Call of Duty is twitchy, The Witcher 3 is a current PC tentpole. These are examples that push the limits of what you’d do with Steam Link, though. I’d classify it as borderline playable on my system and network, even on High settings. Here, Steam claimed I was running 1080p, 60 frames per second, but the image compression was much more severe and I had near-constant microstuttering and frame loss. That’s with all the graphics settings maxed out, which is pretty damn nice. Wired in on both ends, using hardware encoding, a GTX 980 Ti, and an i5-3570K I could maintain 1920×1080, 60 frames per second in perpetuity with around 15-30ms of latency (borderline noticeable, especially on the few occasions it spiked higher, but far better than I got out of the Doko) and a bitrate of 12.5 to 15 Mbps. Let’s talk Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which I chose because I figured a twitchy, fast-paced shooter would be a good starting point. These are the numbers I’m pulling from, shown here in my games library. NOTE: All the numbers below came direct from Steam’s own overlay, which can be enabled in Settings > In-Home Streaming > Advanced Client Options. In short: Pretty damn well, with the occasional hiccup. Personally I’m more in line with the former situation, so I can tell you how Steam Link works given near-optimal conditions. Valve’s designed the ideal living room machine, inoffensive to a ‘T.’ It makes me wish Valve would work on more hardware there’s clearly talent at that company. There’s not much else to say about the Steam Link’s design, and that’s a good thing. It’s small, it’s inconspicuous, it’s a black box.
I’ve been using the side port, though that’s obviously not quite as sleek. At least one of those USB slots will be taken up by your controller, be it a Steam Controller or an Xbox controller or something else. The rear also features the power input, a 100Mbps ethernet port, and HDMI-out. There are three USB 2.0 ports on the Steam Link-one on the right side, two in the back. But it’s reassuringly solid, dense in a way you wouldn’t anticipate from its footprint. You won’t get buff curling your Steam Link hardware. It’s also heavier than expected, due to a heat sink in the bottom of the casing. I wanted to take a picture of the Steam Link on top of an Xbox One, but realized I might need a microscope. I’ve taken to setting it on top of the Alienware Steam Machine, where it looks sort of like a baby computer. At 3.5 by 5 by 0.75 inches (give or take) this thing is literally smaller than my cable modem, to say nothing of the Xbox One/PlayStation 4. I don’t think I quite realized how miniscule Steam Link was until I saw it in my own living room.
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