Valve's SteamOS is gaining more momentum at this year's CES, with many more manufacturers announcing their own versions of the Steam Box. Maingear is one such manufacturer. The boutique PC maker has announced the Maingear Spark Steam Box, a small-form-factor PC that runs on AMD components.
The Spark's red and black chassis measures an incredibly tiny 2.34 by 4.5 by 4.23 inches (HWD). According to Maingear, the chassis is smaller than a DVD case and weighs 0.89 pounds, a boon if you like to haul your gaming paraphernalia around to LAN parties. It features an AMD A8-5557M processor and AMD Radeon R9 M275X graphics. It can also be configured with up to 16GB of 1600MGz memory.
The chassis has four USB 3.0 ports; and a slot that can take up to a 256GB solid-state drive. It has an HDMI port, and a Mini-DisplayPort that can power two displays at the same time, if necessary. It also supports both 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless connectivity. Maingear bundles a 135W power adapter with power cord, and the device comes with the Microsoft Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 operating system, on top of the SteamOS.
As of this writing, Maingear had not provided any information on pricing, except to say that it will be "competitive." According to the company, it will be available online sometime later this year.
Check out our slideshow of 13 other Steam Machines that made their debut at CES 2014.