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My Steam Machine from 2014
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Geekavenger View Drop Down
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Joined: 03 Oct 2015
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    Posted: 03 Oct 2015 at 1:31am
UPDATED TO CONSOLIDATE POSTING TO FORUM STANDARDS (Sorry my bad)

I built this machine in 2013 right when the SteamOS beta was reelased. It has been a solid machine hardware wise. 

The SteamOS beta has had its ups and downs but overall I am very satisfied. I went with the Asrock board because it had solid reviews and the built in Wifi and mITX form factor was ideal.  The newer socket wasn't something I needed with the processor I chose but this gives me the option of upgrading it in the future if I need to, and I was able to hit my $800 budget for the build which was ideal.

I would be happy to answer any questions about my experience with SteamOS, the APU, or the ASrock Board.

Link to PC Parts Picker List:http://pcpartpicker.com/b/wYvKHxgetting ready top build
I ended up using the stock heat sink instead because of clearance issues but here is a picture of the tiny motherboard and how adorable it looks
Once everything was installed I took a picture of the case open with the GPU (GTX760) visible.  So much space in this suprisingly small cast.  The Asrock board fits perfectly.  I had some issues with the Cooler and had to replace it like I said with the stock cooler but that was the Coolers fault.


Overall my experience with Asrock has been good, drivers are solid, the board has been running for coming up on 2 years now with moderate use and no issues have popped up.  Board design was solid, the cooler didn't work with the RAM but that is because of the cooler designer not ASrock.  I am super happy with the build, SteamOS has been hit and miss, now that it is officially coming out I have hopes that it will resolve it's buggyness.  Mostly surrounding controller input.  It really sucks to get 4 friends over and then have to spend the first 20 minutes starting and restarting the game until all the xbox controllers register correctly.  Though I guess ultimately it is no worse than blowing into a cartridge. Here it is up and running with SteamOS in my old living room. Had to pull out the board to swap the cooler so I could fit the RAM in the correct slot.  but I got a nice glamour shot of what could have been.
The APU was a little unnessary with the discrete GPU in the build, I was new to AMD at the time and didn't realize they made a similar CPU SKU that would fit in an ITX form factor.  But the little guy has held his own, running things like Shadow of Mordor like a champ.  The linux selection of triple A titles is somewhat lacking so I pick up just about everyone that comes out.  The feature I most wish SteamOS supported is the HDMI in, it is a Windows only feature and I am really curious how well it would work.  I play on a projector so it only has 2 HDMI inputs.  If I could pass my BlueRay player through my SteamMachine I would be a happy camper.  

Lastly I wanted to talk about the GPU, I went with an ASUS GTX 760, which was a solid choice for both size and heat output.  I think anything bigger and my fans would be spinning full bore to keep it cool.  I have thought about swapping it out for a newer maxwell simply for the heat and power savings but I have too many problems with my main PC to be spending on this guy for now.  



Edited by Geekavenger - 13 Oct 2015 at 10:18pm
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Phenomiinal View Drop Down
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Nice little system, those cables must have driven you crazy during the build. Cable management is my least favorite part of micro builds lol
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ASRock Expert View Drop Down
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Joined: 04 Oct 2015
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Points: 220 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote ASRock Expert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Oct 2015 at 5:48pm
Love the ITX systems. In fact, got one myself (Intel Celeron 1840, 8GB RAM 1600MHz by Patriot, ASRock H81M-ITX and 128GB SSD by SanDisk) for media playback.

Did You tidy-up the cables? 
990FX Extreme 9 MOD P1.70
AMD FX 8120 4GHz 1.25V
Thermalright HR-02
Patriot Viper 2x4GB 2133MHz
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
MSI R7970 TFIII 3GB
CORSAIR VX550W
LanCool K62 Dragonlord
ASUS Xonar D2X
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Geekavenger View Drop Down
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Points: 5 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Geekavenger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Oct 2015 at 10:29am
yeah, cleaned them up as much as I could.  These pictures were pre-final.  I always do some testing in the case before I do the final cleanup.  That said, it was still a pain, and the PCIe Power Cables had to be zip-tied to some random places to keep stuff out of the fans.  Overall I would say the cable management in this case was as good as it was going to get without the short cable kit from silverstone.
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Joined: 04 Oct 2015
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Points: 220 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ASRock Expert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Oct 2015 at 5:01pm
@ASRock_Official - could You merge his first 5 post - so that it makes just 1 post?
990FX Extreme 9 MOD P1.70
AMD FX 8120 4GHz 1.25V
Thermalright HR-02
Patriot Viper 2x4GB 2133MHz
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
MSI R7970 TFIII 3GB
CORSAIR VX550W
LanCool K62 Dragonlord
ASUS Xonar D2X
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Geekavenger View Drop Down
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Points: 5 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Geekavenger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Oct 2015 at 10:19pm
Fixed, sorry.  I hate adding a wall of text to forums, so I usually try and split my posts or collapse things like large images into spoiler tags.  I apologize for not reading your formatting guidelines thoroughly.
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Joined: 08 Apr 2015
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Points: 2247 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote ASRock_Official Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Oct 2015 at 11:50am
Originally posted by Geekavenger Geekavenger wrote:

Fixed, sorry.  I hate adding a wall of text to forums, so I usually try and split my posts or collapse things like large images into spoiler tags.  I apologize for not reading your formatting guidelines thoroughly.

Thanks for the quick responce :) 
Very nice picture and set up, cheers!
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