"There's no way this can work": Steam Machine clone from China baffles fans

The Steam Machine remains divisive. While some believe its price is justified by its unique, exceptionally compact living-room design, others see Valve's living-room PC as simply too expensive and underpowered. After French manufacturer LDLC introduced the "Stim Machine," a provocative Steam Machine clone, China now appears to be following suit – and at a significantly lower price.

As currently being discussed on Reddit, a white mini PC has appeared on Taobao that bears a striking resemblance to Valve's Steam Machine. According to a screenshot of the listing, the device is said to run SteamOS and to be available in a configuration featuring a Radeon RX 6750 GRE, a Ryzen 5 5500, 16 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage. The listed price is 4,680 yuan, or roughly €605 – considerably less than the Steam Machine, which would likely cost the equivalent of around €905 for the 512 GB model and about €1,164 for the 2 TB version in China. Valve has not announced official Chinese pricing, so these figures are based on the U.S. retail prices of $1,049 and $1,349.

“Ryzen 5 5500 with DDR5?”

The listing has raised plenty of eyebrows on Reddit. "There's no way this can work," several users commented, pointing out that the Ryzen 5 5500 uses the AM4 platform and officially supports only DDR4 memory. DDR5 simply would not be compatible with that processor. Others doubt that a Radeon RX 6750 GRE could even fit inside the compact chassis shown in the pictures. Users have also questioned cooling, noise levels and power delivery. Security concerns have surfaced as well, with some commenters saying they would never connect such a mini PC to their Steam account until it is clear what hardware and operating system will actually ship.

Reddit user u/survfate, who says he regularly shops on Taobao, believes there is a simple explanation for the confusion:

“The confusing is due to the fact that they are putting everything in the title but there are actually multiple products in that same listing, so the product in the image isn't the one with the 6750gre - that one is a custom built ITX machine.”

That explanation cannot be verified, as the listing appears to have been removed. Even so, the case is noteworthy because it suggests Valve's SteamOS push is already beginning to bear fruit. It is probably only a matter of time before more Steam Machine alternatives appear on the market.