Someone built the “world’s first” water-cooled Steam Machine, dropping temperatures by up to 30°C
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The Steam Machine already has a fairly capable cooling system, but one modder decided that the compact gaming PC needed something much more extreme. They have built what appears to be the first water-cooled Steam Machine, replacing its standard cooling setup with a custom liquid-cooling loop.
The project comes from a modder known as Techmagnet, who shared the build and additional details on Reddit (calling it the “world’s first” water-cooled Steam Machine along the way). Unlike a typical PC water-cooling project, this one required quite a bit of custom work because the Steam Machine was never designed to support an external radiator, pump, or water block.
Adding DIY water cooling to the Steam Machine
The biggest part of the project is the custom water block. The modder created it from copper using a Carvera Air desktop CNC machine, with the block designed to cover both the CPU and GPU. Since both chips sit on the same side of the Steam Machine’s PCB, a single block can be used to cool them.
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The Steam Machine’s chassis also had to be modified. Holes were made to route the tubing, while a 120mm radiator and pump were placed outside the system. An additional fan was also used with the radiator to improve airflow.
The results are quite impressive. According to the modder, the liquid-cooling setup has lowered the CPU and GPU temperatures by around 20-30°C compared to the standard cooler. However, there is still some work to be done. The modder said they now need to focus on the VRM cooling, which is proving difficult because the MOSFETs are extremely small and already operate close to their thermal limits.
Interestingly, the extra cooling does not currently provide a major performance advantage. Valve does not offer overclocking support for the Steam Machine, meaning the additional thermal headroom cannot really be used to push the CPU or GPU further. That makes the project more about experimentation than practical performance. Still, the results show what is possible when someone is willing to take apart the Steam Machine and build completely custom hardware around it.
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