over the last couple of days i’ve been working on a project to make a custom living room steam machine build using an old PC that i no longer use. Its an HP Prebuilt PC called the “HP Elitedesk”.
inside its running a GT1030 (so i can’t currently install holoiso/chimeraOS, but windows booting into big picture mode has been working great so far), an Intel i7-4770 3.40GHz with 16gb of ram.
if i wanted to upgrade this thing to play a few more demanding games (RDR2, Elden ring, Horizon zero dawn) how should i go about it, and how much would it cost (canadian prices)?
I’ve been looking at getting an RX6400, as it’ll fit in my case and run those games decently well, (40-60fps from what i’ve seen, could be wrong)
I’ve never really done too much with the hardware side of computers besides just taking parts out and reseating and stuff like that. I’ve never actually built anything.
If any of you here have a similar build i would LOVE to know what you’ve done and how you think i can upgrade mine.
Thanks for reading all this haha.
I use Batocera, a retro emulation focussed Linux OS, and install Steam on that as a Flatpack.
Works great.
My desktop gaming still run my i7 4770k at 4GHz and I had a GTX 980 up until recently when I switched to a RX 6700 XT (the “driver” of AMD are directly in the kernel on Linux unlike nVidia so usually you get more out of it).
I personally don’t use it directly with SteamOS since I work with it, so my case is Pop!_OS as the main Operating System and I have a SteamLink if I need to play in the living room.
I haven’t tried to use very demanding games and crank up everything but I get more than 60FPS on Sea of Thieves with almost everything on “Mythical” except Particle and below that are on “Cursed”.
You may have better performance since ChimeraOS is built from SteamOS 2.0, so it’s probably stripped down to a minimum unlike Pop!_OS which is also used as a more classic OS.
Ryzen 5600 and 6700XT should be relatively future proof, it’s better than a ps5 and much better than a xbox series X which will last til 2028
Jonsbo D30 is barely bigger than NR200 but firs m-atx mb and atx psu so it’s much cheaper overall to fit, much easier to fit/maintain and has cable management
Everything together should be below 1000€, you’ll want ddr4 3600 c14 ideally to make the most out of it (16G enough for now)
Try to go for a MB like Aorus v2 elite m-atx with good heatsinks
Try bazzite for nvidia.
Is that ram ddr3 or 4? Because investing even more in a system with ddr3 is not a good idea
Nobara Linux. It’s made by the creator proton-GE. There’s a steamdeck version that’s compatible with nvidia. I use the steam deck version for my all AMD gaming rig.
You could roll the dice on power constraints for the 6400 like the other poster noted. Thing is you don’t need to go any higher because you’re bottlenecked by the cpu in addition to the psu, otherwise we’d recommend a 4060 or otherwise.
Amd vs nvidia-wise, you can run either chip, knowing that nvidia drivers may be a bit more of a struggle. I would consider ubuntu, pop, mint, etc in that case with steam starting in big picture, or even running windows with some registry tweaks so it still boots straight into big picture.
ChimeraOS is an impressive build! The best DIY console experience ever! I hope it plays nice with Valve Index! That’ll be the next upgrade
I crammed a mini itx x570 motherboard, 5800x3d and 6900xt into a fractal ridge case that sits under my tv and looks like a console. if you’re going to run steam on linux stick it’s easier to stick with AMD GPU.
Sweet rig!
What cooler are you using that can handle an x3D cpu and fit in a Ridge? Sounds like a sweet build!
The go-to is the noctua nh-l12s but it’s not compatible with the gigabyte board I have so I’m using an nh-l9. Don’t remember if it’s a or I. It works adequately but if I were to do it over I’d get a motherboard that were compatible with the bigger cooler.
When upgrading your graphics card, which is all you can really do, other than upgrade RAM if your mobo allows it, physical dimensions and power requirements are the two factors. It may fit in the chassis, but if the card’s power requirements exceed what your power supply provides, you’ll be screwed.
Bazzite works with Nvidia!
Note that ‘steam machine’ is dead and there is no installable modern SteamOS for general use.
Steam machines is a name that belongs to the DOA steam os 2.0 based on debian 8, which should not be installed.
Why don’t you use just Windows 10?