- There’s a hidden twist to Steam Machine’s RAM settings
- Most devices have a single 16GB drive, but some have a pair of 8GB modules.
- A single or dual setup may not make much difference in many cases, but it can in some scenarios, and some players are really not happy about this.
You may know that the Steam Machine has 16GB of RAM, but what you may not know is that it’s probably present as a single 16GB DDR5 memory unit, rather than the preferable configuration of twin 8GB units, although you can get the latter.
Confused? I’ll come back to that topic in a moment, but in general, it seems like most Steam Machines have a single 16GB load, which, as Digital Foundry explains, is because Valve has a hard time getting 8GB memory units.
As Steam Machine engineers Pierre-Loup Griffais and Yazan Aldehayyat said in an interview: “It was literally impossible to buy 8GB [sticks]at least in the quantities we’re looking to buy primarily because everyone wants more storage, and that’s more profitable, so all the capacity shifted to that.”
In short, it was either opt for mostly 16GB devices, which were plentiful, or shelve the Steam Machine project.
Why is a pair of 8GB RAM modules better? Because it uses dual-channel memory (essentially, both devices work in parallel) to increase performance, something that obviously cannot be achieved with a single device. So your next question is probably: how much difference does it make?
A dual-channel setup has nothing to do with twice the performance for gaming, of course, but there is a (situational) boost, although Valve engineers argue that it’s generally not noticeable with DDR5 memory.
Aldehayyat says that these two configurations (single or dual) are “pretty comparable” in real games, unlike certain benchmarks where weaknesses may appear more pronounced for the single joystick.
To be fair to Valve, it’s true that in many Steam Machine gaming scenarios, having all your DDR5 RAM in one block won’t make any real difference, at least not one that will be noticeable in terms of the smoothness of your gaming experience. This is especially true at higher resolutions, where 4K puts much of the workload on the shoulders of the GPU.
However, in games that are more CPU-intensive, that’s less true, and you may find that the single-device setup is a drag on performance, possibly giving you more stuttering (dropping down to much lower frame rates more often).
As Digital Foundry notes, an increasing number of games are demanding on the CPU, particularly heavy open-world titles like crimson desertor similar to Baldur’s Gate 3 either Cities: horizons.
Analysis: single or double lottery, although in reality there are also benefits to the latter
Let’s go back to the RAM lottery twist I mentioned at the beginning, which is that, as Griffais explained in a separate Gamers Nexus video (which was pointed out by Wccftech), some Steam Machines have a couple of 8GB devices (if this memory was available in certain regions at the time of production, and it doesn’t seem like it was in many cases).
There might be an advantage to the one-time 16GB load, mind you, and that’s if you intend to upgrade the RAM in the future. With an extra memory slot, you can buy another 16GB drive to easily duplicate up to 32GB in the future, but if you have two 8GB drives, that can’t be done (you’ll need to buy two 16GB modules and completely replace the existing ones, at a higher cost).
So if you’re worried about all this, should you open your Steam Machine to check your RAM configuration, with a view to switching to a couple of 8GB sticks if you have a single 16GB stick (while you’re selling the latter)? I don’t think it’s a great idea, because for starters, Digital Foundry makes it clear that getting to the RAM and replacing it “requires a major teardown of the machine,” and possible risks therein. It’s certainly not something a tech newbie wants to try, and honestly, the performance advantage of switching to a dual-channel setup (if you have a single RAM) isn’t really worth it.
Overall, this is a less than ideal situation, between the performance of a single device and the RAM lottery aspect where you can’t know which hand your Steam Machine will be dealt to.
Unfortunately, Valve hasn’t had much choice in the matter thanks to the memory crisis. Ruling out the use of two joysticks in some cases would of course have limited the supply even further, when the situation is already bad enough to have forced the price of the basic Steam Machine to exceed a thousand dollars.
So once again, thanks to the giant memory vacuum cleaner that is AI, PC buyers are getting the short end of the stick on RAM (to put it politely).
Unsurprisingly, many players are not happy to hear about this. One Redditor complains: “This is absolutely horrible. They’ve done what shitty prebuilds do, which is have a single device in single channel memory, which affects CPU performance.”
Another deflated Redditor simply states: “This whole Steam Machine thing is the most depressing thing for me in the last 7 months. It’s officially DOA.”
If this puts you off the Steam Machine even more due to the high MSRP set on the device, you may want to consider purchasing an alternative PC on sale or even building your own, which, to be fair to Valve, is something that is encouraging.
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