The brilliance in the idea of a Steam Box is the simplicity of its brief: Power of a PC with the intuitiveness of a console. The Steam Box, or rather the Steam MACHINE, is Valve's idea that has been undertaken by various companies dealing with pre-built PC's. One such company is Asus with their offering, the GR8.
The box slides out from under the sheath and opening up the flaps you are treated to the glorious GR8. Also included on the box are images of a keyboard and mouse included with the GR8.
The tradition of Republic of Gamers products carrying the Red and black color scheme continues with GR8. Turning the case around we see the characteristic eye of ROG.
The case stands at 24cm tall and is around 6 cm wide. Don't let the small form factor fool you the internals of the GR8 are nothing to be scoffed at. Options to upgrade the RAM and the HDD are present.
The I/O panel in the back has a variety of options ranging from:
- Display Port
- 4x USB 3.0 slots
- LAN Port
- HDMI Port
- Optical Out
A point to be noted is the availability of a Kensington Lock. What this does is basically prevent anybody from opening the side panel unless they are aware of its existence. This opens up the case for taking it to LAN parties and BYOC's.
Also to be noted is that there is a DC-in port at the back which attaches to a power brick. The specifications of the Power brick are 19V at 6.32A.
The mouse included with the GR8 is the Asus Republic of Gamers Gladius and the keyboard remains as of yet unnamed. The keyboard was inspected further as it was the variable in this case and was found to carry Kailh Red switches and had the option of various backlighting profiles including WASD gaming mode amongst other modes. The one appeal of Kailh Red switches is their price as they are, literally, Chinese knockoffs of the MX Reds. This leads to some issues with consistency with regards to actuation force but nothing that'll ruin the experience of it all.
Now that the external aesthetic aspect of the GR8 has been covered let's move on to the meat of the preview:
The Internals
I shall be talking about each of the components at length here and the assessment shall be based on current industry performance standards.
Processor: Intel i7 4510U: This chip is based on the Haswell architecture and is the mobile variant built specifically for notebooks. So it's appearance in a PC meant for gaming confuses me. The performance of this chip is underwhelming to say the least but it does carry a TDP of 15W meaning the power draw even at max load will be minimal to say the least. However, it does seem an option to upgrade the processor exists while picking out your shiny new GR8.
RAM: 8Gb DDR3 1600Mhz CL9: Run of the mill RAM meant to be sufficient and not anything more. Since there is no option to OC the processor as such the quality of RAM's when it comes to overvolting shouldn't matter. It should be noted that the RAM is the LPDDR3 meaning its rated at 1.3V.
GPU: nVidia GeForce GTX750Ti: The GTX750Ti is not a performance monster by any definition of the word but consider for a moment the targeted audience, they will not be cranking up the Ambient Occlusion and Anti Aliasing to MSAA. The 750Ti is not going to max out Battlefield 4 and output playable frame-rates but it can still manage a medium setting. Similar to the processor an option to upgrade the GPU should be presented to the user when he/she decides to purchase the GR8.
HDD Slot 1: Sandisk U100 120Gb SSD: The U100 series of SSD by Sandisk has had less than stellar performance when it comes to consistency. Results seem to vary wildly from one SSD to another and this presents a problem. Due to the inconsistency of said SSD it is impossible to obtain a general idea of the performance until we have time to benchmark the SSD.
HDD Slot 2: HGST 1Tb 7200RPM HDD: HGST is a subsidiary that primarily acts as an OEM for commercial systems wholly owned by Western Digital. As with anything Western Digital (save perhaps the Green Fiasco) the HDD should perform up to par. A workhorse if you will.
PSU: 120W: Herein lies the problem, the 120W PSU severely limits the scope of upgrades possible for the GR8 due to power limitations. Therefore you are limited to PCI-E slot only GPU's since any GPU that requires a 6/8pin would mean the system as a whole would require more than what this supply is capable of providing.
Conclusion
Is the GR8 a revolutionary step forward for SFF PC's everywhere? No. But it is a step forward, however most of its success is going to be measured by the price at which it is going to be released at. If priced to compete with the consoles of today we just might have a winner provided it comes bundled with SteamOS. The underwhelming side of the GR8 remains its processor and GPU, but given the Power supply they seem justifiable. Perhaps an upgrade in the Power supply can mean we can finally start putting in 5960X and GTX980s into the GR8 although I highly doubt it.
