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[Grampa Simpson]

I just have a mac mini that boots into Plex or XBMC (I've been going back and forth between them) and all my wife needs to operate it is an apple remote control. Gets top WAF marks.

Of course you'll need external storage, for which I have an unraid server that works beautifully.

If I ever decide to game on PC I might get one of those Steam boxes provided they form factor is close to the mac mini and they're completely silent.

I've thought about a mac mini. I have one currently as a desktop, and when I upgrade that may also be an option, but I like the idea of some of my steam library being available there too.

I also have an unraid server - currently 9TB, and I'm considering adding another 3. Absolutely beautify (and Tom just posted an update. Damn. Just updated last week). I built it out of cheap hardware, and most of the cost was in the hard drives.

I just see this as the alternative that gets me a real PC connected to my TV, with XBMC and support for games in a much less hackish way.

 

[clubstoic]

Some keep saying the point of Steam Machines is to bring the PC experience to the living room. In actuality, it is positioning Linux into the console market. Besides ease of use, the main draw of consoles is the exclusive games. Are there any exclusives for Linux? Its advantage is backwards compatibility and open source. An unlikely possibility is timed exclusives from Valve. And I would be surprised to see them on Xbox again.

 

[Vormund]

Am I the only PC gaming master racer who rarely, if ever, upgrades individual components?

I like to max out my budget and build just under top of the line rigs (totally top of the line priceerformance ratio doesn't make sense) and game on it until it's basically out of date. By the time I'm ready to upgrade I need a new motherboard to support whatever new processor/RAM is out, and am of course upgrading graphics card, so basically have an entire new rig other than a case and maybe a HDD/SSD or two... which with the price drops in HDDs/SSDs I usually end up getting new ones of that too. So basically just get a new case just so it all feels new.

If I could get the performance I want, for a price that's competitive, I wouldn't care at all if nothing in my PC was upgradeable. But I guess I'm a rare case.

Same here, the most I've ever done is a graphics card (and that was a long time ago) and more HDD's. Never upgraded a CPU since by the time I feel the need for a new one the socket has changed.

 

[KingSnake]

For a device no one wants/needs there are for sure a lot of articles about the fact that it can be upgraded but it's not easy.

 

[ashecitism]

https://twitter.com/AlienwareTech/status/426808469656571904/photo/1

lol