You wouldn’t 3D print a Steam Machine? Would you?

Want to build your own Steam Machine? There’s a 3D printable PC case for that

A creator on Printables called 3DCatt has designed a 3D-printable Steam Machine PC case that supports mini-ITX motherboards and low-profile graphics cards.

An AMD employee, Jacob Terkelson, has already used this 3D-printable PC case to build a custom PC. Ironically, the PC uses a low-profile Nvidia RTX 5060 graphics card. Not only does this mean that this PC cannot use SteamOS (as SteamOS does not currently support Nvidia GPUs), but an AMD employee is using Nvidia hardware. That said, it is worth noting that no low-profile/half-height Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs currently exist.

While the layout is unusual, this PC case shows that it is possible to create a custom Steam Machine within Valve’s official Steam Machine form factor. That said, this configuration requires a lot of uncommon hardware, and this case would likely benefit from improved ventilation.

Limitations

As mentioned before, this custom PC case requires a lot of unusual hardware. Alongside a Mini-ITX motherboard, this PC case needs to use a low-profile/half-height PCIe graphics card and a Flex ATX power supply. Neither of those is common. The creator of this PC case also uses a 400W Flex ATX PSU, which limits how powerful your CPU and GPU can be. That said, I’d imagine that airflow and thermals could become a problem with more powerful hardware due to this case’s limited ventilation.

Regardless, this is a fun project. PC builders can now build a faux-Steam Machine with their own hardware. It will be interesting to see what other Steam Machine-style PC case designs pop up over the next few weeks and months.

You can join the discussion on this 3D printable Steam Machine PC case on the OC3D Forums.

Mark Campbell

Mark Campbell

A Northern Irish father, husband, and techie that works to turn tea and coffee into articles when he isn’t painting his extensive minis collection or using things to make other things.

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