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Comment by HaloZero | Hacker News Reader

How does the steam machine compare to building your own?

Building your own is cheaper, although not by a ton. Valve isn't taking a loss on them.

Yeah, just barely, and only if you don't value warranty or build time. I'm also not super sure you could get something together that is somewhat compact like the steam machine and still be cheaper.

I've built two PCs in the last 5 years and both have had parts that were broken from the factory... There is something to be said about being able to hand off troubleshooting and replacement. I had ASRock pointing fingers at everything else to the point where I had swapped out CPU, PSU, and RAM, until they relented and replaced the motherboard (the replacement which is broken again now 5 years later by the way...)

I always get the highest end components I can find, and I try to stick with Asus and not the cheapest PSU. I've never had anything fail, and I do this every 5 years or so. I hate having to put the fan on the CPU after sticking that in the motherboard, and the cabling is always annoying (although 5x less annoying than it was in the days of IDE and SCSI ribbon cables).

Do you trust the brand and models of the gear you're buying? Use Newegg for reviews even if you buy from Amazon?

I bought from Newegg both times. The first time it was an ASRock MB that was dead, and to be fair, the issue here was that some part was on backorder so by the time everything arrived and I put it together I had to deal with ASRock RMA rather than the Newegg returns department. Typically I choose pretty high end components as well, I do Corsair PSUs & RAM, Samsung SSD, ASUS GPU. Definitely learned my lesson on the MB and went with ASUS for the latest build as well... though that MB's DIMM_B slot was dead. I'm just glad I ended up getting 2x16G of RAM right away instead of starting with 1x16 like I originally planned, because I would have never realized the problem until getting the second stick

I build and/or service all of my PCs, servers and laptops. I never had a single component die on me. I still have my first 128GB Samsung SSD serving as a boot drive in my NAS. Sometimes I buy used parts. Sometimes I sell used parts. I never had any problems with DOA parts no matter if new or used. I'm always careful with static electricity (no sweaters, carpets, cats etc near components). Maybe I'm just lucky or maybe some people are not careful enough with sensitive electronics.

We don't have carpet, and I use the grounding armband from my iFixit set. I've never had an SSD die either even when swapping them between various systems over the years. My oldest M.2 is about 10 years old, a 120GB that I now also use as a boot & VM drive for my NAS. Maybe I'm just unlucky ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Though if a component dies due to ESD from an imperceptible spark then the manufacturer skimped on ESD testing

When building your own you can get:

- 2x the GPU for about the same price.

- Same power usage while in sleep.

- HDMI CEC with a dongle.

- Wake up from sleep with controller if using official Steam Controller.

- Cool and quiet operation. You can actually beat Steam Machine at noise levels under load.

- Upgradability.

- Standard parts that are easy to service and replace.

What you can't get with a custom PC is:

- Comparable size.

- Comparable support (software/firmware fixes and good warranty/service).

- Cool led strip unless you're into electronics and can make your own from scratch.

It has a lot of benefits that aren't easily priced in.

So does a PC.

Steam Machine can't be upgraded.

Once SM becomes too slow for gaming it will become mostly useless as it lacks necessary ports to be repurposed into a reasonable home server. I always reuse my old PC parts as home server upgrades.

Steam Machine uses a proprietary fan that will be annoying or even impossible to replace 5 years from now.

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