Steam Frame Launches at $1,059, With the Power Supply Sold Separately

Valve put a price on the Steam Frame at 10:01 a.m. Pacific today. The 256GB kit is $1,059. The 1TB kit is $1,299. Reservation sign-ups opened in the same Steam Hardware announcement, which Valve titled "Steam Frame is here!"

That is $10 more than a Steam Machine. It is also $60 above the $999 Valve Index full kit, the product Valve once said the Frame would undercut.

What $1,059 buys

The base kit runs a 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with 16GB of LPDDR5X and 256GB of UFS storage, according to the Steam Frame product page. A microSD slot handles overflow. Each eye gets a 2160 by 2160 LCD behind pancake lenses. Refresh runs from 72 to 144Hz, and Valve labels 144Hz experimental. The battery is rated at 21.6 Wh.

Tracking is inside-out. Four monochrome cameras watch the headset and controllers, with infrared illuminators for dark rooms. The headset carries Wi-Fi 7 on two radios: one handles the PC stream, the other joins the home network. Bluetooth 5.4, two speaker drivers per ear, SteamOS 3.

In the box: the headset, both Steam Frame Controllers, a 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E wireless adapter for streaming from a PC, and a copy of Half-Life: Alyx. The game redeems from the headset's settings, and anyone who already owns Alyx cannot redeem a second copy. It also runs without a PC. Valve told UploadVR it built a native 64-bit ARM version for standalone play, a story Evan Marcus takes up here. VR.org has covered the adapter's driver work separately.

The 1TB kit costs $240 more. Valve's announcement separates the two by storage alone.

What is not in the box

A charger. The product page puts it plainly: "Note: Power Supply not included." Valve suggests a Steam Deck charger or any USB-C charger rated at 45W or more. Its own 45W unit, with a 2.5-meter cable, costs $29.

Two more first-party add-ons launched with it. The $59 Ergonomic Accessories Kit bundles two controller hand straps with battery doors, a top strap, and an extended light blocker. The $49 Accessory Replacement Kit is a spare face gasket, head cushion, and standard light blocker. None of the three is sold on its own right now. Valve offers them only at checkout, to buyers who have already received a purchase email.

Color passthrough is also missing. The Frame's cameras are monochrome. Valve's store lists the Arcturus Vision Camera as a "Steam Frame Compatible" accessory, a third-party module adding 5K HDR color passthrough and spatial video capture. Arcturus lists two 32MP Sony RGB sensors, a weight under 10 grams, and a connection through the headset's front expansion port. UploadVR puts the price at $149, with sales starting when the Frame ships. Prescription inserts come from Zenni under the same mark, which Valve says means a product has "been tested to work with Steam Frame."

Add the charger and the comfort kit to the base model and the total is $1,147 before tax.

Where it ships

Valve ships direct to the US, Canada, the UK, the EU, and Australia, with VAT included where it applies. The 256GB kit is C$1,529, €1,049, £889, A$1,609, and 4,539 PLN. The 1TB kit is C$1,859, €1,279, £1,089, A$1,969, and 5,549 PLN. Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong order through KOMODO, Valve's authorized distributor there. South Korea follows at a later date.

Against the estimates

The price lands in the middle of the expected range. VR.org's price tracker logged analyst estimates from $899 to $1,199. June retailer database listings pointed at about $950 and $1,070, and named a 512GB configuration. No 512GB kit exists. Dataminer Brad Lynch, who flagged the reservation backend in early September, had already put his expectation above $1,000 in late August, a signal the tracker logged.

Valve's own benchmark was lower. In November 2025, Valve told Road to VR it expected the Frame to be "cheaper than Index", and Road to VR read that against the roughly $1,000 full kit. By that reading the goal missed by $60. By May, the memory shortage had already put the target in doubt. The comparison is not perfectly even, either. The Index kit needed a gaming PC and two base stations on the wall. The Frame needs neither for its standalone library, which Valve puts at more than 100 Verified games, and which does not all run the same way.

The Steam Machine set the other marker. It launched June 30 at $1,049, about $250 over expectations, with Valve pointing at memory costs. VR.org called that number a ceiling for the Frame at the time. As ceilings go, it leaked about ten dollars.

Getting one

Buying a Frame runs through the same reservation lottery Valve used for the Steam Machine. Sign-ups close Thursday, September 17, at 10 a.m. Pacific. Valve randomizes the list at that point, and purchase emails start going out September 18. Nina Castillo's walkthrough covers eligibility and the waitlist.

The real entry price

For most buyers it is $1,088, the base kit plus Valve's charger. Steam Deck owners can skip that line, since their charger works. The $240 step to 1TB is a storage upgrade, and the microSD slot is the cheaper way to get more room. Anyone weighing the Frame against a Quest 3, $599.99 since Meta's April increase, is looking at a Quest 3 and about $460 of change. That money buys the Steam library, streamed or standalone, with no cable attached.