Valve officially discontinued its Index VR headset last week, and in its place is the newly released Steam Frame. The new device is designed as a “streaming-first” headset, as well as offering standalone gameplay with an ARM-based Snapdragon chip. But what if Valve ditched the standalone design and stripped away most of the expensive RAM to save costs? We’ve asked our readers what they’d think of a cheaper model.

We’ll keep the poll running if you still want to have your say, but at the time of writing, the majority (68%) say they’d be happy to use a Steam Frame that doesn’t work standalone. Of those, 36% say they would only consider it if the price is “significantly lower” – we gave the example of $750 or less. Rounding off the poll is 32% of people noting that they prefer having standalone support.

Steam Frame launched for $1,059 and $1,299 (256GB kit and 1TB kits, respectively), making it stick out from much of the VR crowd. Predictions suggest the Steam Frame (and the Steam Machine) might have cost under $750 pre-RAMpocalypse, and Valve has admitted the VR headset should have been “much more affordable” before memory shortages got out of control.

A wireless version of the Valve Index would have been great

Valve’s new Frame makes a ton of improvements over the Index, ditching the heavy, tethered design, which relied on a wired connection to your gaming PC (known as PCVR) and base stations situated around your playing space. If the Steam Frame was essentially a much more ergonomic version of the Valve Index, but still required connecting to your VR-capable gaming PC (or the Steam Machine) via wireless streaming, that would have been great too, all in the name of keeping the price down.

Keep in mind that all current wireless VR headsets have RAM installed as a requirement for handling real-time tracking and decoding video streams; it also helps handle SteamOS on the Frame, but ditching standalone functionality would help reduce the capacity required, and maybe allow for a cheaper processor. RAM and SSD prices have been inflated for around a year now, and they’re not getting any better very soon.

The Steam creators have been busy shipping out Steam Frame units to customers, but the process isn’t exactly speedy – Valve is making its way through the reservation program and has recently updated customers with rough pre-order availability dates. It seems popular enough, but it’s always interesting to think about what could have been if Valve went a different route. The Steam Frame is great, and we probably wouldn’t be asking this if RAM and SSD prices weren’t ridiculous right now.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.