The Valve Steam Machine is known for running cool and quietly, but one modder decided to kick things up a notch, creating a custom liquid cooled Steam Machine using a desktop CNC machine, impressive reverse engineering, and less than $200 in parts. The modder, who goes by u/techmagnet on Reddit, has published dev logs of his liquid cooled Steam Machine project, with the latest showing the build process and end result.\n\nThe mod required a custom-machined copper water block, a heavily modded Steam Machine chassis, and an Alphacool water pump. According to the modder, it reduced the Steam Machine's CPU and GPU temperatures by a claimed 20-30 °C.

The next steps are polishing the presentation and adding proper contact between the VRMs and the waterblock.\n\nThe liquid cooled Steam Machine stems from curiosity more than necessity; the creator admits there is no material benefit currently since there is no support for overclocking. However, once overclocking is possible, there may be notable performance improvements, as the similar RX 7600 showed promise in overclocking. Getting temps down 20-30 degrees leaves good room for OC, but for now no OC support.