This article is quite correct. I ended up liking the idea so well that I just got an off brand mini PC with a Ryzen 7 8745HS for $380. The Steam Machine is likely to be like $800 and have a GPU that is 2-3x faster, but possibly a weaker CPU with 6 instead of 8 Zen 4 cores.

Either way, I couldn’t see paying double for couch gaming with half-assed 4k when 1080p upscaled looks fine to my eyes from the couch and a little more money than the Steam Machine would buy a 5080 to replace my aging 3070 and do real 4k / VR on ultra with raytracing that looks great up-close. Unless Valve comes in at like $500 for the Steam Machine, it’ll be sitting in this awkward middle ground where it’s fairly pricey, yet underpowered.