Xi3 Launches Pre-orders for Piston 'Steambox' Console

[JMcEntegart]

Xi3 says get 'em while they're hot.

Xi3 Launches Pre-orders for Piston 'Steambox' Console : Read more

 

[g00fysmiley]

cool for the size... but need more specs before deciding if a good deal, cwould have to compare to a $900 pc which is a tall bar to reach,doesn't have to beat them, just be withing a reasonable amoutn of the performance

 

[hakesterman]

I'm afraid that is a tough sale, too high a price tag for an entry level PC. Too many unknowns....

 

[fonzy]

"The list price of Xi3's Piston console PC starts at $999.99"

It's way to expensive even with a $100 discount, don't see this lasting very long unless they cut the price in half.

 

[Immoral Medic]

I would like to point out that no one in their right mind would purchase this for $1k. Maybe half, but at that price, you could build a beast machine. If you buy it for its size or for "aesthetics" then go for it. Just know the performance you get is a complete ripoff.

 

[godfather666]

other gaming websites said the CPU was really a quad-core AMD APU.

In other words, there's no dedicated graphics card.

In other words, this really expensive for what you get.

 

[uhh3000]

I think my $1050 pc might be a little more worth it.

 

[goodguy713]

If they cant compete with game consoles on price you might as well ignore it .. im rooting for steam box but if this is there attempt at being afforable or trying to make its way into the living room at this price you might as well build your own htpc or try to sell it to the ( i Sheep ) because you can easily make a computer for way less and will preform better .. just saying .. there isnt even any specs on the gpu

 

[downhill911]

So essentially you are getting a PC in small box and then what? Wait?

 

[kettu]

According to xi3 website it seems the CPU is this one:
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-R-Series%20R-464L%20-%20RE464LDEC44HJE.html
source: http://xi3.com/buy_now-piston.php

That's actually 2.3GHz quad-core not a 3.2. Pretty shady marketing. I've seen one tech site make any kind of notice of that little fact. Either most sites are oblivious to elementary factual accuracy or they just don't care.

 

[bustapr]

this is likely the top tier model and just might come with a high end laptop GPU. remember these are mainly VERY low power gaming pcs. if you take a high end gaming laptop(lets just take for example the alienware laptop with i7 and 7970m/680m), remove the screen, chassis, battery, and 3rd party mobo. add in propietary chassis, mobo, and low power PSU. its fairly easy to reach the $999 price point and make a profit. also this would be an amazing LAN party solution.

 

[shikamaru31789]

All the information I've read suggests it's a Trinity APU. Considering Trinity's performance when Tom's tested it, I really can't see paying $1000 for this. If you want a small form factor that bad you could put a Trinity APU (or the upcoming Richland APU) in a Micro ATX slim case for half that price. Now if the Piston had one of the upcoming Richland APU's and costed about $600, I could maybe see getting one, but I can't see it right now. Heck, the PS4 specs are better than what I've found on the Piston so far (minus the SSD), yet it's leaked price for the base model is $430 (and even if that leak is false I can't see the base model costing more than $500).

 

[SirTrollsALot]

I’m still running my old i7 930 oc on air at 4.1ghz, 256 solid state drive, 12GB of Ram and yeah a 460 gtx with 1GB… An ancient system to most, but I’m only running 1080 on a 40" LED… and any game on Steam can be played on Ultra

I was really hopeful the “Piston” would be something worth buying, but after seeing the price $999. My hopes have been extinguished.

For starters, even upgrading my mobo, CPU to SB or IB, + ram, + add a 660gt card, I’m only looking at around $700 give or take with descent components. Plus I get money for my old system making it even cheaper!

I’m trying to wonder who the “Piston” geared toward? I mean no one in their right mind is going to pay double the price as the new Xbox or PS4 are they? So why is the price not within the prices of those systems? I have an idea maybe Valve/Steam can team up with Asus or another Mobo maker and start with Valve/Steam Themed board instead…

Finally, I’d rather see Steam/Valve use resourses to make or help publish better “deep” games than sink into hardware…

 

[loops]

1k? and then games cost what? If it came with a crazy bundle or a % off games if you used the box to buy games...it might sting a bit less.

700 buck PC plus 300 bucks in games would be my call. That would be at least 3 good AAA games and some filer games on sale. You would then have stuff to play and a better rig to play them on.

Here is the thing, they are pricing this thing as if they were up against Apple. Look at the Apple prices and you'd see how they got to this number in some rational way. But they are not Apple. It is a plain mistake. As a shark might say, "I am out."

 

[hapkido]

They're pricing it as if it's a gaming PC that acts like a console, which is completely bass-ackwards.

First, it's way too expensive. Second, it needs to be more powerful than "next-gen" consoles to appeal to couch gamers. The target audience for this doesn't know or care that it will be an open platform and PC games are cheaper to purchase (outside of AAA launch titles). They're going to see a price tag that's double of its competitors.

I don't know why they made it so small -- mini-ITX with a capable GPU (like a 7750) would have been perfect for a small living room PC. Now it's like taking all the downsides of a laptop with none of the advantages of a gaming PC or a console.

 

[lionheart2243]

[citation][nom]kettu[/nom]According to xi3 website it seems the CPU is this one:http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bull [...] 44HJE.htmlsource: http://xi3.com/buy_now-piston.phpThat's actually 2.3GHz quad-core not a 3.2. Pretty shady marketing. I've seen one tech site make any kind of notice of that little fact. Either most sites are oblivious to elementary factual accuracy or they just don't care.[/citation]

That or accurately Tom's accurately stated it clocks at 3.2Ghz, which is true with turbo, and you just made yourself look foolish. One or the other.

 

[lionheart2243]

[citation][nom]hapkido[/nom]They're pricing it as if it's a gaming PC that acts like a console, which is completely bass-ackwards.First, it's way too expensive. Second, it needs to be more powerful than "next-gen" consoles to appeal to couch gamers. The target audience for this doesn't know or care that it will be an open platform and PC games are cheaper to purchase (outside of AAA launch titles). They're going to see a price tag that's double of its competitors.I don't know why they made it so small -- mini-ITX with a capable GPU (like a 7750) would have been perfect for a small living room PC. Now it's like taking all the downsides of a laptop with none of the advantages of a gaming PC or a console.[/citation]

People who epically fail at living on a budget love this kinda crap. Remember back when the first Razr phone came out? HOLY FLAT PHONE BATMAN TAKE MY MONEY!!!

 

[husker]

They are pricing it like they want to make money, which makes sense to me. Ertain people will pay for the convince and the small size. Do it yourself types will scoff at this but keep in mind you can change your own oill for a great price but Jiffy Lube is doing just fine, thanks.

 

[Cons29]

i dont get it, i've read somewhere (not here but i think the info is the same), that yeah there's no dedicated gpu (well considering the size). then they say they are not competing directly against the consoles, it is optimized for steam (well duh).

but the thing that bothers me is, consoles perform well because they have similar config (unlike a pc), so games look and run good. but how can you compete against a pc if you have an iGPU, and at the same time not compete against the consoles? and esp with that price.

it's like the worst of both worlds, crappy for a pc and it's not a console...for $999!

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]husker[/nom]They are pricing it like they want to make money, which makes sense to me. Ertain people will pay for the convince and the small size. Do it yourself types will scoff at this but keep in mind you can change your own oill for a great price but Jiffy Lube is doing just fine, thanks.[/citation]

The PS4 has a GPU that's undoubtedly around half an order of magnitude faster whilst being about half the price, maybe under half the price, of this. Even a pre-built laptop can be had for $1000 that kicks the crap out of this and is still a horrible value compared to a cheap pre-built desktop, let alone a home-built system. I could go on. This isn't just expensive for a DOY person, it's horribly expensive even for non-DOY gamers. Heck, you can probably get similarly performing systems of fairly similar size for much less money. The price is so high that it's unreasonable from the consumer's perspective to such a degree that it's almost more fact than opinion to say what I've said here.

 

[simon12]

If its running Linux it will only play indie type games only and if its running Windows it will game about as well as a PS3 and its got to compete with the PS4 at 3-4 times the price. I has fairly high hopes for a steam box but this may just kill it altogether.

 

[blazorthon]

If its running Linux it will only play indie type games only and if its running Windows it will game about as well as a PS3 and its got to compete with the PS4 at 3-4 times the price. I has fairly high hopes for a steam box but this may just kill it altogether.

If it's using an A10 Trinity APU like we've been told, then it's several times better than a PS3 in performance. It's far behind the PS4, but it's still far ahead of the PS3 too. Otherwise, I mostly agree with you.

 

[mman74]

This Steambox console has given me a really good idea. Consoles are excellent but you can't upgrade them, PCs are configurable but they are just too complicated to build. Why not make truly modular blocks that an idiot could put together like snapping colored cubed blocks together. All you would need to do is to invent the proprietary bus connector where the blocks would just snap/click together without any tools. You would have one red block wich would house the PSU. This would snap onto the back of a green block, housing a motherboard and CPU, you then plug in a blue RAM module at the front of the green block. On the two sides would be a yellow block for HDD/SSD storage and a turquoise block for the graphics card. You sell different variants of each of the colored blocks so that the machine becomes configurable and upgradeable. The motherboard block automatically identifies all component blocks and configures / downloads drivers for them all. You can charge a premium because an idiot can put it together with no tools, an indicator light on the front of each block shows if it is getting power or becomes defective.

 

[Dupontrocks11]

I think what many people fail to realize here is that this is a console. Yes, it is supposedly Valve branded, but it is still a console system. When the PS3 first came out, the price tag was nearly $600 for a fully upgraded one, and considering that this console has it's size as an advantage, I think that the price tag they are asking is reasonably high.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]Dupontrocks11[/nom]I think what many people fail to realize here is that this is a console. Yes, it is supposedly Valve branded, but it is still a console system. When the PS3 first came out, the price tag was nearly $600 for a fully upgraded one, and considering that this console has it's size as an advantage, I think that the price tag they are asking is reasonably high.[/citation]

I agree, it's absolutely priced right. Get a few hundred dollars worth of parts, put it in a small case, call it a console, and then price it at $1000. The hardware isn't really important, it's that we called it a "console" that made it worth the grand.

By the way, how do you like the new iPhone and iPad? Aren't those Apple logos just special? Don't they make it all worth it? Thought so.