Whether deliberately uploaded or not, Steam Machine benchmark scores are now live at Geekbench. Listed under its former "Valve Fremont" moniker, the information marries up with previous postings in terms of specs, but the new entry specifically mentions SteamOS as an operating system, and it smells to me like someone is testing for review.
First highlighted by Olrak29_ on X, the Steam Machine Geekbench scores don't give much away in terms of performance. The scores themselves are still in line with previously leaked figures, with single-core coming in at 2,282 and 2,334 points, and multi-core hitting 7,392 and 7,316, respectively.
Those Steam Machine benchmark scores also apply specifically to an AMD Custom CPU 1772 chipset, just like before, with specs including a 4.86 GHz base clock speed, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, and 16.0 MB L3 cache. Those all marry up with Valve's official custom Zen 4 specifications, so I'd be very surprised if they don't all link back to the yet-to-be-released box.
Effectively, while these fresh Geekbench results aren't confirmation that the Steam Machine release date is upon us, the stars are aligned for a June launch. Many of you will be aware that I review the latest gaming handhelds, PC hardware, and other gizmos, and typically speaking, I find myself testing tech for review very close to its ETA.
What I'm saying is that, while I'm not currently testing a Steam Machine, someone likely is, and that someone may have posted Geekbench results early. I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at how long an embargo these select testers potentially have before D-day, but if it were me, I'd be running benchmarks ASAP so as to account for any technical hiccups or need for re-runs.
Who knows, perhaps Valve will stick to the same embargo structure as the Steam Deck OLED in 2024. The reviews for the gaming handheld landed on a Wednesday, February 21, to be exact, which would theoretically mean we'll see coverage of the box land on June 25. Previous rumors shared by Steam Hardware Updates suggest videos will land a day earlier on June 23, but keep in mind this is all speculation based on the Steam Controller launch guidelines.
I should underline the fact that there is no official Steam Machine release date yet. Perhaps more importantly, we're still waiting on a price, as if the MSRP ends up being near or, god forbid, over a grand, it might not be on many players' radar. What I'm fairly certain of is that Valve will stay true to its summer promises, and I'd be surprised if the mini doesn't land in June.
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