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We've been getting teased by single images and snippets of information about Valve's Steam Box hardware for a while now, so it's nice to finally see that someone's managed to get one opened up and take a look inside to see what we're really working with and how the hardware will all be put together.
In the video below, Mr Nelson pops open a surprisingly compact Steam Box, with very little room for anything but the hardware itself, which certainly makes you wonder about how effective it will be at keeping air moving across all components – that is until you see the clever design used for the oversized looking GPU.
It's housed in its own walled off area, with a riser meaning it can be mounted side on and therefore draw air straight up into it using its coaxial fan and blow it right out the back of the case. Power cables are similarly stealthed in a plastic housing which creates very little impediment to air flowing in from the front grill. This keeps the GPU cool, whilst making it sure it doesn't contribute to any other components' overheating. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVkas2E3NAg']
Similarly the CPU and RAM are housed in their shrouded area, which should funnel air across both RAMsinks and the cooler's copper fins, drawing air from above it and blowing it right out the nearby side grill. The guy in the video also confirms that it uses an ASRock motherboard.
It looks like there's space for a second hard drive, so there may be potential for RAID set ups, or the addition of a secondary drive for storage, or more likely an SSD replacement for the boot drive.
It's not easy to tell, but it looks like every screw is a simple phillips design, so it shouldn't be too difficult to take the case and components apart if needed, which is a nice change over almost every other commercial bit of electronics you'll try and dismantle. There's even thumb screws in some places, even if they are on tight enough to require a screw driver to loosen them first.
KitGuru Says: The whole thing looks pretty well thought out, especially in the realm of thermals and airflow. Are any of you guys thinking of getting a Steam Box next year?
