Review: Scan 3XS ST15 Steam Machine

Conclusion

...SteamOS attempts to bridge the gap between Windows machines and games consoles but in doing so finds itself in no-man's land.

24 months after an initial release, Valve's SteamOS remains a promising operating system that's struggling to realise its full potential.

Designed to offer a familiar PC gaming experience in a streamlined user interface better suited to living room environments, SteamOS attempts to bridge the gap between Windows machines and games consoles but in doing so finds itself in no-man's land.

Incompatibility with many high-profile titles remains a major blot on the platform's specification sheet, and there are genuine concerns regarding SteamOS performance, with our own benchmarks highlighting the fact that the same game can run considerably smoother on Windows 10.

These are obstacles that Valve needs to overcome if Steam Machines are to become a mainstream choice among gamers, but for the time being they remain a niche solution best suited to hobbyists and Linux gaming enthusiasts.

Realising the platform's limitations, Scan's 3XS ST15 plays both sides of the fence by offering a dual-boot option that allows users to experiment with SteamOS while having tried-and-trusted Windows as a fail-safe. Component selection is good, as is build quality, and the ST15 reinforces our belief that high-end gaming PCs are ready to enter the living room. It's just a shame that SteamOS isn't quite there yet.

The Good		The Bad
Dual-boot a good way to trial SteamOS Living-room friendly form factor Quad-core Intel 'Skylake' CPU Powerful GeForce GTX 970 graphics Three year warranty		Limited game support on SteamOS Performance not on par with Windows Lacks built-in wireless Gets noisy when gaming Needs native multimedia apps

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The 3XS ST15 Steam Machine is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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I'm starting to understand the point of Steam machines now, after initially being a bit naive - I sorta get it now - it's about having the performance and modularity of a PC but with the overall experience of a traditional console.

However, even with that said, this thing is enormous! Where exactly is a machine this big supposed to go? It'd stick out like a sore thumb under my TV. Considering that the empty case alone is nearly 4 kilos, I'd be really nervous about even putting this thing on my glass TV stand. It's essentially a PC - only worse, in many ways. I could forgive most of that if it was any cheaper than a mid-range PC, but it really isn't.

save money, build yourself a windows pc, and have none of these problems…..

AlexKitch
I'm starting to understand the point of Steam machines now, after initially being a bit naive - I sorta get it now - it's about having the performance and modularity of a PC but with the overall experience of a traditional console.

However, even with that said, this thing is enormous! Where exactly is a machine this big supposed to go? It'd stick out like a sore thumb under my TV. Considering that the empty case alone is nearly 4 kilos, I'd be really nervous about even putting this thing on my glass TV stand. It's essentially a PC - only worse, in many ways. I could forgive most of that if it was any cheaper than a mid-range PC, but it really isn't.

It's not that much bigger than an xbone is it? Google seems to think it's 4.4cm wider, 6.3cm deeper and 0.8cm higher. It's obviously a fair bit bigger than a PS4 and ‘truck loads’ bigger than a Wii U. It would be nice if it was smaller and if they'd used a higher end case too - it's roughly the same price as 3 x PS4s or 3 x XB1s - in fact you can currently buy a PS4, an XB1, a Wii U and a 3DS XL for the same price… Not that any of that is scan's fault - I think the component selection is quite good (would be nice to have a bigger SSD and maybe 16GB of RAM for future proofing purposes) and it isn't significantly more expensive than the bare component cost without the hassle (or fun, depending upon your perspective) of building it yourself, with some kind of testing and warranty to boot.

Also - it would be nice to have additional temperature measures in the review. Sure ~80c is normal for a GPU and 66c for a CPU is fine too but what about the system, PSU and SSD temperatures? How long does it take to come back down to idle temps from load? How long was the system run at load for? A pure HTPC will operate under low load most of the time so load temps aren't really that crucial but a gaming PC will be under load for several hours at a time which could mean temperatures for the whole system are a lot higher then you'd see from a short benchmark run. I say this as I've just built a gaming HTPC (out of fairly inappropriate older parts to be fair) which took some fettling - short term load tests were fine but a 4 hour gaming session got the northbridge temp up to 82c and the SSD up to 62c which is a bit higher than I am comfortable with. I had to try a few different cooling configurations (number of fans, direction of airflow, a bigger CPU heatsink that works better at low fan speeds to keep the noise reasonable, etc) to get temps and noise down and keep it stable.

£850 to play a handful of new games only ? Nah I'll pass.

Unless you dual boot with windows this thing is pretty much useless, as SteamOS only lets you play games that work under Linux, and while it is a good sized library, the AAA titles are few and far between.

£850 builds you an absolutely stonking gaming PC, I just don't understand why you'd go this route…gaming PCs aren't any more complicated than consoles anyway. Just have Steam launch into full screen mode!

And as for the review saying it's not getting into if 250gb is big enough..that's weird. You should totally get into it as it's a piddly sized drive. If someone is dropping £850 on this thing they're gonna be going for the bigger better games, not just casual gaming on 5 year old platformers, and that space will get devoured reet quick

Agree with Tunnah on this one. That's a lot of money for a single use games system whereas you could just buy a quiet PC and dual boot it.

Review: Scan 3XS ST15 Steam Machine

Conclusion

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