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Valve’s unveiling of the Steam Machine has many people excited in regards to the yet-to-be-released gaming PC. Rocking an AMD Zen 4 CPU, an AMD RDNA 3 GPU, and as much as 16GB of RAM, the box-shaped {hardware} is not slated to hit cabinets till someday in 2026 — giving avid gamers loads of time to obsess over specs and the arrival of Steam’s new VR headset, introduced alongside the Steam Machine.
That mentioned, a few of us are already a bit baffled by an elephant within the room: The Steam Machine’s HDMI is simply 2.0-certified. For these unaware, HDMI 2.1 has been out there since 2017, and is the kind of connection you may discover on fashionable consoles just like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Collection X, in addition to many gaming PC graphic playing cards. It is undoubtedly odd that Valve’s new gaming rig is classed as a 2.0 machine, however oh, how the plot thickens.
Trying nearer on the Steam Machine’s specs, one will see that the HDMI 2.0 port delivers as much as 4K/120Hz and helps HDR, FreeSync, and CEC. These are all HDMI 2.1 specs — which technically means the Steam PC is HDMI 2.1-compatible. The one purpose the brand new {hardware} cannot boast the official 2.1 classification is that the HDMI Discussion board won’t enable HDMI 2.1 on Linux units, the OS that powers all Steam {hardware}.
HDMI 2.0, or HDMI 2.1 in disguise?
Does this imply you’ll join the Steam Machine to an HDMI 2.1 port on a 4K TV with out subject? The reality is, we actually do not know, at the least not till we get to check it. However we do know that Steam’s newest {hardware} may even boast a DisplayPort 1.4 connection, an alternate some customers might go for when hooking up the Machine to a PC monitor. On paper, DisplayPort 1.4 beats HDMI 2.0 by way of bandwidth capabilities, with the previous supporting as much as 32.4Gbps and the latter delivering simply 18Gbps.
None of that is to say that avid gamers nonetheless will not get glorious efficiency from the Steam Machine’s HDMI 2.0 port, which appears to be an HDMI 2.1 in disguise. 4K/60Hz and even 1440p/120Hz are nonetheless visually gorgeous, and that is earlier than options like FreeSync enter the equation. Nonetheless, as a result of we’re pressured to deal with the HDMI 2.0 label, some avid gamers might find yourself judging the port by requirements it does not actually belong to anymore.
Whereas the Steam Machine’s HDMI port could also be going via a little bit of an identification disaster, the Steam Deck’s USB-C port has numerous tricks up its sleeve, and so they’re all glad surprises.
