Valve's Steam Machine is the gaming system that PC gamers have been dreaming of for years. Sadly, it's hard to get your hands on one, and it costs a pretty penny. This new mini PC with some clever tricks up its sleeve might be just the thing to shop for instead.
Like the Steam Machine, the Piston V packs powerful hardware into a compact form factor, and then takes things a whole lot further. It's got a circular 4-inch touchscreen that makes it easy to boot into Windows for work, or SteamOS-like Bazzite to play games.
That means you don't need to splurge on a separate console to get your gaming fix. The PC is under 6 inches (14.6 cm) tall, so you can quickly move it from your workspace to your living room and plug into your TV for big-screen playtime.
Piston V | Dual-OS Gaming Beast in a Gadget Form Factor
While the Piston V will run Linux-based Bazzite out of the box, you can replace it with a SteamOS installation without spending a dime. That unlocks the best bits of the Steam Machine experience: the ability to pause your game anytime and instantly resume from where you left off, access to some 18,000 compatible titles, and smooth performance thanks to the lack of bloatware.
Plus, the Piston V is upgradeable, so you can increase its onboard storage and RAM whenever you like, via easily accessible storage slots on the back of the device.
So what does this baby have under the hood? You're looking at an AMD AI 365 Zen 5 CPU, an 880M RDNA 3.5 GPU, 16GB DDR5 RAM, and a 500GB SSD. That's a better processor than you'll get in the Steam Machine. The Piston V will support upgrades to 64GB RAM and up to 4TB of storage.
For connectivity, you've got a nice selection of ports that are ideal for gaming:
- 1 portHDMI 2.1
- DisplayPort 1.4 port via USB-C
- 2 USB-A ports
- 1 USB-C port
- 1 USB4 port for plugging in a high-speed external SSD to expand storage
- 1 OCuLink Gen 4x4 port to connect an external GPU for additional graphics firepower
- 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports
That's a pretty good configuration which can run a variety of games at high refresh rates, including graphics-intensive titles like Cyberpunk 2077.
Game consoles have become less compelling and more expensive lately (yup, Xbox AND PlayStation), so this seems like a terrific option if you're open to PC gaming or already have a library of games.
The Piston V is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter, where it can be had for as little as US$559 at the time of writing. It goes up incrementally as units get spoken for – but even so, you're essentially getting a $1,049 Steam Machine's worth of hardware and then some for roughly half the price.
All crowdfunding campaigns carry an element of risk, so you'll want to keep that in mind if you choose to back this campaign. It's also worth noting this is the first product from the team behind the Piston V. That said, it's shown off working PCs on its campaign page, and has had a review unit put through its paces by notable gaming YouTube ETA PRIME.
The Piston V has also racked up more than $175,000 from 300 backers at this point. The team notes that with today's volatile RAM and storage prices, it will end up making a loss on early bird orders, as part of its effort to gain traction. I appreciate the transparency there, particularly in this climate where hardware components are frightfully pricey.
If all goes to plan, orders are slated to ship worldwide starting December 2026. You'll be able to select RAM and SSD upgrades before the campaign ends.
Source: Kickstarter
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