It was only a matter of time before Steam Machine clones started crawling out of the woodwork, and there's a box in China for roughly $688. Yes, that is the price I was hoping Valve's mini PC would land for prior to RAMageddon, and its fresh rival promises an RX 6750 GRE GPU, 16GB DDR5 RAM, and a 2TB SSD. Smells like a big old scam, right? Well, probably, but there's an important conversation to be had.
Originally highlighted by kaldeqca on Reddit, the Taobao screenshot in question doesn't actually use the phrase "Steam Machine." Instead, it lists the aforementioned specs and lists SteamOS rather than Windows 11, not to mention the white box is roughly the same size as Valve's cube. The part that makes the 4,680 RMB mini PC listing feel like a scam is the mismatched specs, and while that in itself is deceptive, there's probably a real mini PC being sold here.
The big red flag is claiming to pair an R5 5500 CPU with DDR5 memory, as the chipset only supports DDR4. Hardly a shocker that it's not using the latest RAM standard, considering the current price situation, and even last-gen speeds would be impressive for under $700.
China has cloned a White Steam Machine, with 6750GRE (10GB), R5 5500 and 16 gig DDR5 with SteamOS, at 2TB for 688 Dollarfrom r/steammachine
Perhaps more amusingly, this SteamOS mini gaming PC is apparently packing the aforementioned RX 6750 GRE, a full-size graphics card, into a shell I suspect is under a litre. At least, that's the size of the existing "CHUWI UBox" machine that it bears resemblance to (but has nothing to do with this TaoBao listing, FYI), and as far as I'm aware, there is no discrete version of that particular AMD GPU.
When it comes to specs, I can almost guarantee this Steam Machine rival isn't what it claims to be. However, $688 could still get you a functioning box, albeit one that uses a mobile APU and, at the very best, can keep up with gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck OLED. I'm envisioning something like the Ayaneo Mini PC AM02, but with a less impressive shell and no pretty display.
That's an optimistic take on what's going on here, but the retailer in question makes me think this is something far weirder. Having investigated Taobao in the past, I found that the site had an issue with sellers creating listings for products that don't exist before attempting to source parts and manufacturing after the fact.
My theory is that someone has haphazardly asked an AI bot for a bunch of Steam Machine equivalent PC parts, plucked out an ideal form factor, then created a listing for a make-believe product. Whoever is behind the page may very well try to make their impossible machine in order to fulfil orders, but there's no way they'll be putting DDR5 RAM and an RX 6750 GRE inside that tiny cubeoid.
If I had a spare $700, I'd order one of these weirdo Steam Machine clones for science. But alas, I sadly do not have the coin for an experiment that will have a pretty predictable outcome. What I want to know is whether they'll ship this thing with a different Radeon APU inside, disguised as an "RX 6750 GRE" using modified firmware, or if it's plain old vaporware.
One thing I can say for certain is that you can just build your own Steam Machine, and if you do see equivalent specs packed in a near-sized shell, I'd run a mile.
Looking for a break from modern gaming? Swing by the best retro consoles and best retro handhelds for ways to play the classics.
