There's something almost endlessly endearing about the wee Steam Machine box. It's beautifully designed, beautifully small, and it's a gaming PC that you wouldn't mind sticking in/on whatever furniture your TV sits on. But it's also hard to buy, was manufactured in small numbers, and commands an incredibly high price for a PC with a weak last-gen GPU and single-channel memory.
But, bless 'em, Valve is still trying to carry on as though it's all fine. And to that end, it has now listed the Windows drivers for its Steam Machine so users can easily switch from the installed SteamOS software to Microsoft's more-pervasive operating system. The drivers are all listed on the support pages for Steam Hardware, sitting just underneath the options for the different Steam Deck SKUs.
In the interests of choice and customisation, that's great. Having the option to switch from Linux to a more widely supported OS means that all the games which are blocked from SteamOS (such as most online shooters) are now available to you if you commit the sin of an operating system switch.
Okay, that's maybe a little harsh, but it does feel like one of the boons of the Steam Machine is innate support for SteamOS—something that's still not all that widespread for desktop PCs—making for a particularly ideal living room/TV-connected experience. Though I will say that the Steam Controller itself takes much of the pain out of using Windows from a sofa, which also kinda undermines the SteamOS positivity.
Anyways, if you're one of the (lucky?) few who managed to get hold of a Steam Machine, or at least have a golden ticket for the reservation queue, then you can download the latest Windows drivers ready for a clean install of the MS OS right now.
There are a few caveats, however. The first is that it's a binary choice, as currently there isn't a clean way to dual-boot both SteamOS and Windows on one Steam device. Valve says that it will release an installer with a dual-boot wizard "for SteamOS once it's complete" whenever that is. Though I would say you could easily just add in another Linux OS which will boot into the SteamOS gaming frontend, such as Bazzite or Nobara; that will allow you to dual boot.
You will also need to connect your Steam Machine via Ethernet to enter a Windows product key, as the Wi-Fi drivers don't get installed until later. I'm sure there would actually be a way to install the supplied Wi-Fi drivers during Windows installation, but you could also create your Windows install drive using Rufus and have it create a local account automatically to get around that.
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HP Omen 35L
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Lenovo Legion Tower 5i
3. Best high-end:
Corsair Vengeance A7500
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Velocity Micro Raptor ES40
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Alienware Area-51
6. Best mini PC:
Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT
