Join The Club
While we wait with bated breath for the arrival of the Steam Machine, it appears another party has been busy developing its own competitor. The Playnix Console looks remarkably similar to a vinyl player (or the Xbox Series S) in terms of its 3D-printed chassis design, but it's in the specs sheet where the similarities to Valve's efforts really lie.
The Playnix Console comes from EmuDeck, a developer of emulation installers for the Steam Deck (via Videocardz). Underneath that funky chassis design lies a six-core, 65 W AMD Ryzen 5 5500 processor, a 512 GB SSD, 2x 8 GB sticks of DDR4-3200, and an RX 9060 XT 16 GB GPU.
Which in this case is still a slightly eye-watering $1,139 before shipping. Looking further into the specs, though, you do get a controller to go with your PC/console-a-like—although it's an 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Wireless model rather than a fancy Steam Controller.
All of the hardware is upgradeable, too, which makes this much more of a mini PC build than your traditional console. A nice touch is the addition of Noctua and Thermalright fans to keep things chilled. The former makes some of our best gaming fan picks, don'tcha know.
As for the software, the Playnix Console uses a custom Arch Linux distro that makes use of a Steam Gaming Mode to connect "seamlessly" with your existing Steam library.
On paper, this all sounds very good indeed. YouTube channel Retro Game Corps has already tested an earlier model, and found it to deliver 55-58 fps average performance in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K High settings, with FSR Quality upscaling.
That's pretty impressive for an all-in-one box, and a testament to the surprising amount of grunt you can squeeze out of the RX 9060 XT 16 GB tucked inside. The Playnix Console is advertised as a 4K-capable machine, and while you'll need to tweak some settings to get smooth frame rates at that resolution, those claims don't seem entirely unreasonable.
All in all, it looks like a suitable Steam Machine alternative while we wait for Valve's efforts to finally arrive. And while the Steam Machine's SteamOS implementation, intriguing controller design, and semi-custom AMD internals might be worth waiting for in the end, it's certainly interesting to see other providers jumping on the PC/console hybrid bandwagon in the meantime.
1. Best overall:
HP Omen 35L
2. Best budget:
Lenovo Legion Tower 5i
3. Best high-end:
Corsair Vengeance A7500
4. Best compact:
Velocity Micro Raptor ES40
5. Alienware:
Alienware Area-51
6. Best mini PC:
Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
