After nearly a year of waiting, the Steam Frame is finally here. But if you were hoping, despite all the hardware price increases, that the Frame would still sneak under the Valve Index's price, I've got bad news.
The Steam Frame will start at $1,059, which will net you a 256GB headset, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 16GB of RAM. If you want more storage, you can get the 1TB model, which will cost $1,299. Either model of the Steam Frame comes with two controllers, an eye spacer for glasses, and a dedicated Wi-Fi 6GHz dongle for PCVR streaming.
Still, that price is likely going to be a dealbreaker for anyone that wanted a Meta Quest 3 killer, but the Frame does have some technology that Meta's headset just doesn't have. The Frame has eye tracking, a dedicated wireless PC dongle, and twice the RAM. The headset is also designed first and foremost for streaming PCVR games, and in my time with the headset, it excels at that. But if you want an affordable VR headset that primarily plays standalone VR games, Meta's headset is probably still the way to go.
Still, among dedicated PCVR headsets, the Steam Frame's price isn't really that outside of the norm. Headsets like the $1,799 Samsung Galaxy XR or the $899 Pimax Crystal Light have a lot of the same capabilities as the Frame, though the latter is wired-only.
Just like with the Steam Machine, it's clear that the Steam Frame is more expensive than Valve was originally planning. When I got a chance to sit down with Valve and talk about the headset, I was told the same thing as when we spoke about the Machine: that the Steam Frame had a similar sort of price increase as Valve's mini PC and handheld. That shouldn't be too surprising, though. With the ongoing RAMpocalypse, prices have only been going up over the last year or so, and even the PS5 and Xbox Series X have been affected.
The Steam Frame should start shipping out on September 18, and as people on the reservation list get their units, Valve will email folks from the waitlist and move them to the reservation list. If it's anything like the Steam Machine and Steam Controller, though, you can expect the reservation list to be stretched through the end of the year, and probably into the first few months of next year.
Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. She's been covering gaming hardware for more than a decade for IGN, TechRadar, Gizmodo, PC Gamer and more. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
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