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A dual-OS Steam Machine from Origin PC

Play games in Windows or Steam OS with this high-end PC/console hybrid.

Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
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Dan Ackerman
Origin PC

Boutique gaming PC-maker Origin PC is one of the companies throwing its weight behind Valve's new Steambox initiative, showing off a small form factor system that runs the new Steam OS.

Origin PC is planning two versions of its Steam Machine (as this first round of boxes is being referred to), both part of the company's existing Chronos line of smaller gaming desktops -- a standard edition and a dual-video-card SLI edition with up to a pair of Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan graphics cards and liquid cooling for the CPU.

Unlike some of the other Steambox hardware that's been announced from other PC makers, Origin PC's Chronos will be highly customizable, with options for CPU, graphics, and storage, and these machines will dual-boot into either Windows 7 or 8, and Steam OS, allowing you to use them as powerful gaming desktops, or living room Steam consoles.

CNET/Sarah Tew

The Chronos Steam Machine will also include Valve's innovative Steam controller, which replaces thumb sticks with twin touch pads designed to mimic the control of a keyboard and mouse.

There's no firm release date or price yet, but we're hearing the first Steambox systems will launch in Summer 2014.