But you do need to get that info from somewhere, be it forums, tutorials, etc.
And if you have no idea about what makes a computer good (for gaming), that’s quite a hurdle that many would rather not need to get into, by buying something prebuilt/pre-set-up like the steam machine
You don’t have to learn everything. People have all kinds of hobbies and not a lot of time.
And I don’t expect anything to be handed to me. I expect to pay extra for people who know what they’re doing to do it for me.
I personally would never do that for a PC because I do have the know how because I enjoy bargain hunting for hardware and building my own rig.
But when I have an issue with my car, I bring it to a mechanic because I don’t have enough time and interest to teach myself how to repair it myself. I‘d rather put my little time into my existing hobbies.
I know, I myself enjoy building PCs. But I know a lot of people who don’t. And they’d rather pay some amount of money more to not have to look up hardware comparisons, find out what works best together, install operating systems, etc. It’s a hobby not everyone enjoys and for those people a pre built and configured system with manufacturer support is great, even if it might cost them a little more.
That’s definitely a worse experience in any way besides price.
The steam machine promises a certain point of build quality, support and ease of setup your proposed solution will not.
It’s not the best bang for the buck, sure. But it’s not targeting people who have the know how or patience to either build and/or configure their own system.
Yea but how would someone who isn’t into PC hardware know what a decent GPU, nevermind a decent second hand PC would be, without going to forums, watching reviews, etc.
The whole appeal of the steam machine is it being a console-like PC for people who don’t have the knowledge and/or patience to build their own.
I wouldn’t buy it because I enjoy building myself a bang-for-the-buck PC from used parts and ain’t scared of installing Linux myself. But if you want the benefits of a PC (game availability and prices, flexibility, compatibility) with the benefits of a console (plug-n-play, couch game friendly), a steam machine is pretty much it.
I second (third) an Intel ARC card. For the tasks you’ve named it doesn’t even really matter which one, even the smallest one is a transcoding powerhouse, doing multiple 4K transcodes with HDR tone mapping with ease.
Additionally, Intel drivers are wayyy better on Linux (TrueNAS) than Nvidia’s. Don’t even need to install them. I would go with any one you can get for a decent price, so probably the small A310. It doesn’t even need extra power. Sips like 30W or so.
If you want an upgrade still, A750s are also reasonably priced on the used market. Don’t get the A380 over the A310 unless they’re the same price. They perform almost identical and the 380 draws more power. Does also have more vram though, if you need that for immich.
And stay clear from AMD cards. They’re the goat for linux gaming but their video encoders are notably inferior to the other two. Not what you want for Jellyfin.