For those who came in late, Steam Machines are a family of Linux-based PC gaming consoles with SteamOS. They are based on a concept design from Valve which is the largest independent game distributor. After a lot of initial excitement the concept failed to gain much traction, but apparently Dell isn't giving up yet.

PC World  said that Dell is coming up with some better hardware and an expanding list of gaming titles to ramp up the technology.

At the E3 show, Dell is announcing Steam Machines with faster graphics processors and chips. The systems will start shipping this week.
Steam Machines will get a boost from Vulkan and make it easier to port DirectX 12 games to work on Steam Machines.

A new Alienware Steam Machine priced at $749 will have the Intel quad-core Core i5 chip based on the Skylake architecture, Nvidia's GTX 960 GPU, 8GB of DDR4 memory, a 500GB hard drive and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

For those who want a bit more, there will be an $899 Steam Machine will be loaded with a Skylake-based Intel Core i7 chip, an Nvidia GTX 960 GPU, 8GB DDR4 DRAM, a 1TB hard drive and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

However it does still compete with the Alienware Alpha with Windows, which offers better graphics performance, storage and connectivity. The systems can also run PC applications.

The new Alpha systems run on Intel Skylake processors, and could be configured with AMD's Radeon R9 M470X or Nvidia's GeForce GTX 960. Memory capacities range from 4GB to 16GB of DDR4 DRAM, while storage can be up to 2TB. Prices start at $599.

The new Alphas can also work with the latest GPUs through the Alienware Graphics Amplifier, a $199 external attachment that can bring additional graphics power to GPUs. The Amplifier will help gamers play games via Nvidia's upcoming Pascal GPUs soon.