SteamOS has problems with 8GB GPUs, but Valve is working on it

Valve has acknowledged that the forthcoming Steam Machine desktop may not revolutionize graphical performance as much as some might hope. The specifications indicate that it is designed to deliver satisfactory performance in the range of 1080p to 1440p for most games, with the potential to achieve 4K resolution through FSR upscaling—par for the course for a system equipped with a modern midrange graphics card. However, a particular concern has arisen regarding the GPU's 8GB of dedicated graphics RAM. This amount is increasingly seen as a limitation for midrange GPUs, such as AMD’s Radeon RX 7060 and 9060, and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060 and 5060. Reviews of these GPUs have revealed performance issues in certain games on Windows, particularly at 1440p, due to the RAM constraints. Further testing of various GPUs with SteamOS has shown that 8GB models face even greater challenges on this platform compared to running the same games on Windows 11 at identical settings. The encouraging news is that Valve is actively working on addressing these issues. The establishment of the Steam Machine as a stable platform is expected to facilitate improvements for other hardware with comparable specifications. That said, the road ahead remains challenging. Extensive tests have been conducted on both dedicated and integrated Radeon GPUs under SteamOS and Windows, with detailed results to be shared in a future article. For now, two GPUs that exemplify the existing challenges are the 8GB Radeon RX 7600 and the 16GB Radeon RX 7600 XT. These models are nearly identical to what Valve intends to include in the Steam Machine, with the primary distinction being the number of compute units—32 in the XT compared to Valve’s planned 28—along with variations in clock speeds and RAM capacity.