Valve revealed the Steam Frame, along with the Steam Machine and Controller almost a year ago in November 2025. And while it’s taken quite a long time for all three devices to make it to market, the Frame is finally here to complete the set. Right off the jump, the Steam Frame comes off as just another VR headset, and an excellent one at that, but in the two weeks I’ve spent with this thing, it’s become one of the best ways to play pretty much any game on Steam.
While the Steam Frame’s built-in Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is strong enough to play a lot of indie games on a 2D virtual screen, where the Frame really shines is when it’s streaming content from a desktop system. Pairing it with a gaming PC strapped with an RTX 5090 and an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, streaming games like The Blood of Dawnwalker or Onimusha to a private theater screen with maxed out settings is probably one of the coolest gaming experiences I’ve had in years.
The problem for a lot of people, though, is going to be the price. When Valve revealed the Steam Frame last year, it said it wanted to keep the price under the $999 Valve Index. But due to a RAM crisis that just doesn’t seem to want to give up, the Frame ultimately came in at $1,059, $60 more than the Index when it came out in 2019.
Just like with seemingly every piece of hardware this year, the Steam Frame’s price is hard to ignore. The headset starts at $1,059, which will net you 256GB of internal storage, or you can get the 1TB model I reviewed here for $1,299. That price is probably going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of people that just want a good standalone VR headset, especially with the $599 Meta Quest 3 on the market.
Then, there’s the $399 PS VR2, which now technically works with PC, but with lower resolution optics than the Steam Frame (though it is OLED), and a face gasket which has never quite fit me well. Plus, in order to even connect it to your PC, you’re going to need to buy a $79 adapter, and even then you’re going to be hardwired to your PC the entire time you play.
But the Steam Frame is primarily meant to be a wireless PCVR headset with standalone capabilities, rather than the other way around. Valve has put a lot of work into making the wireless PCVR experience as smooth as possible, thanks to the 6GHz wireless dongle included in the box. That, combined with inside-out tracking via the four cameras on the front of the headset, plus internal eye tracking, puts the Steam Frame in competition with dedicated PC headsets like the Samsung Galaxy XR headset or the Play For Dream MR headset, which will set you back $1,799 and $1,999 respectively – albeit with much nicer optics.
I don’t think the Steam Frame is the Meta Quest 3 killer a lot of people were probably hoping it would be, but it is still one of the best headsets I’ve ever used. Whether or not that’s worth the extra cost is ultimately up to you, but after using it for a couple of weeks, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
I’ve used a lot of VR headsets over the years, and the Steam Frame is easily the most comfortable one I’ve worn. While there are a lot of headsets that feel like they’re pulling your face or weighing down the top of your head, I can wear the Steam Frame for hours without wanting to shove it in a box in the corner.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-frame-review
