Meet the Steamboxes (Gallery)

The Alienware Steam machine  is powered by an Intel Core i5 4570, an NVIDIA GTX 760 GPU, 16GBs of RAM and up to 1TB of storage, using a hybrid hard drive and solid state drive (SSD). This boxy device will sell for $1,339 and be available in mid-2014.

Dell's Alienware will be using Valve's new gaming controller, but other vendors will be using different designs. No matter the controller, you should be able to any of them with any other Steam Machine.

CyberPowerPC: This unit will come with a 3.9GHz AMD A6-6400K processor CPU with an AMD Radeon R9 270 GPU, 8GBs of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. Its pricing will start at $499 and it will ship in the third quarter of 2014. This will be one of the least powerful, but also least expensive, Steam boxes.

Digital Storm Bolt II: This system is powered by an Intel Core i7 4770K and Nvidia GTX 780 Ti graphics processor. It will have up to 16GB of RAM and hard drive and SDD pairing of 1TB hard drive and 120GB SSD. Pricing begins at $1,500 and Digital Storm may be the first to market with its Steam box. The company states that it will starting taking orders at the end of January 2014. 

Falcon Northwest Tiki: As you'd expect from a company that specializes in making best-of-breed, customizable PCs, the SteamOS-powered Tiki will come in multiple configurations. At the ultra high end, you'll get your choice of 4th-gen Intel Core i7 and, the real costly item, an Nvidia GeForce Titan GPU . It also includes up to 16GBs of RAM, and 6TBs of storage. And the price for all this? It will start at $1,799 and go up to $6,000. A release date hasn't been set yet; but since Falcon Northwest is using one of its existing high-end PCs as its foundation, it shouldn't be too long. If you're a professional gamer, or want to be one, the Tiki is the one you'll want to use your AMEX gold card to buy.  

Materiel.net: This French company offers a mid-range Steam box. It comes with an Intel Core i5 CPU, an NVIDIA GTX 760 GPU, 8GBs of RAM and 1TBs of storage. It will sell for $1,098. We don't know yet when it will be for sale.  

Next Spa: This computer, which has nothing to do with Steve Job's NeXT, comes with an Intel Core i5 CPU, an NVIDIA GT 760 GPU, 8GB of RAM and 1TB storage. We have neither a price or a shipping date for this system. 

Origin PC Chronos:  Origin PC, a boutique compuer maker, is another company aiming for high-end gamers. Its Chronos Steam Machine will come with your choice of Intel Core i7 CPU, and a pair, yes that's right two, NVIDIA GTX Titan GPUs. It will also have 32GBs of RAM and 14TBs of hard drive room. We don't know what the price will be, but let's just say that the Falcon Northwest Tiki may not be the most expensive Steam box on the market. The Origin PC Chronos is expected to go on sale in summer 2014. 

Scan Computers NC10: This system from the United Kingdom seems more designed for streaming Steam games from other systems than running them locally. For its main processor it has only a 2.4GHz Intel Core i3 4000M. For the GPU it features an Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M. It also comes with 8GBs of RAM and 500GBs of storage. 

Webhallen: Another international company, this Swedish OEM,will also be offering Steam boxes. Its machine comes with an Intel Core i7 CPU and an NVIDIA GTX 780 GPU. It also includes 16GBs of RAM and a 1TB hybrid SSD/hard drive. Pricing will start at $1,499. The company hasn't given a release date yet.

Zotac: We know less  about  what Zotac will be offering in its Steam box than any of the other OEMs, except, of course, that it looks more like a Wi-Fi access point than a gaming console or computer. The company offers a variety of customized computers ranging from the high-end to very low. The only things we know for certain about this model is that for graphics it will use an Nvidia GeForce GTX and it will cost $599.