Ever since Valve announced SteamOS and Steam Machines there have been two Steam Machines that were shown the most. They were the Alienware Steam Machine and Zotac’s NEN SN970. Not that long ago we took a look at the Alienware unit, and now we have the NEN SN970 to review. This unit is part of Zotac’s extremely popular ZBOX line of mini PCs. Under the hood you have an Intel Core i5-6400T processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, 8GB of memory, and a 1TB 2.5“ SATA hard drive. Like all Steam Machine’s the NEN SN970 will ship with SteamOS pre-installed and an official Steam Controller. This will bring gaming into the living room and you’ll have the massive Steam library of games to choose from, which has more games than either of the two major consoles. Let’s get to gaming and see what the NEN SN970 is all about!
Special thanks to Zotac for providing us with the NEN SN970 Steam Machine to review.
Specifications
Packaging
The NEN SN970 Steam Machine comes in a very nice retail package. On the front it says “PC Gaming. Console DNA”.
Flipping the retail box over on the back there is an overview of features and a full overview of ports and buttons on the unit.
On one side of the box there is a full list of specifications. To our knowledge Zotac is only offering one SKU of the SN970 with the specifications that you see below.
When you open the box up inside you will find a box of accessories and a notice that lets you know how to contact Zotac support.
Getting everything out of the box you have the NEN SN970 Steam Machine, power adapter, Steam Controller, Steam Controller dongle, USB to miroUSB cable, USB extender adapter, antenna, and an envelope with all of your manuals and guides inside.
Considering the form factor, can you really build a comparable PC in the same price range (or even at all)? There are some folks – myself included – for whom the form factor is quite important, so I was willing to dish out some extra cash for the SN970. However, using this hardware as a Steam OS machine limits its capabilities dramatically, so if somebody is willing to buy it, you might as well add additional cost of XBox One controller and Win10 license – with those additions you’ll have a full blown gaming PC in the sexiest of the form factors.
Thanks for the review – I too now own 2 Steam Machines and still have mixed feelings. But I think the potential is there – I’m just wondering if Valve will bring that potential to realization. With that said – I’ve kept SteamOS on both my Steam Machines (one an Alienware, the other a CyberPower Syber). The Zotac looks like a nice upgrade from the Alienware.
My issues with SteamOS isn’t the lack of games, or even the performance of games. I think they perform fine. Not as good as the windows counterparts – but as good or better than the Console version. What is holding it back to me is it doesn’t replace my Xbox One fore media functions (Netflix, Vudu, etc.). I hardly game on the Xbox One anymore – except for Shape Up which is a kinect based exercise program. But I do still run a slew of media related apps. I have a very large collection on Vudu now. Without a Blue-ray/DVD Player coming with most steam machines – and the clunky browser interface, I’m afraid that it’s a huge hole that I’m not sure Valve can fix. They can’t write their own Netflix or Hulu App, and there isn’t critical mass yet for those companies to even consider it.
Hopefully that changes around – cause other than that, I have no issues with my Steam Machines.
I have nothing but issues with Windows as a living room device. There is ALWAYS something getting in the way – whether it’s a notification that won’t go away or a device driver that quits or games getting launched simultaneously (like my kids always seem to do). Windows 10 has made it even worse as Microsoft keeps going more an more towards touchbased GUI’s. It’s clunky at best… At least SteamOS addresses those issues – which is why I’ve decided to stick with it on the Steam Machines and keep windows on my gaming PC’s. Kids are happy with it so far – so no reason to put Windows on it. Xbox 360 Wireless Controller works great with it as well. I know there are a few developers now working on getting the Xbox One Controller to work wirelessly (right now it works only wired).
sure, Win 10 is far from perfect OS, but for a hardcore gamer it’s still far better option than Steam OS, the benefits (bigger selection of Steam games, better performance, access to non-Steam games) outweigh the problems. then again, if one doesn’t require their hardware to be utilized to its fullest potential, Steam OS might be a viable choice – but if that’s the case, this particular machine seems to be an overkill for this purpose.