Valve’s Steam Machine Can Be Upgraded, But Not Its Most Important Component

The Gamers Nexus team visited Valve and spoke with engineers about the Steam Machine’s engineering, during which the unit was shown without its case. An engineer noted that the design process started with thermal management—particularly the fan—because the laws of thermodynamics “can’t be changed.”

Disassembling the unit revealed that users will be able to swap the RAM for SO‑DIMM modules, although access is limited because the slots sit beneath a large heatsink. It’s unclear whether there are one or two modules, but the memory is not soldered to the board. The SSD is also removable: the compact 2230 M.2 can be replaced with a full‑length 2280 drive.

What cannot be changed is the GPU — an AMD RDNA 3 chip with 28 compute units running up to 2.45 GHz and 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. The video memory cap could become an issue for future AAA releases, especially given the device’s target of 4K at 60 FPS using FSR 3. The system will likely rely heavily on FSR 3 upscaling, and the native render resolution is still unknown, which may affect visual clarity.

Until independent benchmarks appear, much of this remains conjecture. The only confirmed user upgrades are RAM and storage; the GPU is not user‑replaceable.

Source: iXBT.games