A wave of enthusiastic experimentation is pushing Valve’s new Steam Machine far beyond its intended living-room gaming role, with two very different upgrade paths revealing both the hardware’s hidden flexibility and the practical limits of extreme modifications. Technology YouTuber JayzTwoCents tackled one of the most ambitious upgrades imaginable for the compact gaming PC: installing a staggering 128GB of RAM. Separately, a Japanese tech journalist converted the machine to run Windows 11, transforming it into a surprisingly capable productivity workstation. Together, the experiments paint a detailed picture of what the Steam Machine can and cannot do when users ignore the manufacturer’s default configuration.
The 128GB Experiment: Technically Possible, Practically Pointless
Most Steam Machines ship with a single 16GB SO-DIMM stick, a functional baseline that nonetheless leaves performance on the table by not utilizing dual-channel memory architecture. JayzTwoCents set out to test the absolute ceiling of the Ryzen-based system by installing a 2x64GB SO-DIMM kit, quadrupling the maximum capacity most users would ever consider.
While the AMD architecture officially supports up to 128GB of RAM, the upgrade process proved far more involved than a simple module swap. The system required extensive BIOS adjustments to recognize the full memory capacity, and the interface itself was not designed with such high-capacity configurations in mind, leading to a process of trial-and-error troubleshooting. Initial stability testing also revealed occasional crashes and freezes under heavy workloads.
The teardown itself presented another hurdle. Accessing the RAM slots requires removing the outer casing and disconnecting multiple internal components before the SO-DIMM modules can even be reached. For users without prior hardware experience, the risk of damage during reassembly is a genuine concern.
Despite the technical achievement, the performance results were underwhelming. Gaming benchmarks showed only marginal frame rate improvements in memory-intensive titles, with differences so negligible that they would be imperceptible to most players. The reality is that modern games and general applications simply do not consume anywhere near 128GB of memory. Even professional workloads like video editing and 3D rendering, which can benefit from additional RAM, are typically bottlenecked by CPU or GPU performance long before memory capacity becomes the limiting factor.
The cost equation makes the upgrade even harder to justify. A 128GB SO-DIMM kit costs significantly more than the Steam Machine itself, which starts at ¥189,980 (approximately ,200). A high-quality 16GB or 32GB dual-channel kit, by comparison, delivers the vast majority of the practical benefits at a fraction of the price.
Windows Conversion: A More Practical Transformation
While JayzTwoCents explored the hardware’s memory ceiling, an ITmedia journalist took a fundamentally different approach, asking whether the Steam Machine could serve as a full-fledged Windows PC for daily work. The motivation was straightforward: if Valve insists the device is a gaming PC rather than a console, then installing a different operating system should be fair game.
The conversion process began with two USB flash drives of at least 8GB each, one for the Windows installation image and another for drivers and backup files. The journalist used a 90-day evaluation version of Windows 11 Enterprise and downloaded Valve’s official Windows drivers for the Steam Machine.
An early stumbling block emerged when the 7.8GB ISO file repeatedly failed to copy to a 16GB USB drive formatted as FAT32. The issue was that FAT32 cannot handle files larger than 4GB, a limitation that required either using a tool like Rufus or manually splitting the install.wim file using the Windows DISM command-line utility. The journalist opted for the latter approach, documenting the process of splitting the installation image into smaller segments that would fit within the file system’s constraints.
Entering the BIOS also differed from Valve’s Steam Deck, which uses a volume button and power button combination. On the Steam Machine, users must connect a physical keyboard, power on the device, and repeatedly press the Esc key during startup. The journalist noted that this method only works if a properly formatted boot drive is inserted.
Once Windows 11 and the necessary drivers were installed, the Steam Machine behaved like a native Windows PC. The transformation was so seamless that the journalist found it almost comical to install the Steam application on a device that had originally shipped with SteamOS as its native environment.
Performance Under Windows
Benchmark testing revealed some performance trade-offs from the operating system switch. In 3DMark’s Steel Nomad test, the Windows-configured Steam Machine scored 1,958, slightly below the 2,024 achieved under SteamOS. The Fire Strike Extreme benchmark showed a more noticeable gap, with the Windows score of 11,347.3 falling approximately 2,000 points short of the 13,385.8 recorded on the native operating system. These differences are expected when comparing results across different OS environments and should be viewed as reference points rather than definitive judgments.
More encouraging were the real-world productivity results. Using Clipchamp, Windows’ built-in video editing software, the journalist combined two clips into a 5-minute, 27-second video and exported it at full HD resolution, uploading the result to the cloud in 1 minute and 53.78 seconds. This performance outpaced the portable gaming PC the journalist typically uses for work, which takes roughly as long as the video’s duration to complete the same task. For the short, one-minute clips commonly used in article production, the Steam Machine proved more than adequate.
Wi-Fi performance also impressed. Speed tests conducted four times via Google’s speed test tool showed download speeds of 1,027.8 Mbps and upload speeds of 1,245.5 Mbps, both exceeding gigabit thresholds. This level of connectivity makes downloading source materials and uploading deliverables notably efficient.
What This Means for Buyers
The two experiments point to the same conclusion from opposite directions. The Steam Machine is a capable piece of hardware that can handle tasks beyond gaming, but users should be realistic about which upgrades actually deliver value.
For the vast majority of owners, a dual-channel 16GB or 32GB memory configuration represents the sweet spot. This setup unlocks the performance benefits of dual-channel architecture without the excessive cost, complexity, and stability concerns associated with 128GB configurations. Pairing such a memory upgrade with a faster SSD would likely produce more noticeable improvements than any extreme RAM installation.
The Windows conversion, meanwhile, demonstrates that the Steam Machine can genuinely serve as a compact, aesthetically pleasing desktop PC for creative work. The device’s small footprint and living-room-friendly design make it an intriguing option for users who want a capable machine that doesn’t dominate their workspace. The absence of dual-boot support remains a limitation, forcing users to choose between SteamOS and Windows rather than enjoying both simultaneously.
For enthusiasts interested in further optimization, techniques like BIOS unlocking, CPU or GPU overclocking, and undervolting can provide incremental gains. However, these methods require solid technical knowledge and adequate cooling solutions to avoid unintended consequences.
The broader takeaway is that the Steam Machine’s value proposition depends heavily on how users choose to configure it. At its ¥189,980 (approximately ,200) starting price, the device is expensive for a game console but reasonable for a compact, capable desktop PC. The hardware’s flexibility to accommodate both extreme memory configurations and alternative operating systems speaks to its underlying quality, even if the most extreme modifications yield the least practical benefit.
