u/optimusprimal99

Sorry I'm new to this community the last few days. I love my Steam Deck OLED to death and I know I want SteamOS in my living room so I can have my game saves between TV and Deck when I travel for work. Love my Series X but it just can't do that on many games. And my Switch 2is just for Nintendo 1st party games :)

I have a Steam Machine reservation but am struggling if it's right for me. We have an LG G5 65" as the tv in the living room so 4k120 with VRR, great HDR etc. Now I'm not crazy I'm not expecting anything that is living room quiet to do 4k120 with out some healthy fsr, shoot even the Series X most of the time is reddening around 1000-1440p and then FSR 2 up to 4k. But I'm not sure the Steam Machine is going to be a great even 4k30 or 4k60 experience on that screen. Not opposed to building, have built many machines dating back as far as the Pentium 75, (someone in this group is young enough they just had to google that CPU to figure out that I'm old).

But the quietness of the Steam machine and Series X is important to me. If I did a build I dont want it to sound like a jet engine in my living room or have a any rgb spinning around.

I'm space constrained maybe 7" high but easily 17" wide and 15.8" deep. cabinet front is slotted for tons of air flow and rear is open for more air flow. Series X and SteamOS box would be next to each other but never running at the same time for heat reasons.

I was leaning towards the Fractal ridge many of you have shown in your pics cause it fits and is very pretty. I have already ordered a 4tb m.2 for use in either the Steam machine or a build.

I'm trying to figure out what I could do to get great output but really keep the noise down very low, which I know is a lot to ask.

I was leaning toward the 9070 XT Reaper that many of you have talked about but then I was thinking maybe I could limit the tdp on it down to 220 or 250w like we do on our Steam Decks when we want to conserve battery? woudl that still give me killer output in 4k but keep the noise to Series X levels? on more modern games I'm not expecting crazy FPS I think Starfield on my Series X when set to Visuals is 40fps which I'm fine with I'm not playing online or competitive I'm normally playing larger open world single player games.

I'm guessing I need to get the best cpu cooler I can get too? It seems like most of you are going with the Noctua nh 12L or something like that? Is there anything better? any tricks to keep it tame on the noise side too?

sorry while I've done lots of pc and server builds over the years I have never tried to do a living room build like this so tweaking it to be quiet is all new to me. thanks for any help and I love this community its been so fun seeing all the awesome builds and what SteamOS is like in a living room setup!

It looks like I’ll have an opportunity to grab a red model s 2014 with just over 100k w/ the rare backwards facing jump seat as a second car. It would replace my wife’s 2010 Prius. We are loving our Juniper we got last year.

Our friend hasn’t given us a price yet. He says it’s still getting 200mi on a charge which is fine as we’d mostly use it around town and county and use the Juniper for anything longer.

He’s second owner his mom was first. It’s been baby’d.

Not sure yet of its expect trim. I’ll grab that info when I see it again in person and drive it. Also not sure if it’s has the MCU upgrade if not then we’d just plan on spending the money to get it done.

That early of a unit what things do y’all think I should look for and be thinking about other then battery risks?

Kbb seems to be 15-20k which seems like a lot for it but is that realistic? He hasn’t given me his number yet either way.

Am I being stupid? There is some nostalgia happening here as this was the very first Tesla either I or my wife ever saw in person back then his mom purchased it in 2014, so owning it would be kinda cool :)

Feedback? Gotchas to look for?