No Steam Machine Required: SteamOS 3.8 Tested on Standard PCs

Valve's SteamOS 3.8 now officially supports installation on any PC or handheld with AMD graphics, eliminating the need for Valve hardware like the Steam Machine. Testing on two AMD systems—an RX 9060 XT and a Ryzen AI Max+ 395—showed that SteamOS boots quickly and the initial setup, including language selection, timezone, and Steam login via QR code, takes only seconds, making it feel more console-like than actual consoles. However, a Steam account is mandatory for first boot, and games must be purchased from Steam. Performance benchmarks in Cyberpunk 2077 showed slightly higher FPS under SteamOS compared to Windows on the same system (103 vs 96 FPS), though median differences across many tests were around 2 percent without Raytracing. With Raytracing, Linux performance drops slightly, and for Nvidia or Intel GPUs, performance can be up to 20 percent worse due to drivers. SteamOS remains officially supported only for AMD graphics. The desktop mode uses KDE Plasma with Wayland, but software installation is limited to Flatpak, and the system is immutable, preventing permanent system-level changes. Despite these limitations, SteamOS enables turning a PC into a gaming console easily and syncs game saves across devices seamlessly.