Comment on Valve's new hardware will NOT be loss leaders

rafoix@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Why would anyone who’s in the market for a by-itself motherboard ever want something you can get as a modular piece as a built-in to another expensive piece?

  Besides, if you want everything soldered on you can just buy a laptop motherboard.

  Or a Mac

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    For the same reason that people are interested in the steam machine. It’s nice to be able to just throw some money at people and get a complete product. I can see businesses getting these things if they need a moderately powerful GPU for business reasons. In less valve go utterly mad on the pricing here it’s going to be much better value for money than a Mac mini, and it’ll have better compatibility with existing software as well.

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    • rafoix@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      “I’m not interested in that product. It is impossible for someone to be interested in that product.”

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  • rafoix@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    For the same reason there’s other options. Having options alone is more than enough reason.

    A motherboard with a built-in GPU has obvious price, cooling design and size advantages.

    The only things I suggest to be soldered are the GPU and the VRAM since GPUs are extremely sensitive to their memory setup. CPUs can use off-the-shelf stuff without issue.

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    • ms_lane@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      The niche is already filled by NUC sized PCs from China.

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      • rafoix@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Where would one be able to see their stock? All I seem to find are $1500 PCs.

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• mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Built-in GPU and VRAM with the CPU, RAM and cooling optional.

  I don’t think that’d be a wise idea. After watching Valve interviews, it’s clear that they designed the entire system around a specific max TDP. Apparently they figured out the TDP, picked a fan to move it, then designed the rest of the cooling system based on that.

  If you start swapping out different CPU’s that’ll change the TDP and very quickly become a problem. Plus, the CPU is soldered to the board. Having a socket to allow for swapping would require a redesign of the cooling to account for the increased height

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  • rafoix@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Yeah, it would probably be a better idea for AMD to sell variants of the APUs being used in the current generation of Xbox and PlayStation.

    My guess is that those chips are under exclusivity contracts and/or they don’t want to undercut their lucrative discrete GPU and CPU market.

    Why sell one efficient product when you can sell two more expensive ones?

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• olafurp@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  On the steam hardware page it says the CPU and GPU are discrete although also “semi-custom” which I think means it’s not Gigabyte and has some cooling features that are tailored to the form factor.

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