Valve Talks More About Nvidia GPUs Inside Steam Machines
Valve's Mike Sartaina briefly talks about Nvidia's involvement with the Steam Machines prototypes.
On Friday, Nvidia PR manager Brian Burke posted a short Q&A with Mike Sartaina from Valve's Linux team, discussing the Steam Machines initiative. As revealed earlier, the GeForce GPU maker has been involved with SteamOS from the beginning, and is supplying the Kepler-based GPUs used in the 300 Steam Machine prototypes being offered to testers later this month.
"Nvidia and Valve have been working together for over a decade and engineers from both companies are in constant communication," Sartaina said. "When the SteamOS and Steam Machine projects first got going at Valve, everyone from Nvidia showed a ton of excitement and wanted to get involved. It was a very collaborative effort as folks just started tackling issues such as driver support, porting Nvidia’s content library, and more."
Both teams believe the SteamOS open ecosystem is a very important move for gaming and that it will redefine the living room gaming experience. This will be a chance for gamers to provide feedback during pre-production, to allow them to be part of the design process. The Steam Machines initiative will also be a chance to innovate in a way that really hasn't been seen in the living room console market.
Sartiana said that with the prototype stage now about to begin, Valve is interested in receiving feedback on a number of configurations. "Their feedback will have a significant impact in shaping further development of these devices and the functionality of the SteamOS," he said. "As such, we wanted to test a variety of Steam Machines that explore a range of price performance. Nvidia has done a ton of work to optimize its GTX GPU series on Linux. That work applies across the GTX product line, which provides a complementary set of GPUs for our desired range of prototype Machines."
The prototype machines will feature either an Nvidia Titan, GTX 780, GTX 760, or GTX 660 GPU. On the CPU front, some boxes will have Intel's Core i7-4770, others will have the Core i5-4570, and some will have the Core i3 processors. Available RAM will be 16 GB DDR3-1600 (CPU) and 3 GB DDR5 (GPU). Storage will be provided by a hybrid SSHD with 1 TB for storage and 8 GB for cache. Power will be handled by an internal 450 watt 80 Plus Gold power supply.
"The GeForce GTX series delivers the graphics performance, acoustic characteristics, and power efficiency we wanted for the first impression of the SteamOS living room game experience," he said. "So, even though they are helping us test these devices, their experience should begin with superior performance and amazing visuals directly on their big screen TV the first day they have it."
For a chance of landing a Steam Machines prototype, follow the beta entry instructions here.

After the successful invention of i7 3990K, Tom's Hardware continues to invent new CPUs!
Nvidia, did you pay Valve like you did with origin?
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/10/05/much-nvidia-pay-origin-pc-drop-amd/
After the successful invention of i7 3990K, Tom's Hardware continues to invent new CPUs!
Not entirely true. Titan paired with a 3960X @4,5Ghz which obviously consumes double power than the most consume hungry steam machine CPU the i7 4770K, Chris Angelini used maximum around 430Watt for whole system. Source: Clicky Clicky
The article.
Nvidia, did you pay Valve like you did with origin?
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/10/05/much-nvidia-pay-origin-pc-drop-amd/
Nvidia, did you pay Valve like you did with origin?
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/10/05/much-nvidia-pay-origin-pc-drop-amd/
Not entirely true. Titan paired with a 3960X @4,5Ghz which obviously consumes double power than the most consume hungry steam machine CPU the i7 4770K, Chris Angelini used maximum around 430Watt for whole system. Source: Clicky Clicky
The article.
Thats still pushing it pretty close to its threshold, considering there PSUs are 80 Gold not 80 Platnium certified. Since they are designed to be modular and upgradeable, having a little extra would benefit those high-end tier in a few years, when you can never predict what power requirements may be (although more and more components are pushing for better efficiency). In my opinion, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Considering the small 12x12x3" form factor they mentioned, are they using custom PSU's or a custom PSU like you would find in the built-in mounted PSU in Hadron Case for example (something that is not replaceable)?
Not entirely true. Titan paired with a 3960X @4,5Ghz which obviously consumes double power than the most consume hungry steam machine CPU the i7 4770K, Chris Angelini used maximum around 430Watt for whole system. Source: Clicky Clicky
The article.
Thats still pushing it pretty close to its threshold, considering there PSUs are 80 Gold not 80 Platnium certified. Since they are designed to be modular and upgradeable, having a little extra would benefit those high-end tier in a few years, when you can never predict what power requirements may be (although more and more components are pushing for better efficiency). In my opinion, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Considering the small 12x12x3" form factor they mentioned, are they using custom PSU's or a custom PSU like you would find in the built-in mounted PSU in Hadron Case for example (something that is not replaceable)?
i7 4770: 100watt
GTX Titan: 230watt
Rest System: 20watt
Total: 350watt
Now how can 350 watt be close to 450watt threshold??? And what's this has to do with the efficiency?
edit: removed "K"
GTX Titan: 230watt
Rest System: 20watt
Total: 350watt
Pay a premium for an unlocked CPU and then be restricted to stock speeds on CPU/GPU because you have no overhead on the PSU. Brilliant!