Update: Xi3 Opens "Piston" Steam Box Pre-Orders
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
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In regard to SSDs, I've never been able to bring myself to buy one. The speed benefits just aren't that much to compensate for the higher price and lower storage space compared to traditional mechanical hard drives.
On to the actual topic though, $1000 is way too much for what they are offering. I know early adopters always pay more but this is just silly money.
On to the actual topic though, $1000 is way too much for what they are offering. I know early adopters always pay more but this is just silly money.
I can assure you that either:MrPeanut said:Funny, I got an SSD, timed it in comparison to my mechanical drive.Steven Bogos said:
Games are all the same, windows actually loads faster from a mechanical drive.
And I can assure you it was not a faulty drive
1. You got a faulty drive.
2. You have some weird compatibility issue with your motherboard, or
3. You are full of carp.
Any Ssd bought this side of 2012 has sustained throughput at least 4-5 times faster than the fastest mechanical drives but more importantly, it has access (seek time) measured in ns rather than ms. So with those facts in mind, I dare say that any claim to mechanical drives being faster than solid state ones is pure fantasy.
I could build an entire computer for that kind of money...
Then run Steam on it.
Who would buy this, honestly?
Then run Steam on it.
Who would buy this, honestly?
An additional 400GB for $750? Nearly doubling the price of the device? They are aware that in this day and age, a two TERABYTE drive costs $150? I mean sure, their drive has to be quite a bit smaller to fit in the Piston, but still, I can't see anyone shelling out that much. Just look at the garbage sales of the PS3 when it first came out, and it cost around $900.
I'm not quite sure what these guys are thinking. They must be delusional.
I'm not quite sure what these guys are thinking. They must be delusional.
Who the hell is gonna buy this thing? PC gamers? No, they know better. Console gamers? No, they already have consoles and if they wanted to get into PC gaming they would probably ask around first.
Who the hell is the target audience for this thing?
Who the hell is the target audience for this thing?
This does seem a little out there.
The use of an SSD certainly wouldn't help the cost any, but it also doesn't sound like it'd be that powerful.
I mean, I've looked at small form-factor PC's in the past, and honestly, you can get mini-itx boards that take I7 processors and have a pci-X slot.
They still end up being quite large, even though a mini-itx board is about 15 by 15 cm, which is pretty tiny, if you add in a graphics card and power supply you get a box quite a bit larger than one of these pistons.
BUT if you're willing to go with something like an AMD fusion processor, and can find a suitable case, you can get computers like that which have sizes comparable to game consoles.
And you can get boards like that with the processor included (and by extension the graphics card, since that's what fusion is about), for less than $100.
Add in a power supply, ram, hard disk, DVD drive, etc, and you can build a complete small form factor PC in the region of $200-300 or less.
It won't win awards for speed, but it still has power comparable to consoles, and can certainly run a fairly large number of games.
Maybe not as glamorous as this piston design, but it'd do a much better job of competing with game consoles than something which costs over $1000
(plus, these boards still typically have pci-express connectors. So if you need more graphical power, that's still an option. The only downside is the CPU, but again, boards exist taking mainstream Intel and AMD processors. It'd up the cost and size, obviously, but it's still more than possible.
The use of an SSD certainly wouldn't help the cost any, but it also doesn't sound like it'd be that powerful.
I mean, I've looked at small form-factor PC's in the past, and honestly, you can get mini-itx boards that take I7 processors and have a pci-X slot.
They still end up being quite large, even though a mini-itx board is about 15 by 15 cm, which is pretty tiny, if you add in a graphics card and power supply you get a box quite a bit larger than one of these pistons.
BUT if you're willing to go with something like an AMD fusion processor, and can find a suitable case, you can get computers like that which have sizes comparable to game consoles.
And you can get boards like that with the processor included (and by extension the graphics card, since that's what fusion is about), for less than $100.
Add in a power supply, ram, hard disk, DVD drive, etc, and you can build a complete small form factor PC in the region of $200-300 or less.
It won't win awards for speed, but it still has power comparable to consoles, and can certainly run a fairly large number of games.
Maybe not as glamorous as this piston design, but it'd do a much better job of competing with game consoles than something which costs over $1000
(plus, these boards still typically have pci-express connectors. So if you need more graphical power, that's still an option. The only downside is the CPU, but again, boards exist taking mainstream Intel and AMD processors. It'd up the cost and size, obviously, but it's still more than possible.
But for $1000 USD you could probably get an "OK" laptop to play games on. For the top end price you definately can.The Plunk said:
They can make it as small as they like, it's no better than a laptop for portability. Still got to carry about a monitor/keyboard/mouse/headphones(or speakers).
I'd imagine that the small form factor would make this "un-upgradable" too. Not to mention the cooling issues you get in small boxes like these. May as well just go for something like the "LAN party" portable machines on Overclockers. (or make your own!)
Steam box is going to be a massive flop - and all because Gabe was a bit 'hurt about windows 8. (pretty much)
/me puts up flameshield to Stop angry valve/gabe fanboys
I think what steam does really well is recognize that gamers are fanatics in every way when it comes to gaming and how to play them. Meaning we as gamers do a pretty good job keeping up with the industry. When a steam sale comes along, we recognize it's a good deal.
The same can be said for computer specs. No gamer is going to drop $1000 on a computer without a butt-load of research. The fact that Xi3 either doesn't recognize this with their pricing model, or don't care does not bode well for the success of this product.
I applaud any company trying to give more hardware options to the community, but I think they would have more success building a bare-bones system that can run most games well, than trying to compete with building top of the line rigs.
The same can be said for computer specs. No gamer is going to drop $1000 on a computer without a butt-load of research. The fact that Xi3 either doesn't recognize this with their pricing model, or don't care does not bode well for the success of this product.
I applaud any company trying to give more hardware options to the community, but I think they would have more success building a bare-bones system that can run most games well, than trying to compete with building top of the line rigs.