run just fine on 5\u201310-year-old hardware, and you&#8217;d struggle to even notice the difference unless you&#8217;re zooming in on the images side-by-side. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">It helps that, for the most part, PC games are getting easier to run, as long as you ignore any game running on Unreal 5. Capcom, for instance, has been on a massive winning streak with its recent games like Pragmata and Onimusha: Way of the Sword, thanks to RE Engine&#8217;s ability to scale to lower-power hardware. Even Crimson Desert, with its massive open world and ridiculous draw distances, doesn&#8217;t take a hugely powerful PC to run. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">As weird as it feels to say, especially with a new console generation on the horizon, I hope that more developers realize how expensive hardware is right now and spend more time optimizing their games. Because at a certain point, more realistic graphics are just going to limit how many people will actually be able to play a game as intended. <\/p>\n<section class=\"author-sign-off\" data-cy=\"author-sign-off\"><span class=\"stack jsx-59817748 jsx-1927875859\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"rounded jsx-444076027 jsx-4218469134 profile-thumb jsx-2141281959 aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-1-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Jacqueline Thomas Avatar\" class=\"progressive-image profile-thumb-img jsx-249361588 jsx-2338608387 expand\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming.jpg\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"stack jsx-2509706801 jsx-3630940851\"><span class=\"stack jsx-2959124702 jsx-702910195 author-sign-off-header\">Jacqueline Thomas<\/p>\n<p>Senior Tech Editor<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"stack jsx-2509706801 jsx-1220387432\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"author-sign-off-socials\" class=\"jsx-2877214176 author-sign-off-socials\"><button type=\"button\" aria-haspopup=\"listbox\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"View social links\" class=\"jsx-2877214176 socials-trigger\"><span title=\"X\" class=\"jsx-2877214176 social-icon-avatar\"><span class=\"ign-icon jsx-2877214176 jsx-2750866048 jsx-2788214270\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"jsx-2877214176\"><\/span><\/span><span title=\"Bluesky\" class=\"jsx-2877214176 social-icon-avatar\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ign-icon jsx-2877214176 jsx-2750866048 jsx-2788214270\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"jsx-2877214176\" alt loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/kraken.ignimgs.com\/_next\/static\/media\/Bluesky.d8b4aa9b.svg?cors=0\"><\/span><span title=\"Steam\" class=\"jsx-2877214176 social-icon-avatar\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ign-icon jsx-2877214176 jsx-2750866048 jsx-2788214270\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"jsx-2877214176\" alt loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/kraken.ignimgs.com\/_next\/static\/media\/Steam.d65ad1e2.svg?cors=0\"><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"interface jsx-1132626198 sign-off-text\">\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. She&#8217;s been covering gaming hardware for more than a decade for IGN, TechRadar, Gizmodo, PC Gamer and more. You can follow her\u00a0<\/em>@Jackiecobra<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/section>\n<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming-1.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/valves-new-hardware-was-meant-to-be-the-start-of-something-great-for-pc-gaming-1.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-14278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14280,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14278\/revisions\/14280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}