[JBiserkov]

A bit of topic, but I was wondering how much bigger is the steam machine compared to the mac mini m4, since that's what I have and is my frame of reference. Obviously comparing apples to oranges and only talking about physical volume, not features, compatibility, price, personal preferences, etc.

Mac Mini m4: 127 x 127 x 50 mm = 0.8 L

Steam Machine: 156 x 162 x 152 = 3.8 L

That's 4.76 times more volume.

[Aurornis]

The Steam device has a 110W GPU and 30W CPU. The M4 Mac Mini's peak power consumption is less than half of that. Even with the Apple Silicon efficiency, it can't keep up with high power GPUs in graphical loads like gaming.

Mac Mini will throttle itself after sustained full load, especially with the GPU engaged.

A Mac Mini will start throttling well before the end of a 30 minute online gaming match.

A larger volume for better cooling was a good choice for a machine designed to run the CPU and GPU at full load for hours.

[PeaceTed]

In that sense the Mini M4 is targeted more at Desktop than gaming. Can do short bursts when needed but cannot run the marathon in terms of graphics. Nothing wrong with this, it is just a trade off.

[hnuser123456]

It's also about twice the total TDP and more likely to spend time running at full bore. Bigger heatsinks and fans means quieter operation under load.

[Synaesthesia]

The Mac Mini M4 is crazy small though. This steam box is still really small, even if it is 5x the volume of the Mac Mini M4.

[yencabulator]

127 x 127 x 50 mm is likely the size of the cooling fan in the Steam Machine. Apples to oranges.

[kgbier]

For anyone wondering how the Mac Studio compares:

95 x 197 x 197 mm = 3.7 L