32 - Steam Box specs revealed.

If you have read my blog alot or popped in and out over the last while you will know that I am looking forward to the new Steam Box that Valve, the computer games manufacturer, is about to release. Well specs have been released for the model of the Steam Box that is going to be released in 2014. Here the specs are:

Here is a quote from a website describing the specs better than I will "First and foremost, there isn’t a single static spec — even for the Valve-made beta units. The prototype units will ship with an Intel Core i7-4770, an Intel Core i5-4570, or an unidentified Core i3 CPU. As far as GPUs go, there will be a mix of Nvidia Titan, Nvidia GTX780, Nvidia GTX760, and Nvidia GTX660 models — all with 3GB of GDDR5. All units will ship with 16GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, hybrid 1TB/8GB SSHDs, and a 450w power supply. Impressively, all of this equipment is designed to fit inside a 12-inch x 12.4-inch x 2.9-inch case."

Yes the Steam Box might look like this... or nothing like this?

What sticks out to me is the 1 Terrabyte solid state hard drive! I have a new computer and I have to say the difference between a solid state drive and a regular disc drive is amazing in terms of speed. I am seriously looking forward to it. Valve are making up a machine that runs a hackable scaleable machine that seems to kick the ass of Xbox One and Playstation 4 in terms of specs.

The only thing that we do not know about yet is the price. If you valued these parts today for a machine it could come to €1500+, not the €400 - €500ish that we would like!?!

24 - Steam and the living room

So in case you do not know all about Steam and the Living Room here it is. Basically Valve, the company that made the Half Life series, Portal and Left 4 Dead series has a piece of software named Steam. Steam is the distribution software that is used by gamers to download all the games and gaming tools that they need.

Now Valve want more people to have access to their games so they are releasing an operating system named SteamOS. It is basically a variation of Linux that is tailored towards Valve games. On Friday, yesterday, Valve released the controller that would be used to play the future games from Steam and current games persumably. It is amazing looking. Look at the image below...

SteamOS, Steam, Valve, Contoller

No sticks, tons of buttons, a little screen. The pad is called a haptic controller. Read up a little more here on the BBC website - link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24304272